Underdermination by the territory, the baisc physics, is one thing. But the flipside is we often want to identify causes in order to solve human level problems, and that can help us to focus on “the” (in context) cause.
Everything has multiple causes. All fires are caused, among other things, by oxygen, but we rarely consider oxygen to be “the” cause of a fire. When we pick out something as “the” cause, we are usually looking for something that varies and something that we can control. All fires require oxygen, but oxygen is not a, variable enough factor compared to dropped matches and inflammable materials.
Context matters as well. A coroner could find that the cause of Mr Smiths death was ingestion of Arsenic, while the judge finds that it was Mrs Smith. It would be inappropriate to put the arsenic on trial and punish it, because it is not a moral agent.. but it is a causal factor nonetheless.
Although there is definitely a lot to causality that is relevant to human interests and therefore on the map, it should not be concluded that there is not also a form of causality in the territory. That would be a version of the fallacy that says that since probability and counterfactuals are can be found in low-resolutions maps, they are therefore not in the territory.
Underdermination by the territory, the baisc physics, is one thing. But the flipside is we often want to identify causes in order to solve human level problems, and that can help us to focus on “the” (in context) cause.
Everything has multiple causes. All fires are caused, among other things, by oxygen, but we rarely consider oxygen to be “the” cause of a fire. When we pick out something as “the” cause, we are usually looking for something that varies and something that we can control. All fires require oxygen, but oxygen is not a, variable enough factor compared to dropped matches and inflammable materials.
Context matters as well. A coroner could find that the cause of Mr Smiths death was ingestion of Arsenic, while the judge finds that it was Mrs Smith. It would be inappropriate to put the arsenic on trial and punish it, because it is not a moral agent.. but it is a causal factor nonetheless.
Although there is definitely a lot to causality that is relevant to human interests and therefore on the map, it should not be concluded that there is not also a form of causality in the territory. That would be a version of the fallacy that says that since probability and counterfactuals are can be found in low-resolutions maps, they are therefore not in the territory.