If I understand the example and the commentary from SEP correctly, doesn’t this example illustrate a problem with Lewis’ definition of causation? I agree that commonsense dictates that Alice throwing the rock caused the window to smash, but I think the problem is that you cannot construct a sequence of stepwise dependences from cause to effect:
Lewis’s theory cannot explain the judgement that Suzy’s throw caused the shattering of the bottle. For there is no causal dependence between Suzy’s throw and the shattering, since even if Suzy had not thrown her rock, the bottle would have shattered due to Billy’s throw. Nor is there a chain of stepwise dependences running cause to effect, because there is no event intermediate between Suzy’s throw and the shattering that links them up into a chain of dependences. Take, for instance, Suzy’s rock in mid-trajectory. This event depends on Suzy’s initial throw, but the problem is that the shattering of the bottle does not depend on it, because even without it the bottle would still have shattered because of Billy’s throw.
Is the example of the two hitmen given in the SEP article (where B does not fire if A does) an instance of causation without causal dependence?
If I understand the example and the commentary from SEP correctly, doesn’t this example illustrate a problem with Lewis’ definition of causation? I agree that commonsense dictates that Alice throwing the rock caused the window to smash, but I think the problem is that you cannot construct a sequence of stepwise dependences from cause to effect:
Is the example of the two hitmen given in the SEP article (where B does not fire if A does) an instance of causation without causal dependence?
tbh, Lewis’s account of counterfactual is a bit defective, compared with (e.g.) Pearl’s