Social Dimensions of Moral Responsibility. Edited By Hutchison Katrina, Mackenzie Catriona, Oshana Marina.

A dispositional property is a tendency, or potency, to manifest some characteristic behaviour in some appropriate context. The mainstream view in the twentieth century was that such properties are to be explained in terms of more fundamental non-dispositional properties, together with the laws of nature. In the last few decades, however, a rival view has become popular, according to which some properties are essentially dispositional in nature, and the laws of nature are to be explained in terms of these fundamental (...) dispositions. The supposed ability of fundamental dispositions to ground natural laws is one of the most attractive features of the dispositional essentialist position. In this paper, however, I cast doubt on the ability of dispositional essences to ground the laws of nature. In particular I argue that the dispositional essentialist position is not able to coherently respond—sympathetically or otherwise—to Cartwright's challenge that there are no true general laws of nature. (shrink)

This paper examines the idea that there might be natural kinds of causal processes, with characteristic diachronic structure, in much the same way that various chemical elements form natural kinds, with characteristic synchronic structure. This claim -- if compatible with empirical science -- has the potential to shed light on a metaphysics of essentially dispositional properties, championed by writers such as Bird and Ellis.

Regularity theories of causation are guided by the idea that causes are collectively sufficient for their effects. Following Mackie [1974], that idea is typically refined to distinguish collections that include redundant members from those that do not. Causes must be collectively sufficient for their effects without redundancy. While Mackie was surely right that the regularity theory must distinguish collections that are in some sense minimally sufficient for an effect from those that include unnecessary hangers-on, I believe that redundancy is the (...) wrong mark of that distinction. I propose a way to develop the regularity theory without it. Instead of distinguishing minimal from mere sufficiency in terms of redundancy, we should look to the influence that events have in the world. Causes, so construed, must have just enough collective influence to ensure that an effect occurs. I argue that such an account provides a uniform solution to the problem of epiphenomena and to a pair of related problems that aris.. (shrink)

For over 20 years, Jaegwon Kim’s Causal Exclusion Argument has stood as the major hurdle for non-reductive physicalism. If successful, Kim’s argument would show that the high-level properties posited by non-reductive physicalists must either be identical with lower-level physical properties, or else must be causally inert. The most prominent objection to the Causal Exclusion Argument—the so-called Overdetermination Objection—points out that there are some notions of causation that are left untouched by the argument. If causation is simply counterfactual dependence, for example, (...) then the Causal Exclusion Argument fails. Thus, much of the existing debate turns on the issue of which account of causation is appropriate. In this paper, however, I take a bolder approach and argue that Kim’s preferred version of the Causal Exclusion Argument fails no matter what account one gives of causation. Any notion of causation that is strong enough to support the premises of the argument is too strong to play the role required in the logic of the argument. I also consider a second version of the Causal Exclusion Argument, and suggest that although it may avoid the problems of the first version, it begs the question against a particular form of non-reductive physicalism, namely emergentism. (shrink)

The question of whether there could be a physical object that is necessarily constantly active has a long history, and it has recently arisen again in the literature on dispositions. I examine and critique two proposals for affirming the possibility of such an object. I then advocate a third option, one which is workable if paired with natural-kind essentialism. Finally I briefly outline three possible implications of this view for wider debates concerning the ontology of dispositions and natural kinds.

A number of metaphysicians of powers have argued that we need to distinguish the actualization of a power from the effects of that actualization. This distinction, I argue, has important consequences for the dispositional theory of belief. In particular, it suggests that dispositionalists have in effect been trying to define belief, not in terms of its actualization, but instead in terms of the effects of its actualization. As a general rule, however, powers are to be defined in terms of their (...) actualizations. I thus argue that belief has just one actualization, and that that actualization is a particular kind of mental act that I call a judgment. I explain the resulting view—that belief is the power to judge—and argue that it has some important advantages, not only over other dispositional theories of belief, but also over categorical theories of belief. Since these options are apparently exhaustive, it thus has important advantages over all other theories of belief. (shrink)

Dispositional Pluralism. By McKitrick Jennifer.

I develop a new schema for analysis of dispositions in terms of structural equations. This schema provides the means to respond to a host of problems that have been posed for other proposals, including the problem of masks, alters, mimickers, tricks, conjunctive multi-track dispositions and dispositional degrees. In the development of this new schema, I will employ structural modelling techniques to highlight features of the problem cases, thereby revealing the utility of these techniques to ongoing discussion.