Graded Causation and Defaults

Abstract

This paper extends the account of actual causation offered by Halpern and Pearl [2005]. We show that this account yields the wrong judgment in certain classes of cases. We offer a revised definition that incorporates consideration of defaults, typicality, and normality. The revised definition takes actual causation to be both graded and comparative. We then apply our definition to a number of cases.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 01, 2012
Accession Number
ADA582589

Entities

People

  • Christopher Hitchcock
  • Joseph Halpern

Organizations

  • Cornell University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Advanced Electronics
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Ground and Sea Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Causal Reasoning
  • Cognitive Science
  • Computer Science
  • Forest Fires
  • Formal Languages
  • Judgment
  • Language
  • Normality
  • Psychological Phenomena And Processes
  • Psychology
  • Random Variables
  • Reasoning
  • Short Circuits
  • Social Psychology
  • Statistics
  • Thinking

Readers

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Regression Analysis.