Causal argument

Causal argument

8/4/ · Causal arguments focus on discussing the cause of a specific event or situation, such as a doctor explaining why smoking is the likely cause of a patient's lung cancer. A causal argument can also be referred to as a cause and effect argument. If two people are having a discussion about how a war began, they are engaging in a causal argument CAUSAL FINITISM AND THE KALAAM ARGUMENT ALEXANDER R. PRUSS 1. Introduction A version of the Kalaam argument1 for the existence of God can be put as follows: (1) There is a cause. (2) There is no circle of causes. (3) There is no in nite regress of causes. (4) If (1){(3), there is an uncaused cause. (5) So, there is an uncaused cause Causal Argument/Liikanen 4 problem as this demands, and thereby arrive at a logical, rational judgment, one way or the other. * * * The problem of causation in this ultimate sense was put in the form the question by the polymath/philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: “Why is

Causal Arguments

Having examined analogical arguments and generalizations, we now turn to the final type of argument we will study this semester, causal arguments.

Causal arguments, like analogical arguments and generalizations, causal argument always be causal argument, that is, the truth of the premises do not guarantee the truth of the conclusion. Rather, causal arguments have varying degrees of strength, that is, the truth of their premises provides a conclusion that is true with some degree of probability or likelihood. Please note causal argument spelling of "causal. A causal claim is one that asserts that there is a relationship between two events such that one is the effect of the other, causal argument.

A causal claim takes the form of "x causes y," with x referring to the cause and y referring causal argument the effect. A causal argument provides the premises to support a conclusion about a cause and effect relationship.

Please note that causal claims take a variety of forms, causal argument, many of which do not use the term "cause. Is she physically sick? Is she troubled emotionally? Is there some combination of the two? We might hypothesize that she is having financial problems, her child is sick. In other words, these things are possible causes of her causal argument. If you go to a party instead of studying for an exam, you might say that going to the party caused you to perform badly on the exam.

An airplane crashes and teams of experts study all the wreckage and other evidence to determine the cause of the crash.

Note that we do not causal argument use the term "cause" even when we mean it. If we causal argument the ice on the road led to the accident, "led to" has the same meaning as "cause" in this claim. If your doctor says that the vaccine will prevent you from getting the flu, causal argument means that the vaccine will cause you NOT to get the flu, causal argument.

If the highway patrolman says that wearing a seat belt reduces your risk of dying causal argument an automobile accident, he means that the seat belt will cause you not to be killed, causal argument. If your instructor admonishes you to attend class regularly because it will help you get better grades, he is saying that going to class regularly causes good performance. If a friend says that too much caffeine keeps him awake, he means that caffeine causes him to stay awake.

Please think of a causal claim that either you have made recently or that someone has made to you. Do not repeat one I have just given.

Again, essential to a causal claim is a relationship between two events such that one is the effect of the other. It should be evident even from the few examples causal argument that when we say "x causes y," we may mean the term in one of several ways. Recall causal argument discussion of necessary and sufficient conditions. When we say "x causes y," we may mean that x is a necessary condition for y. Causal argument example, the presence of oxygen made it possible for human life to develop on earth, so that without oxygen, causal argument, human life would not have developed.

At other times, and probably most frequently, when we say x causes y, we mean that x contributed to y, though it may not be a necessary or sufficient condition. If all of my relatives are New York Yankees fans, they may be a contributing factor to me being a Yankees fan as well, though certainly we do not mean that these relatives being fans ais either a necessary or sufficient condition for me being a Yankees fan.

The concept of contributing factor helps us to see that for any given event or occurrence there is normally a variety of conditions and causes. A man is killed in an automobile accident when his causal argument fail when he is driving in the mountains.

The official report may say the cause of the accident was the causal argument of the brakes. Yet, a friend might point out that the brake failure was caused by the negligence of a mechanic who was supposed to have repaired the brakes.

Someone else might say that the man would not have been driving in the mountains if his girlfriend had not gone to visit relatives there, so the girlfriend feels guilty because her going to see her relatives caused her boyfriend to be killed. Some writers refer to the series of events that collectively cause an event as a "causal chain," that is that x causes y, y causes z and so forth.

In the example above, the shoddy repair job caused the brakes to be weak, and the excessive causal argument put on the brakes by driving in the mountain caused them to fail, and the failure of the brakes caused the car to plunge off of the mountain, which caused the driver to be killed.

In this example, causes and effects are envisioned as links in a chain. Other writers think that the image of a "causal web" is more appropriate, that causal argument are bound to one another in several different ways, and depending on our interests we look at different aspects of the causal web.

For example, the policeman reporting on the accident described above would probably most concerned to show that the failure of the brakes caused the argument. The lawyer for the family of the deceased man would be more interested in proving in a lawsuit that the negligent mechanic caused the accident.

The girlfriend whom the man was coming to see when he causal argument killed is probably very emotionally distraught because she may feel that she caused her boyfriend to be killed, causal argument. Again, depending on your interest, you will look at different aspects of the causal web. It is helpful to make a distinction between two very general uses of the term cause.

Sometimes when we say x causes y, x and y refer to specific events. A temperature below 32 causal argument Fahrenheit causes the water to freeze, just as the ice on the wings could cause the plane to crash, causal argument. At other times when we say x causes y, we mean that the increase of x in a population leads to an increase in y in that population. This does not mean that every x leads to a y, but that as one increases so will the other.

The claim "smoking causes cancer" is such a claim. Every person who smokes does not get cancer, but in a population, as the incidence of smoking increases so does the incidence of cancer. There are two standard patterns for arguments about causes among specific events: I am relying on Moore and Parker’s Critical Thinking here; they are relying on John Stuart Mill.

Causal argument the first pattern, when we say x causes y, we mean that "x is the difference. For example, if I have eaten at Sloppy Joe’s Hamburger House ten times and never become sick, but then on the eleventh time that I eat, I do become sick, I would try to figure out what was different about the eleventh time.

Did I eat or dring something different? Was there a causal argument cook? Was a different spice used in the food? After considering the possibilities, I determine that the only relevant difference between the eleventh visit and the previous ten was that I had cheese on my hamburger.

The cheese made me sick, causal argument. The conclusion would be, causal argument, the cheese made me sick. The premises would state what had happened the previous ten times, what happened on the eleventh time, and cite the only relevant difference between the different occurrences. X is the cause because X is the difference.

In everyday life, causal argument, we would probably not feel the need to test my conclusion, that is, I would probably not go back to causal argument cheese on my hamburger just to see if it would make me sick, causal argument. Yet, if I was conducting a scientific experiment, I would want to run a variety of tests to causal argument if the results could be duplicated. The other standard pattern for causal arguments about specific events is X is the common thread.

We claim that x causes y because x is the only relevant common factor in several occurences of y. If instead of going to "Sloppy Joe’s" alone, I went with a group of friends, and the next morning three out of the six causal argument report they became sick, we would try to identify what was common to the meals of the three sick individuals.

If we discover that all three ate cheese on their hamburger, then we would conclude that the cheese was the cause of the sickness. In evaluating causal arguments, causal argument, we must determine whether we can identify any other plausible difference or common thread to the events.

There are many ways to make errors in causal reasoning. Some of the most typical are outlined here. Post hoc ergo propter hoc - This Latin phrase literally means, "after this, therefore because of this. We are guilty of this error of reasoning when we claim that x causes y simply because x precedes y in time. Certainly a cause does preceded the effect, but that does not mean that coincidence alone establishes a causal relationship. If I notice, for example, that every day the church bells across the street chime eight times, causal argument, the bus arrives and conclude that the church bell ringing causes the bus to arrive, I am guilty of post hoc ergo propter hoc or simply post hoc reasoning.

Ignoring a common cause - Sometimes we mistakenly identify one event as the cause of another without causal argument that they both may be the effect of a common cause. If I stay up watching television until one o’clock instead of studying for an exam, and then I do poorly on the exam, I might say that my fatigue caused me to do badly on the exam. In fact there, is a common cause, watching television that caused me to stay up late and to do poorly on the exam.

In my example above about post hoc reasoning, I failed to recognize a common cause for both the church bells ringing and bus arriving, namely that it is Another famous example of ignoring a common cause occurred when in a town many years ago, someone noted that as the number of Baptist preachers in the causal argument increased, causal argument, so too did the number of arrests for public drunkeness.

If one concluded from this correlation that Baptist preachers cause an increase in public drunkenness. The more accurate explanation is probably that both the increase in Baptist preachers and the increase in arrests of public drunkeness had the common cause of the increased population in the town.

Assuming a common cause - We can also make errors in causal reasoning when we look too hard for causal argument common cause. Imagine that on my way to work I receive a speeding ticket, and later in the day, I fall and sprain my ankle. When I get home I am informed that I had a check to bounce. Then I remember that I saw a black cat the day before and conclude that it must be true that they bring bad luck, causal argument.

Reversed causation - Another typical error in reasoning about cause and effects is to mistake the cause for the effect and the effect for the cause. For example, if I argue that spending more money on education will improve the economy because after all the countires that spend the most on education have the strongest economies, I may have reversed the cause and effect. It may be that nations with the strongest economies are able to spend more money on education.

The ongoing argument about the relationship between causal argument on television and in movies and violence in society is a good example of possible reversed causation. Some say that the increased violence in the media causes more people to commit violent deeds, while others argue that the increased violence in movies and television is caused by the fact that we are becoming a more violent society.

Click here to complete required exercises on causal arguments. Sometimes "X causes Y" refers to a causal relationship between two specific events, causal argument. At other times, causal argument, "X causes Y" refers to causation in a population. By this we mean that as the incidence of X in a population increases so too will the incidence of Y, causal argument. To put this differently if every member causal argument a population is exposed to X, then there will be more cases of Y than if no member of the population is exposed to y.

X contributes to Y; or X increases the risk of Y. When referring to a population, "X causes Y" does NOT mean that for every X we will find a Y. We must also be careful to recognize that correlation is not causation. Just because two events are correlated that as one increases or decreases so does the other does not guarantee that one causes the other.

Understanding Causal Reasoning

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Causal Arguments | ENGL Electronic Version

8/4/ · Causal arguments focus on discussing the cause of a specific event or situation, such as a doctor explaining why smoking is the likely cause of a patient's lung cancer. A causal argument can also be referred to as a cause and effect argument. If two people are having a discussion about how a war began, they are engaging in a causal argument CAUSAL FINITISM AND THE KALAAM ARGUMENT ALEXANDER R. PRUSS 1. Introduction A version of the Kalaam argument1 for the existence of God can be put as follows: (1) There is a cause. (2) There is no circle of causes. (3) There is no in nite regress of causes. (4) If (1){(3), there is an uncaused cause. (5) So, there is an uncaused cause A causal argument is a type of argument in which an effect is mentioned to have resulted from a cause. A pragmatic argument, for instance, is a subtype of causal argumentation in which a course of action is prescribed based on the effects/conseque