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Mental causation
Michael Lacewing
[email protected]
© Michael Lacewing
Mental causation
• Causation requires things to
‘happen’.
• ‘Things happening’ are
events. A cause and its
effect are both events,
changes at a time (or over
time) in the properties of
objects.
• Like picking up the remote
control
Substance dualism
• If the mind is just thought, not in space, and
matter is just extension, in space, how could
one possibly causally affect the other?
• Perhaps causation is not ‘contact’, but
‘regular succession’, e.g. kick me and I will
feel pain, and when I feel pain, I cry out.
• Hume thought that we needed to find a
causal law, but it is very difficult to find
laws involving mental states and events.
Causal laws
• If causation requires laws, and we can’t
find any for mental events, this is a
problem for any theory of mind, not
just dualism.
• Materialists might say that mental
events are just events in the brain; and
there are physical laws involving those.
Picturing the problem
Mental event, e.g. pain
=
Physical event, e.g. in brain

But physical property
explains effect
 ‘Ow!’
Causal ‘closure’
• All physical effects have a sufficient physical
cause. Nothing physical happens needs a
non-physical explanation.
– So do mental states have no effects?
– Or do their effects always have more than one
cause?
• In materialism, mental causes depend on
physical causes, e.g. neurons firing, for their
effects; but if those physical causes are
enough on their own, why bring in mental
causes as well?
Functionalism
• On any particular occasion, a mental state is
realized by a physical state.
– Problem: The physical properties of the state are
sufficient for its effects (causal closure).
• Using counterfactuals to prove relevance:
– If the headache hadn’t hurt, I wouldn’t have
reached for the aspirin. Actions, i.e. intended
movements, can only be explained by mental
properties.
– If these particular neurons hadn’t fired, I would
still have reached for the aspirin . It was, but it
didn’t have to be these neurons, for me to reach
for aspirin; but it did have to hurt.
Logical Behaviourism
• ‘The mind’, a ‘mental state’, is not a
‘something’ that causally interacts with
the body. It is a way of talking about
complex patterns of behaviour.
• Psychological explanation is not causal
explanation, but explanation in terms
of reasons.
– Causal explanation uses laws,
psychological explanation doesn’t.
Reasons are causes
• Davidson: I can have
two reasons to do
something, but only
act on one of them.
To act on a reason is
for the reason to be
the cause of the
action.
Jane hasn’t invited me to
her party. I could go
anyway, just to show her.
But Steve, my ex, will be
there. I won’t go.
Token identity and
counterfactuals
• If the headache hadn’t hurt, I wouldn’t have
reached for the aspirin. If the pain was irrelevant,
then if the neurones had fired, but the headache
hadn’t hurt, I would still have reached for the
aspirin. This sounds wrong.
• how could they have fired without the headache
hurting? But if the physical properties necessitate
the mental ones, why not just say that the neurones
firing are responsible for both the headache hurting
and my reaching for the aspirin?
Counterfactuals
• The neurones firing is sufficient for me to reach for
the aspirin only given the presence of a headache.
• If these particular neurons hadn’t fired, I would still
have reached for the aspirin, if I had a headache for me to have a headache, some other neurones
would have fired
• It was, but it didn’t have to be these neurons, for
me to reach for aspirin; but it did have to hurt.