• The most intractable and humanly important philosophical problem related to causation is the problem of human freedom.

• This issue has been debated primarily in connection with ethics, especially regarding the question of responsibility.

• It seems a necessary condition for responsibility that our actions be free.

• However, this freedom is difficult to reconcile with the strong belief that everything is caused.

IS CAUSATION UNIVERSAL? SCIENCE AND INDETERMINISM

• The proposition that everything is caused is not self-evident like fundamental principles of logic, and no universally accepted proof exists among philosophers.

• Until recently, it was widely accepted by scientists, but the scientific climate has changed dramatically.

• Scientists now often claim the movements of the electron are undetermined, implying that all physical motion may be ultimately undetermined.

• This claim is too dogmatic; science cannot prove anything is undetermined because:

  • (i) Science proves by observation, which cannot detect absence of causal determination.

  • (ii) Science proves by best causal explanation, and postulating undetermined causes cannot provide such explanation.

• Scientists may argue the causes of electron paths are unknown but cannot claim electrons are uncaused.

• Famous physicists like Einstein and Planck remain determinists, though from a philosophical, not scientific, perspective.

• Science cannot prove either determinism or indeterminism and cannot predict every event in detail; the range of reliable predictions is limited.

• Psychoanalysts claiming early childhood fully determines character are overstating; detailed prediction of all traits is impossible.

• Materialist historical theories suggesting people cannot go against their material interests contradict experience (e.g., rich people giving up wealth for greater good).

• Recent science shows causal schemes for large objects don’t apply neatly to electrons, and no replacement causal laws are known.

• Assumptions that laws for planets or mechanistic laws for organisms apply universally are unjustified dogma.

• The fact that electron motion is not caused as once thought doesn’t prove it is uncaused.

• The plausibility of determinism has been weakened by recent discoveries; earlier scientific optimism about deterministic prediction is lost.

• Scientists no longer know how determinism could be worked out, especially for physical and mental world connections.

• Ignorance of causal laws doesn’t prove such laws cannot exist; it just means we do not know what they are.

• Our scientific knowledge covers only primary qualities of matter (external relations), but logically, matter must have non-relational qualities as well.

• These non-primary qualities may have causal efficacy undetectable to us, possibly explaining electron behavior.

• It is logically impossible that matter consists solely of primary qualities because relations imply related qualities that must exist independently.

• Scientists have formulated the principle of indeterminacy regarding electrons, stating that position and momentum (mass × velocity) cannot both be exactly determined simultaneously.

• Greater precision in measuring one results in greater imprecision in the other.

• This indeterminacy should not be confused with indeterminism:

  • Indeterminacy means lack of exact specification (indeterminate),

  • Indeterminism means lack of causal determination.

• Some argue if electron positions are truly indeterminate, they must be causally undetermined since exact causes cannot fix an exact position that does not exist.

• However, saying electrons have no exact position challenges common sense because anything in space must either occupy a region or not—no third option if terms are well-defined.

• The principle of indeterminacy can be interpreted in two coherent ways that do not rule out causal determinism:

  1. Practical epistemic limitation: There are causal laws preventing us, now or ever, from accurately determining both position and momentum due to the nature of light and measurement interference (observing electrons with light necessarily shifts them).

     • This is analogous to measuring temperature with a thermometer always held in a warm hand.

     • No advancement in microscope technology can overcome this fundamental limitation.

     • It does not prove electrons lack exact position or momentum, just that we may never measure them precisely.

     • It remains possible that unknown methods might overcome these limits.

  2. Ontological interpretation: Electrons may be entities that cannot have exact position or momentum inherently.

     • Older models pictured atoms and electrons as tiny hard spheres with gaps, but modern physics admits this is an inadequate image.

     • Electrons are not like ordinary physical objects (stones, chairs) but are better understood mathematically.

     • Their position might be “where their influence is,” which extends throughout the universe, making precise spatial limits impossible.

     • This challenges the concept of electrons as real physical things and suggests the term might simply describe causal laws.

• It remains true that we cannot presently understand how determinism could be applied to the inorganic world, especially regarding electrons.

• This difficulty is even greater in the realm of minds:

  • Physical causal explanations rely on the fact that physical things can be broken down into basic elements that behave consistently alone and in compounds.

  • Psychology lacks such separable elements; for example, you cannot isolate a man’s anger from the rest of him to study it independently.

  • There seems to be no way to precisely measure mental states, excluding any intelligible method to predict them exactly.

• If determinism were true, it should be possible in principle to predict not only that a man will be angry but also exactly how angry.

• Precise prediction requires numerical measurement and mathematical application, foundational to physical science’s success.

• However, there is no evident way to numerically measure psychological states themselves, though physiological correlates might be measurable.

• Despite not knowing how determinism works, we have a strong inclination to regard it as self-evidently true.

• Example: If an object moves in a room alone and one claims “perhaps it had no cause,” most would find this answer insane if taken seriously.

• This tendency to believe in determinism coexists with the tendency to believe in human free-will, which seems incompatible with universal causality.

• It is common for people to believe two incompatible propositions simultaneously.

• Most philosophers have accepted the proposition that every event is completely determined as self-evident, though they struggled with its compatibility with free-will.

• Hume famously raised doubts about determinism but admitted he could not stop believing every event had a cause.

• Historically, doubts about universality of causation in the inorganic world were rare among philosophers until recent times.

• Our tendency to regard universal causation as self-evident is significant, although it lacks the certainty of logical principles and lacks universally accepted proof.

• It remains very difficult to believe that things could happen without causes.

• Universal causation might be defended as a necessary presupposition of science:

  • Science identifies causes by observing sequences of events and uses elimination to narrow down causes.

  • The process assumes there is some cause of an event because eliminating other causes presupposes a cause must exist.

  • Rejecting causation leaves open the alternative that no cause exists, which scientists reject in ordinary physical phenomena.

• If determinism is a necessary scientific presupposition, this is a strong argument for it.

• However, it can be countered that science only needs to assume the practical postulate that we ought to look for causes, not that every event actually has one.

• This postulate is justified in practice if most events are mainly caused, even if some are not fully determined.