PHI 1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Passive Smoking, Four Causes

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHI 1101
• Professor: Sardar Hosseini

Document Summary

What causes economic inflation, or the outbreak of wars: answers to questions like that, involve making causal claims. A causal claim is an assertion about the case of something. A causal argument justifies, or supports, such a claim. Assigning responsibility: if someone was the cause of something good or bad, then he or she bears the responsibility for it. Control: if we understand cause-effect connections and can control the causes, we can also control the effects (ex. you know cancer is caused by smoking, so you want to control second hand smoke, etc) David hume formulated the basic analysis of causal relationship. B , if the following conditions are met: if a is contiguous to b. Spatial: contiguous when objects are next to each other. Time: yesterday and today are contiguous: if a is prior to b, if a and b are constantly conjoined (constant conjunction)