Causal Modeling in Multilevel Settings: A New Proposal

An important question for the causal modeling approach is how to integrate non-causal dependence relations such as asymmetric supervenience into the approach. The most prominent proposal to that effect (due to Gebharter) is to treat those dependence relationships as formally analogous to causal relationships. We argue that this proposal neglects some crucial differences between causal and non-causal dependencies, and that in the context of causal modeling non-causal dependence relationships should be represented as mutual dependence relationships. We develop a new kind of model – ‘hybrid models’ - based on this suggestion, and formulate a set of axioms for those models. Our formalism has important implications for Kim’s exclusion problem: whereas Gebharter’s framework vindicates Kim’s causal exclusion objection against nonreductive physicalism, our framework has no such implication, and can help non-reductive physicalists vindicate the efficacy of high-level properties. A further benefit of our formalism is that it yields a natural and plausible way of thinking about interventions in multi-level contexts.

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 109(2), 433-457