Causality
Adapted from The Consequences of Ideas by RC Sproul and what is History by Edward Carr
A causes B. This is often called the law of causality but how do we
know that A causes B? One way to examine and gain meaning
from history is to look for a cause and effect relationship
between events. There are typically three criteria before one
can say a causal relationship exists. First, A and B always occur
close together. Second, the cause always precedes the effect.
Third, we always see A followed by B. Together these elements
create a commonsense assumption that there is some sort of
necessary connection between A and B.
1. Write an example using the three criteria of causal
relationships.
But how does one know that the cause we attribute to the effect
is the correct one? When the rooster crows just before the sun
rises has the rooster caused the sun to rise? It meets all three
criteria of a cause and effect relationship. Therefore, according
to the criteria of cause and effect, if all roosters became extinct
the sun would no longer rise. Hume argued (18th century
philosopher) that anything could be considered both a cause and
effect, depending on one’s point of view. "Since the idea of
causality arises through the process of relation, we have no
original sensation or impression of causality itself. Since we
cannot perceive the cause of anything, we can never know for
certain what is causing it" (Sproal 112). What ?!!!! In basic
English, causation is an abstract event that can not be directly
observed or experienced so we can never know for certain that A
causes B. Anything is possible in life and to say A causes B implies
determinism and the inability to choose. Just like some historians
are afraid to say there are any facts in history, there are also
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historians who are reluctant to say there are any causes in
history. They will attempt to explain how history happened
(functional approach) rather than why it happened.
1. Using your example from the first question, explain how
Hume would argue against your cause and effect
relationship.
2. Define determinism and write an example explaining your
understanding of the concept.
So wait a minute. Now I can't use cause and effect relationships
in history? Not so fast. Lets imagine the following. Every day you
see me and we say good morning. We greet each other in a
friendly but pointless way. We talk about the weather and say
how are you. Yet one morning as we start our little routine, I,
instead of answering in my usual way, start screaming at you and
insulting your personal character. Would you simply smile, shrug
your shoulders and say “well anything is possible in life”. Not
likely, you would attempt to discover some possible causes for
this change in behavior. The study of history is the study of
causes because historians are always asking the question why.
Why did this occur is a question of causes.
The historian deals with a multiplicity of causes. He/she cannot
simply look at one cause and say this is why it happened. They
must make sense of a jumble of economic, political, ideological,
personal, and long and short-term causes. The more a historian
researches and discovers, the more answers he/she gets to the
causes. A historian must then take all of these causes and try to
reduce it to some sort of order or hierarchy of causes.
1. Make a list of 10 reasons why I might start screaming at you
(Be creative but polite)
2. Take your list and rank the reasons in order of what you
think is the most plausible (likely)
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The next thing a historian does is to try and determine which of
the causes has the best evidence. It is not that the other causes
do not have any validity it is just that this is "the cause of all
causes"
1. Choose one cause off your list as the most plausible
The historian must work toward the simplification of his answer
while at the same time understanding and accepting the
multiplicity of causes. To avoid simplification is to avoid drawing
any conclusions or understanding of why an event occurred. At
the same time historians should avoid the use of words like
"unavoidable" or "inevitable" but rather focus the argument on
the combination of factors that would lead one to the
overwhelmingly strong expectation that the event was to occur.
Historians in the end become known for the causes that they
believe are the most prevalent. This is called a historical
interpretation. Historical interpretations involve a debate over
conclusions about history. What were the causes of a particular
event is something that historians like to argue about.
1. The item that you choose off your list is your historical
interpretation. Defend your choice of interpretation to the rest
of the class.
Many logical fallacies are related to the cause and effect
relationship. The first fallacy is that there is no clear
relationship between the supposed cause and the effect.
“There was an accident. Two women were
driving. Woman drivers cause accidents”
The second type was only one cause. This fallacy occurs when a
previous event (cause) does have a link to the event but it was
only one event of many. In other words the answer is too
simplistic
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“I was sick the day before the semester
exam. The reason I failed the semester was
because I was sick”
Most textbooks often commit these fallacies in an attempt to be
concise (give a shorter answer).
Another fallacy with cause and effect relationship is the
assumption that the event had to occur because of a previous
event.
“John hit Peter because Peter insulted John’s mother. Clearly if
Peter had not insulted her, John would not have hit Peter”.
This is called determinism. Determinism is the belief that
everything that happens has a cause or causes, and the event
could not have happened differently unless something in the
cause or causes had also been different. In any historical event
or choice there were other options available and just because an
event appears to have influenced a decision, we should not assume
that the event must have occurred. The job of the historian is to
try and determine why one course of action was chosen rather
than the others.
At the same time, another fallacy involves the what if or might
have been of history. What if Hitler had been born a woman,
would World War 2 still occurred? What if the Chinese had
settled in North Americans rather than Europeans? While the
what if's of history are interesting they are not the study of
history but rather historical imagination. Historians study what
did happen not what might have happened.
1. Find one example of a what if historical writing and
bring it to class
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The final cause and effect fallacy is the accidents of history.
There are an abundance stories about how a famous general was
watching a battle when a stray arrow or a bullet "accidentally" hit
the general. The army was then thrown into disarray, the battle
was lost, and the country was defeated. If only that accidentally
incident had not occurred the entire history of humankind would
have changed. For example, King Alexander of Greece died from a
bite from his pet monkey, the power struggle and corresponding
war with Turkey that occurred after his death resulted in
250,000 people dying. Sir Winston Church at the time commented
"a quarter of a million people died because of this monkey's bite.”
While historians cannot pretend these unusual events have no
effect on history they should not be high on our list of significant
causes. French philosopher Montesquieu wrote, " If a particular
cause, like the accidental result of a battle has ruined a state,
there was a general cause which made the downfall of this state
ensue from a single battle" (Carr 132).
An example of how historical accidents would work - Jawaher,
returning home from a party and she had not slept in three days,
driving a car whose brakes turned out to be defective, at a blind
corner where visibility is very poor, knocks down and kills
Matthew who was crossing the road to buy a Dr Pepper from the
local store. After the mess has been cleaned up the police are
trying to determine the cause of the accident. Was it Jawaher's
lack of attention due to her sleepy state? Was it the defective
brakes? What about the blind corner? Suddenly, you burst into
the police station and say " Stop, I have discovered the cause of
the accident! If Matthew did not have a desire for Dr Pepper he
would not have been out that evening crossing the road and would
not have been killed. Therefore the cause of the accident was
Matthew's desire for Dr. Pepper"
1. Write your response challenging the idea of the Dr Pepper
theory
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