Monday, August 03, 2020

Does universal causation entail determinism?

In order to universal causation to entail determinism, "cause" has to mean a set of circumstances and causes which, taken together make it so that no other event could have occurred. However, the word "cause" is ambiguous, and does not always mean that, given the cause the effect is inevitable. For example, we can say that smoking causes cancer without implying that there is some law guaranteeing that every instance of smoking will result in cancer. Some chain smokers, as we all know, live to 100 cancer-free.

No comments: