Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T07:16:41.032Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Morgenbesser’s Coin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2021

Yael Loewenstein Open the ORCID record for Yael Loewenstein [Opens in a new window]
Yael Loewenstein*
Affiliation:
University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Before a fair, indeterministic coin is tossed, Lucky, who is causally isolated from the coin-tossing mechanism, declines to bet on heads. The coin lands heads. The consensus is that the following counterfactual is true:

(M:) If Lucky had bet heads, he would have won the bet.

It is also widely believed that to rule (M) true, any plausible semantics for counterfactuals must invoke causal independence. But if that’s so, the hope of giving a reductive analysis of causation in terms of counterfactuals is undermined. Here I argue that there is compelling reason to question the assumption that (M) is true.

Keywords

Morgenbesser’s Coincounterfactualssemantics of counterfactualscausal independenceDavid Lewiscounterfactual analysis of causation
Type
Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 51 , Issue 5 , July 2021 , pp. 317 - 328
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahmed, Arif. 2011. “Out of the Closet.” Analysis 71 (1): 77–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, Jonathan. 2003. A Philosophical Guide to Conditionals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, Karen. 2003. “Why the Exclusion Problem Seems Intractable, and How, Just Maybe, to Tract It.” Noûs 37 (3): 471–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edgington, Dorothy. 2004. “Counterfactuals and the Benefit of Hindsight.” In Cause and Chance: Causation in an Indeterministic World, edited by Dowe, Phil and Noordhof, Paul, 12–27. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hiddleston, Eric. 2005. “A Causal Theory of Counterfactuals.” Noûs 39 (4): 632–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Khoo, Justin. 2017. “Backtracking Counterfactuals Revisited.” Mind 126 (503): 841–910.Google Scholar
Lewis, David. 1973. Counterfactuals. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lewis, David. 1979. “Counterfactual Dependence and Time’s Arrow.” Noûs 13 (4): 455–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noordhof, Paul. 2004. “Prospects for a Counterfactual Theory of Causation.” In Cause and Chance: Causation in an Indeterministic World, edited by Dowe, Phil and Noordhof, Paul, 188–201. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Noordhof, Paul. 2005. “Morgenbesser’s Coin, Counterfactuals and Independence.” Analysis 65 (3): 261–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, Ian. 2007. “Morgenbesser Cases and Closet Determinism.” Analysis 67: 42–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, Ian. 2011. “Stuck in the Closet: A Reply to Ahmed.” Analysis 71 (1): 91–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pruss, Alexander R. 2003. “David Lewis’s Counterfactual Arrow of Time.” Noûs 37 (4): 606–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffer, Jonathan. 2004. “Counterfactuals, Causal Independence and Conceptual Crcularity.” Analysis 64 (4): 299–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slote, Michael A. 1978. “Time in Counterfactuals.” Philosophical Review 87 (1): 3–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar