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Making a Difference
Making a Difference
Essays on the Philosophy of Causation

EDITED BY

Helen Beebee,
Christopher Hitchcock,
and Huw Price

1
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 10/5/2017, SPi

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In memory of Peter Menzies
Contents

List of Illustrations ix
List of Contributors xi

1. Introduction 1
Helen Beebee, Christopher Hitchcock, and Huw Price
2. Causal Counterfactuals and Impossible Worlds 14
Daniel Nolan
3. Two Interpretations of the Ramsey Test 33
R.A. Briggs
4. Pragmatic Explanations of the Proportionality Constraint on
Causation 58
Cei Maslen
5. Causation, Intervention, and Agency: Woodward on
Menzies and Price 73
Huw Price
6. The Glue of the Universe 99
David Braddon-Mitchell
7. Actual Causation: What’s the Use? 116
Christopher Hitchcock
8. Can Structural Equations Explain How Mechanisms Explain? 132
Nancy Cartwright
9. The Problem of Counterfactual Isomorphs 153
Peter Menzies
10. Cause without Default 175
Thomas Blanchard and Jonathan Schaffer
11. Difference-making, Closure, and Exclusion 215
Brad Weslake
12. The Program Model, Difference-makers, and the Exclusion
Problem 232
Philip Pettit
13. Intervening in the Exclusion Argument 251
James Woodward
viii CONTENTS

14. My Brain Made Me Do It: The Exclusion Argument Against

Free Will, and What’s Wrong with It 269
Christian List and Peter Menzies
15. Epiphenomenalism for Functionalists 286
Helen Beebee
16. The Consequence Argument Disarmed: An Interventionist Perspective 307
Peter Menzies

Index 331
List of Illustrations

7.1 Billy and Suzy throw rocks at a window 119

7.2 The effect of a bicycle helmet law 125
9.1 Causal graph for Backup 158
9.2 Causal graph for Window 161
9.3 Causal graph for Bottle 163
13.1 Kim’s diagram 252
13.2 The causal influence of HDL, LDL, and TC on HD 261
13.3 Kim-style causal diagram with additional assumptions 263
14.1 Realization-insensitive causation 283
16.1 A causal graph 311
16.2 A causal graph 312
16.3 A causal graph 315
16.4 A causal graph 317
16.5 Possible worlds 320
16.6 A causal graph 321
16.7 Logically possible trajectories 322
List of Contributors

H ELEN B EEBEE , University of Manchester

T HOMAS B LANCHARD , Illinois Wesleyan University
D AVID B RADDON -M ITCHELL , University of Sydney
R.A. B RIGGS , Stanford University
N ANCY C ARTWRIGHT , University of Durham and University of California, San Diego
C HRISTOPHER H ITCHCOCK , California Institute of Technology
C HRISTIAN L IST , London School of Economics
C EI M ASLEN , Victoria University of Wellington
P ETER M ENZIES , formerly Macquarie University
D ANIEL N OLAN , University of Notre Dame
P HILIP P ETTIT , Princeton University and the Australian National University
H UW P RICE , University of Cambridge
J ONATHAN S CHAFFER , Rutgers University
B RAD W ESLAKE , New York University Shanghai
J AMES W OODWARD , University of Pittsburgh
 1
Introduction
Helen Beebee, Christopher Hitchcock, and Huw Price

When Peter Menzies died in February 2015 the philosophy of causation lost one of its
clearest and most insightful voices, and many in philosophy generally lost a dear
colleague, collaborator, and friend. Peter’s last illness was a long one, but when plans
for this volume first took shape we were aware that it was likely to prove terminal; we
wanted to do something to celebrate his contributions to our field, while we still had
the opportunity. We had hoped to present Peter with the finished volume, but the
past tense caught up with us; so instead we dedicate the collection to his memory, in
warm appreciation of all that he did for our discipline.
From the beginning, the volume named itself. Much of Peter’s work turns, as he puts
it, on ‘the idea that a cause is something that makes a difference to its effects’ (2004b:
139). Our intention was to celebrate Peter’s own role—practising what he preached, as
it were—in making a difference to our field. So we had our title and our central theme.
Our contributors approach this theme from many different directions, and the
essays here fall into two broad groups. Chapters 2–10 deal with a range of issues
surrounding the analysis of causation, and Chapters 11–16 consider how analyses of
causation and related notions can be brought to bear on two more general philo-
sophical problems: particularly the exclusion problem in the philosophy of mind, and
the problem of free will.
We can orient the initial essays in the first group by noting that whether one
prefers to analyse causation in terms of counterfactuals (along the lines of Lewis
(1973a)), or counterfactuals in terms of causal structure (as Pearl (2009) recom-
mends), there seems to be a tight connection between causation and counterfactuals.
At the very least, most causal relationships have a corresponding ‘causal counterfac-
tual’. The striking of the match caused it to light; if the match hadn’t been struck, it
wouldn’t have lit.
Daniel Nolan (Chapter 2) focuses on the issue of how we are to understand the
counterfactuals that will need to figure in an account of causation, if causation is to be
analysed in these terms. Following Stalnaker (1968) and Lewis (1973b), it has become
common to understand counterfactuals in terms of possible worlds. The counterfactual
 INTRODUCTION

‘if the match hadn’t been struck, it wouldn’t have lit’ is true in a world w just in case
all of the closest possible worlds to w in which the match isn’t struck are worlds in
which the match doesn’t light. To assess the counterfactual, then, we need to know
what goes on in these closest worlds.
The problem is that there are desiderata for what these closest worlds should be
like that seem to be incompatible. On the one hand, the worlds that are closest to w
should have the same laws of nature as w, and they should not contain any miracles
(violations of those laws of nature). On the other hand, the worlds closest to w should
also agree with w about what happens prior to the time at which the match is or isn’t
struck. However, if the laws of w are deterministic, it seems that these desiderata can’t
be jointly satisfied. If a world agrees with w about what happens prior to some time t,
and has the same deterministic laws as w, then that world can’t disagree with w about
whether a particular match is struck at time t. Even if the laws of w aren’t strictly
deterministic, they may make the striking so probable that the absence of this event
would be a semi-miracle, something else we might hope to avoid in the worlds closest to w.
Nolan proposes that we augment the usual apparatus of possible worlds with
impossible worlds. These are worlds in which incompatible things are true, but in
which deductive closure fails. While this proposal sounds odd at first, Nolan draws
on earlier work (Nolan 1997) to argue that impossible worlds are already needed to
handle certain kinds of counterpossibles. For example, it seems natural to say that if
131 were equal to 27 times 4, then 131 would be composite. This has the same
linguistic form as a counterfactual, but we cannot evaluate its truth by considering
possible worlds in which the antecedent is true. Nolan discusses some drawbacks of
this proposal, and stops short of giving it his full endorsement. However, he deflects a
number of objections to this proposal and argues that it is worthy of further
consideration.
Rachael Briggs (Chapter 3) also focuses on a puzzle about conditionals, including
counterfactual conditionals. She notes that various writers, including Peter Menzies,
have been attracted to the idea that we should understand causation in terms of
counterfactual conditionals. Yet, as she also notes at the beginning of her chapter,
conditionals themselves are deeply puzzling. In part this is because two intuitively
plausible avenues for making sense of them seem deeply in tension with one another.
These avenues both begin with the so-called Ramsey test: as Briggs puts it, the
thought that ‘[a]n individual should accept the conditional A ! B to the degree
that she would accept B on the supposition that A, provided that Cr(A) > 0’ (this
volume, 34) (where Cr is the individual’s credence, or subjective probability). One
avenue interprets the Ramsey test in terms of Adams’ thesis, that credence in the
conditional A ! B goes by the conditional credence Cr(B/A). The other interprets it
in terms of Stalnaker semantics—as Briggs puts it, the thesis that ‘[t]he conditional
A ! B is true at a possible world α just in case at the world most similar to α where
A is true, B is true’ (this volume, 35). Yet as the triviality results of Lewis and others
show, these two proposals are incompatible, at least as they stand.
 HELEN BEEBEE, CHRISTOPHER HITCHCOCK, AND HUW PRICE 

Briggs considers a proposed solution to the triviality problem, drawing on a

revised version of Adams’ thesis proposed by Kaufmann. She shows, however, that
when combined with Stalnaker semantics, Kaufmann’s proposal still leads to a kind
of triviality result—local triviality, as she calls it—which ‘seems just as absurd as the
original triviality results’ (this volume, 34). The solution, she argues, is to revise
Stalnaker semantics too, replacing it with a generalized imaging semantics. Briggs
argues that this ‘defangs’ the local triviality results, by explaining why they are not as
counterintuitive as they initially seem—properly understood, they reflect an inevit-
able and manageable degree of context-sensitivity in our use of conditionals.
Counterfactual conditionals and context-sensitivity are also major themes in Cei
Maslen’s contribution to this volume (Chapter 4). Contextual accounts of causation
have been proposed in recent years by a number of authors, including Peter Menzies
and Maslen herself. One role that context is said to play, in many of these accounts, is
that of picking out a contrast class which in turn plays a crucial role in determining
precisely which counterfactuals are in play, in the causal judgements we make in the
context in question. As Maslen puts it, the ‘idea of a contrastivist account of causation
is that contrast cases for the cause and effect are determined by the context’. She
notes that this idea ‘seems to fit particularly well with interventionist/causal model-
ling accounts of causation and other counterfactual accounts’ (this volume, 67).
Maslen’s project in her chapter might itself be described as contrastive: she
examines Yablo’s arguments for the need for a ‘proportionality constraint’ in an
account of causation—roughly, the requirement that a specification of a cause be
neither too specific nor too general—and compares Yablo’s approach to the con-
trastive approach. She argues that contrastive approach does a better job of explain-
ing the examples that seem to motivate the proportionality constraint, and concludes
by discussing the relevance of these factors to the metaphysics of causation.
Contextuality has been thought by some to import an element of ‘subjectivity’ into
an account of causation. After all, isn’t the determination of the relevant context or
contrast class to some extent an anthropocentric matter, determined by the interests
of the speakers in question? If there is subjectivity of this kind in a contextual account
of causation, then it is a further question whether this should be counted a disad-
vantage; but many have felt that it would be an undesirable consequence, and that we
should prefer an account that treats causation as fully ‘objective’.
This issue—‘subjectivity’ versus ‘objectivity’ in an account of causation—is at the
heart of Price’s contribution (Chapter 5). Price notes that in James Woodward’s
influential book Making Things Happen (2003) and other places, Woodward
has noted some affinities between his own account of causation and that proposed
in Price’s joint paper with Peter Menzies (Menzies and Price 1993). However,
Woodward has argued, precisely, that the Menzies and Price view is implausibly
‘subjective’.
Price sets out to respond to Woodward’s objections. He argues that the Menzies
and Price view is not as different from Woodward’s own account as Woodward
 INTRODUCTION

believes, and that insofar as it is different, it has some advantages whose importance
Woodward misses. However, he also concedes that the Menzies and Price view lacks
some elements whose importance Woodward rightly stresses. But when properly
characterized, Price argues, the ‘subjectivity’ of the Menzies and Price view survives
unscathed, and turns out to be a feature rather than a bug: if Woodward’s view is
interpreted so that it lacks it, it becomes vulnerable to a sceptical challenge that the
Menzies and Price view can escape.
Price stresses that in his view, the proper and fruitful target for a philosophical
account of causation is not causation itself, but our concept of causation. In other
words, as Price puts it, the project really belongs not in metaphysics but in what Price
calls ‘anthropology’. The central task, as Price sees it, is to explain why creatures in
our situation have a need for causal concepts—a task that needs to advert, above
all, to the fact that we are agents. Price argues that Woodward is largely on the
same page on this matter, but notes that Menzies has been more attracted to the
metaphysical project.
In one well-cited piece (Menzies 1996), Peter Menzies tackled the metaphysics of
causation along the lines proposed by the so-called Canberra Plan. David Braddon-
Mitchell’s contribution (Chapter 6) develops this project, raising the question of what
causation might be, if it turns out that there is no single thing that meets all of the
various desiderata. As Braddon-Mitchell notes, writers such as Hall (2004) have
proposed a kind of pluralism about causation, according to which there may be no
single thing that meets all the desiderata, but two or more things that each meet some of
them. Two main desiderata have been proposed, in this context. One links to counter-
factual reasoning, the other to the idea that causation has an intrinsic, productive nature.
Braddon-Mitchell offers two extensions to this kind of pluralism. First, he argues
that the latter of these intuitive desiderata might be met, if necessary, by something
weaker than production: by a notion of ‘structural connectedness’, as Braddon-Mitchell
puts it—‘the way the universe is glued together over time’ (this volume, 100). Second,
drawing on earlier work, he offers a distinctive account of the way in which the weaker
and stronger notions both play a role in settling what best deserves to be called
‘causation’. Roughly, the stronger notion takes precedence, if it turns out that there is
actually something of the right sort to play that role; if not, then the concept defaults to
the weaker notion. Braddon-Mitchell describes some early empirical evidence that our
notion of causation does have this conditional, defaulting structure.
At this point, several chapters draw on the machinery of one of the most influential
developments in recent philosophy of causation. Following Pearl (2009), many
philosophers became interested in the use of structural equation models (SEMs) to
represent causal structures. More specifically, SEMs provide a useful tool for repre-
senting the types of non-backtracking counterfactuals (Lewis 1979) or intervention
relations (Woodward 2003) that hold within a given system. These models allow for
computations to calculate the effects of interventions or evaluate counterfactuals, and
they admit heuristically powerful graphical representations.
 HELEN BEEBEE, CHRISTOPHER HITCHCOCK, AND HUW PRICE 

In chapter 10 of his book, Pearl offered an account of actual causation in terms of

SEMs. Actual causation is a causal relation holding between particular events or
states, and reported in ordinary claims like ‘Suzy’s throw caused the window to
shatter’ and ‘the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand caused Austria-Hungary to
declare war on Serbia’. This relation has also been called causation in fact in the law,
as well as token causation and singular causation in philosophy. It has often been the
target of philosophical analysis, for example in Lewis (1973a).
Peter Menzies offered his own analysis of actual causation using SEMs in Menzies
(2004a). A novel feature of this account was its use of the concept of default worlds.
This new approach builds an on idea advocated in Menzies (2004b), that counter-
factuals have a logic that differs from the familiar ones developed by Stalnaker (1968)
and Lewis (1973b). In particular, Menzies rejected the centring condition, which says
that counterfactuals having true antecedents are always evaluated at the actual world.
Instead, Menzies argued that we often evaluate counterfactuals relative to default
worlds, where various interfering conditions are removed and the situation is
restored to a normal state. In the context of actual causation, Menzies’ proposal
was motivated in part by the claim of Hart and Honoré that a cause involves a
deviation from the normal state of things. Menzies developed these ideas further in
Menzies (2007) and Menzies (2011).
Several essays in this volume pursue these strands in Menzies’ work. Hitchcock’s
project (Chapter 7) connects Menzies’ approach to actual causation with another
strand in Menzies’ work, his interest in agency accounts of causation. By making this
connection, Hitchcock aims to throw light on another issue: Why should we be
interested in actual causation?
As Hitchcock notes, the essence of the agency theory is that causes are ‘handles’
that we can use to achieve our ends—places where we can make a difference, in fact,
and hence make some further difference, that matters in the light of our desires and
goals. But if this is what causes are, what is the value of knowledge of actual causation,
understood along the lines that Menzies has proposed? As Hitchcock puts it:
‘If causes are handles on the world, then actual causes are handles of a specific
kind. What kind of handle are they?’ (this volume, 116).
Hitchcock’s proposal is that actual causation has its home in contexts in complex
goal-directed reasoning, in which we consider a series of intervention points. We
thus become interested in the specific path by which an intervention may lead,
several steps later, to a desired outcome. According to Hitchcock, this is the source
of the path-specific character, that Menzies and others have associated with actual
causation. As Hitchcock puts it, his ‘conjecture is that claims of actual causation identify
the kinds of path-specific effects that can be exploited in this kind of [multi-step] goal-
directed strategy’ (this volume, 128). Hitchcock argues that this proposal has a number
of points in its favour. It makes it clear why actual causation does depend on path-
specific effects. It explains the role of normality, or default conditions. And it promises to
explain why actual causation is crucial to attributions of moral and legal responsibility.
 INTRODUCTION

Nancy Cartwright’s contribution (Chapter 8) explores the limitations of structural

equation models. Machamer, Darden, and Craver (2000) have influentially argued
that much causal explanation, especially in the biological sciences, involves the
elucidation of mechanisms. Mechanisms are comprised of entities, which have
characteristic activities, which work together to regularly produce effects. Menzies
(2012) argued that the notion of an activity is too imprecise, and is used to group
together a heterogeneous collection of processes. He challenged defenders of mech-
anistic explanation to specify the common features of activities that warranted their
grouping under a common label. Following Craver (2007), Menzies suggested that
activities corresponded to interventionist counterfactuals, and that they can be
represented by structural equations in a SEM. Cartwright criticizes Menzies’ pro-
posal. Structural equations can usefully represent the pattern of dependence between
inputs and outputs in a mechanism or submechanism, but these dependence patterns
only emerge once the parts of the mechanism are appropriately configured. The
structural equations cannot give us insight into the more basic capacities of the
entities that make the construction of the mechanism possible in the first place.
As an alternate picture, Cartwright proposes that causation is what Neurath called
a ‘Ballung’ concept. It is a complicated assortment of loosely affiliated notions that
only gains a more precise definition in the context of a specific application. Thus she
maintains that Menzies’ demand for a feature common to all activities is inappro-
priate. For scientific purposes it is often necessary to replace the messy ‘Ballung’ with
a tidier concept. SEMs are one such replacement, and they are useful for guiding
predictions. But such sanitized concepts hide the richness and complexity of our
concept of causation, and they will not be suitable for all purposes.
The next contribution (Chapter 9) is from Peter Menzies himself, and builds on his
earlier work on the concept of actual causation. Here, he tackles the problem of
counterfactual isomorphs. Counterfactual isomorphs pose a problem for any coun-
terfactual theory of causation, including theories that make use of SEMs. The
problem is that there can be pairs of cases that exhibit isomorphic patterns of
counterfactual dependence, and hence can be represented by isomorphic SEMs,
but where our intuitive judgements of actual causation are different. This problem
has led a number of authors, starting with Menzies himself (2004a), to propose that
judgements of actual causation are also sensitive to what we regard as the default
states of a system. Menzies makes use of a similar idea in his chapter, but he deploys
it in a very different way. Instead of contributing to the evaluation of the counter-
factuals, certain states of a system form ideal conditions for specific causal relations.
While causation is still to be understood in terms of counterfactuals, the counterfac-
tuals that underwrite a causal relationship must obtain under ideal conditions.
Thus, there can be causation without counterfactual dependence (as in cases of
pre-emption and overdetermination) when conditions are not ideal. Menzies then
uses this proposal to address the problem of counterfactual isomorphs. Although two
cases may have isomorphic patterns of counterfactual dependence, the isomorphism
 HELEN BEEBEE, CHRISTOPHER HITCHCOCK, AND HUW PRICE 

may not map ideal conditions for one causal relationship onto ideal conditions for
the other. In this case, the patterns of counterfactual dependence that obtain under
ideal conditions may be different for the two causal systems.
Thomas Blanchard and Jonathan Schaffer, in their contribution (Chapter 10),
defend one aspect of Menzies’ approach to actual causation while challenging
another. They endorse the use of SEMs to model causal systems, and give an elegant
presentation of the formalism. However, they criticize the idea that an account of
actual causation must appeal to a distinction between default and deviant states of a
causal system. For one thing, supplementing a SEM with an assignment of default
and deviant states adds complexity to the model. Furthermore, it requires an
evaluation of states that is guided by imprecise and potentially conflicting criteria.
In some very simple systems, there may be no reasonable grounds to declare one state
the default. For instance, there is no default outcome when a fair coin is tossed, but
the outcome can still cause one team to start the game with the football.
Blanchard and Schaffer argue that the problem cases that have led Menzies and
others to appeal to a distinction between default and deviant states can be better
handled by consideration of aptness conditions on causal models. (Some of these
problem cases are closely connected to the problem of counterfactual isomorphs
discussed in Menzies’ chapter.) Suppose that we have a SEM, M, of a particular causal
system. Applying a definition of actual causation to M yields the result that X = x is a
cause of Y = y in that model. Are we then entitled to conclude that the event
represented by X = x is in fact a cause of Y = y? No, because there may be another
model, M’, in which the same definition yields a different answer. For example,
suppose that Billy and Suzy throw rocks at a window. Suzy’s rock hits the window
first, shattering it; Billy’s rock then sails through the hole in the window. If we model
this system with three variables—corresponding to Suzy’s throw, Billy’s throw, and
the window shattering—then the model will be symmetric in its treatment of Suzy’s
throw and Billy’s throw. No definition of actual causation, applied to such a model,
could yield the result that Suzy’s throw is a cause, while Billy’s is not. However, if we
add additional variables to the model, representing whether Suzy’s rock and Billy’s
rock hit the window, we can distinguish the causal role of the two throws. In order to
conclude that Suzy’s throw was the cause of the window’s shattering, while Billy’s
wasn’t, we must have a reason to judge the second model apt, and the first model
inapt. Blanchard and Schaffer canvas a number of criteria that have been proposed
for the aptness of models. They then argue that rigorous application of these criteria
will eliminate problematic causal models that seemed to give rise to the need for a
default/deviant distinction.
Turning now to the essays in the second group (Chapters 11–16), we can orient
them with respect to an influential paper by Christian List and Peter Menzies (2009).
In this paper, List and Menzies claim to solve the ‘exclusion problem’ facing non-
reductive physicalists. According to physicalism, any purported mental cause super-
venes on some sufficient physical cause; however, the existence of a sufficient
 INTRODUCTION

physical cause would seem to exclude the existence of any supervening cause
(except in relatively rare cases of overdetermination, such as firing-squad cases)
(see e.g. Kim 1998).
The reason why the exclusion problem is a problem for non-reductive physicalists
in particular is that non-reductive physicalists take mental properties to be multiply
realizable: when one is in a given mental state (in pain, say), there are in principle
various different physical states—various different neural configurations, say—that
might realize this mental state. By contrast, reductive physicalists hold that mental
properties just are physical properties. If mental property M = physical property P,
then the fact that P is a sufficient physical cause guarantees that M is, since M and P
are the very same property.
List and Menzies (hereafter LM) argue that the exclusion principle is false. They
appeal to the idea—one that has already loomed large in earlier chapters of this
collection—that a cause is something that makes a difference to whether or not the
effect in question occurs. Thus (to use a standard example, from Yablo 1992),
suppose that Sophie the pigeon is trained to peck at crimson things. Then a button’s
being crimson makes a difference to her pecking: give Sophie a crimson button and
she’ll peck, but give her a non-crimson button and she won’t. Whether or not a given
button is red supervenes on its specific shade, such as crimson, scarlet, or aqua.
However, if you give Sophie a red button she may not peck—it might be scarlet, after
all, and she’s not trained to peck at those. So whether or not the button is red makes
no difference to whether or not she’ll peck; it’s whether or not it’s crimson that
matters. So far, no disagreement with Kim: the subvening property excludes the
supervening property. (So this is a case of ‘upward exclusion’.) But what if Sophie is
trained to peck at red things? Then give her a red button and she’ll peck; give her a
non-red button and she won’t. But being crimson, in this case, doesn’t make a
difference: if it’s crimson, she’ll peck—but if it’s another shade of red, she’ll also peck.
So in this case it is the button’s being red that causes Sophie to peck, and not its
being crimson; as Yablo puts it, being red is proportional to the effect in question, viz.,
Sophie’s pecking. And so, according to LM, this is a case of downward exclusion.
Subvening and supervening properties do (by and large at any rate—except when the
relation between the supervening cause and the effect is ‘realization-sensitive’)
exclude one another, just as Kim says. Kim, however, assumes that there is only
upward exclusion. But, since causes must make a difference to their effects, and
sometimes it is the supervening property rather than the subvening one that makes a
difference, there can be downward exclusion too. And, we can assume, if non-
reductive physicalism is true, then it will sometimes be multiply-realizable mental
states, and not their physical realizers, that make a difference. If I’m in pain, it’s that
that makes a difference to my saying ‘ouch’, and not the physical state that realizes
my mental state.
Against this background, Brad Weslake (Chapter 11) argues that LM’s solution to
the exclusion problem fails. The central issue here is whether we should endorse LM’s
 HELEN BEEBEE, CHRISTOPHER HITCHCOCK, AND HUW PRICE 

claims about upward and downward exclusion. Weslake argues that there are good
reasons not to. He motivates an alternative conception of what it is for one property
to make a difference to another, within an interventionist framework, which delivers
different—and, Weslake argues, better—results than LM’s account. In particular,
Weslake’s account upholds a principle that LM are forced to reject, namely that if F is
causally sufficient for G, then F is a cause of G. It is this principle that LM need to
reject in order to deliver the possibility of upward and downward exclusion, since
such cases are, precisely, cases where a property that is causally sufficient for G (e.g.
the button that Sophie is pecking being crimson) is nonetheless not a cause of G.
Finally, Weslake offers an alternative explanation for our tendency to assert claims
like ‘Sophie pecked because the button was red’ in preference to ‘Sophie pecked
because the button was crimson’—LM’s explanation being that the first claim is true
and (because of downward exclusion) the second is false. Weslake appeals instead to
the explanatory superiority of the first claim over the second—an appeal that is
consistent with holding that the second claim is true.
Philip Pettit’s contribution (Chapter 12) offers a comprehensive comparison of the
merits of LM’s approach and those of the ‘program model’ of explanation—a model
that Pettit developed in a series of earlier publications with Frank Jackson. While, as
Pettit notes, there are some natural affinities between the two views (LM’s difference-
makers can be thought of as ‘super-programmers’ according to Pettit’s view), they
differ significantly in their attitude to the connection between difference-making and
causation. Pettit acknowledges that, qua response to the exclusion problem, LM’s
account fares better than Jackson and Pettit’s (hereafter ‘JP’). By agreeing with
Kim that exclusion is a genuine threat to causal status but using it to argue for
the existence of downwards, as well as upwards, exclusion, LM, as Pettit puts
it, ‘turn the tables on Kim’s exclusion claim, [rather than] just denying it’ (this
volume, 239). By contrast, on JP’s account, the causal relevance of supervening,
programming properties remains hostage to the causal efficacy of the underlying
supervenience base.
On the other hand, Pettit, like Weslake, in effect takes issue with LM’s claim that
causal sufficiency does not entail causation. He argues that it is absurd to think that,
while difference-maker M (my intending to move my hand, say) causes effect E (my
moving my hand) because M has some neural realizer, neural realizer P itself has no
genuine causal status whatsoever with respect to E. After all, M’s causing E depends
upon its neural realizer in a way that it does not depend, in turn, on M’s realizing
some still higher-order property—the property of having some intention or other, for
example. Pettit’s conclusion is that LM should embrace JP’s claim that all program-
mers, and not just super-programmers, are bearers of causal relevance, and hence
that P, as well as M, is causally relevant to E. Were they to do so, Pettit claims, then
the accounts offered by JP and LM would, in a sense, be of a piece: they would differ
only insofar as LM would still insist that talk of causation proper, as opposed to
causal relevance, is appropriate only for super-programming properties.
 INTRODUCTION

James Woodward’s contribution (Chapter 13), like Weslake’s, takes an interven-

tionist approach to solving the exclusion problem. He claims that from an interven-
tionist point of view there is no problem with according mental properties causal
status, except for the fact that supervenient properties are not distinct from the
properties on which they supervene. If the value of variable M supervenes on the
value of variable P, M and P stand in a relation of non-causal dependence: changing
the value of M guarantees a change in the value of P. This creates a problem because
in order for something to constitute an intervention I on variable X (with respect
to Y), there must be no causal route from I to Y that doesn’t itself go via X. But—
prima facie at least—since any intervention on mental property M will guarantee a
change in its realizer P, this condition on I is not met in the case of purported mental
causation; after all, the causal route from P to E does not proceed via M. Woodward
argues—on general grounds that appeal to kinds of non-causal dependency that do
not involve multiple realization—that in assessing the causal role of supervenient
properties we should not, in fact, control for those properties’ supervenience bases.
In the final section of his chapter, Woodward compares his own interventionist
solution to the exclusion problem with that of LM. As both Weslake and Pettit do, he
denies both upward and downward exclusion, but argues, along lines similar to
Weslake’s, that the problem with claims such as ‘Sophie’s pecking was caused by
the button being scarlet’ is that they are less informative than alternative claims that
respect proportionality, and not that they are false.
In their contribution (Chapter 14), List and Menzies tackle a well-known argu-
ment from neuroscience that we lack free will because our conscious mental states do
not cause our decisions. (Versions of this argument have been widely dismissed by
philosophers, but generally on grounds that are largely independent of the grounds
adduced by List and Menzies.) List and Menzies formulate the argument as an
exclusion argument: our lack of free will follows from the fact that conscious mental
states do not cause our actions—thanks to the existence of a causally sufficient
supervenience base—and hence, since acting freely requires that it be caused by the
agent’s mental states, nobody ever acts freely. The basic gist of List and Menzies’
response to the argument should be unsurprising, given the foregoing: they reject the
exclusion principle on which the argument depends and hence avoid what they call
‘neuroscientific scepticism’ with respect to free will.
In the light of the above discussion, one interesting feature of List and Menzies’
chapter is what it says about the disputed principle that causal sufficiency implies
causation. In footnote 11 (this volume, 272), they say that they ‘use the term
“sufficient cause” as shorthand for “causally sufficient condition” ’. This might
suggest that they do endorse the principle that causally sufficient conditions are indeed
causes, since one might expect something’s being a sufficient cause to automatically
qualify as a cause simpliciter. However, a later footnote (fn. 19, this volume, 278) seems
to undermine this expectation: ‘since a man (under standard assumptions) can never
become pregnant’, they say, ‘his taking a contraceptive pill cannot change that fact and
 HELEN BEEBEE, CHRISTOPHER HITCHCOCK, AND HUW PRICE 

hence will qualify as a sufficient cause for his not becoming pregnant, no matter
whether we interpret causal sufficiency in nomological terms, counterfactual terms,
or probabilistic terms’. While they might in principle be right that the man’s taking a
contraceptive pill qualifies as a causally sufficient condition for his failure to get
pregnant, presumably they do not think that his doing so is a cause of his not getting
pregnant. So they really do seem to think that being a sufficient cause does not suffice
for being a cause simpliciter, and hence (as they also suggest explicitly in the same
footnote) they remain committed to rejecting the principle that causal sufficiency
implies causation.
Helen Beebee’s contribution (Chapter 15) focuses on an assumption implicitly
made by most recent attempts to solve the exclusion problem for mental causation—
and briefly discussed by Pettit in }1 of his chapter—including those of LM, Weslake,
and Woodward. The assumption is that mental (and so multiply realized) properties
are ‘distinct existences’ from their alleged effects. (By contrast, Woodward’s concern
in his chapter is with the lack of distinctness of mental properties from their physical
realizers.) Without that assumption, no such solution can work, since we have
excellent grounds for thinking that there is no causation between entities that are
not distinct from one another. But, assuming functionalism—which, after all, con-
stitutes the grounds for thinking that mental properties are multiply realized in the
first place—mental properties are not distinct from the effects to which they are
alleged to bear causal relevance, since functional properties are defined in terms of
the causal roles of their realizers. Beebee argues that the natural consequence—
epiphenomenalism with respect to mental properties—is not as problematic as
many philosophers tend to assume.
The final chapter of this collection (Chapter 16) is a paper that Peter Menzies
was working on before he died. It has been lightly edited by Christian List, with
all editorial changes flagged in the footnotes. The chapter argues that Peter van
Inwagen’s well-known Consequence Argument for incompatibilism fails. In fact, the
bulk of the chapter constitutes an argument for the falsity of determinism, and hence
an argument against a slightly different argument that starts from the assumption
that determinism is true and—by the same method as the Consequence Argument
itself—reaches the conclusion that there is no free will. (The consequences of this
argument for the Consequence Argument proper are discussed by List in }6, an
editorial addition to the chapter.) Menzies argues, on the basis of an interventionist
framework, that determinism is, in fact, false. Roughly, we should abandon what we
might call ‘strict’ determinism in favour of what List calls ‘qualified’ determinism.
This is because the structural equations governing local deterministic systems impli-
citly include a ‘no interventions’ proviso: the structural equation for an endogenous
variable can be disrupted by an intervention. Menzies goes on to argue that consid-
ering the whole universe as a single causal system—as van Inwagen’s conception of
determinism effectively does—does not undermine his argument. While the notion
of an intervention makes no sense when the system under consideration is the whole
 INTRODUCTION

universe, we can redefine an intervention—in a way that has obvious commonalities

with Lewis’s conception of a miracle—so that an ‘intervention’, thus defined, is
simply an uncaused disruption to the system rather than a disruption caused by an
external influence. Crucially, however, a Menzies-style ‘miracle’ involves no violation
of the laws, since the laws come with a ‘no interventions’ proviso.
Menzies’ proposal connects with Daniel Nolan’s proposal in Chapter 2 that we
conceive of the closest world w at which the antecedent of a given counterfactual is
true as one with the same past and the same laws as the actual world—and hence
(assuming determinism) as impossible worlds. On Menzies’ view, by contrast, we can
turn roughly the same trick without resorting to impossible worlds: given that we
should endorse qualified rather than strict determinism, there is no contradiction
involved in taking w to have both the same past and the same (qualified-deterministic)
laws as the actual world.
We are very grateful to several people for their assistance with this project: to Peter
Momtchiloff, of Oxford University Press, for his support and patience, at all stages; to
Christian List, for his assistance in preparing Peter Menzies’ last paper for inclusion;
to Professor Catriona Mackenzie, for her kind permission to include that paper in the
volume; and most of all, of course, to Peter himself.
Our gratitude to Peter reaches well beyond his own contributions to this volume,
or indeed his own writings as a whole. Like many in our field, we also owe him a great
debt for his role as a collaborator, colleague, and teacher, over thirty years. Those of us
who were fortunate enough to work with Peter find it easy to understand why he was
such a successful teacher and supervisor, held in such grateful regard by generations of
students. He combined patience, equanimity, generosity, and unfailing good humour,
with insight, exceptional clarity, and an almost encyclopaedic acquaintance with
relevant parts of the literature. In effect, he made it impossible for his students, and
his collaborators, not to learn, and not to enjoy the process. As Dr Lise Marie Andersen
(Aarhus), one of Peter’s last PhD students, puts it: ‘As a supervisor Peter was patient,
warm and extremely generous with his time and knowledge. As a philosopher he was
an inspiration.’ He is sadly missed.

References
Collins, J., Hall, E. J., and Paul, L. A. (eds). 2004. Causation and Counterfactuals. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Craver, C. 2007. Explaining the Brain. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hall, E. J. 2004. ‘Two Concepts of Causation’, in Collins, Hall, and Paul 2004: 225–76.
Kim, J. 1998. Mind in a Physical World: An Essay on the Mind-Body Problem and Mental
Causation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Lewis, D. 1973a. ‘Causation’, Journal of Philosophy, 70: 556–67. Reprinted in Lewis 1986:
159–72.
Lewis, D. 1973b. Counterfactuals. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
 HELEN BEEBEE, CHRISTOPHER HITCHCOCK, AND HUW PRICE 

Lewis, D. 1979. ‘Counterfactual Dependence and Time’s Arrow’, Noûs, 13: 455–76. Reprinted
in Lewis 1986: 32–52.
Lewis, D. 1986. Philosophical Papers, Volume II. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
List, C. and Menzies, P. 2009. ‘Non-reductive Physicalism and the Limits of the Exclusion
Principle’, The Journal of Philosophy, 106: 475–502.
Machamer, P., Darden, L., and Craver, C. 2000. ‘Thinking about Mechanisms’, Philosophy of
Science, 67: 1–25.
Menzies, P. 1996. ‘Probabilistic Causation and the Pre-emption Problem’, Mind, 104: 85–117.
Menzies, P. 2004a. ‘Causal Models, Token Causation, and Processes’, Philosophy of Science, 71:
820–32.
Menzies, P. 2004b. ‘Difference-making in Context’, in Collins, Hall, and Paul 2004: 139–80.
Menzies, P. 2007. ‘Causation in Context’, in H. Price and R. Corry (eds), Causation, Physics,
and the Constitution of Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 191–223.
Menzies, P. 2011. ‘The Role of Counterfactual Dependence in Causal Judgements’, in S. Beck,
C. Hoerl, and T. McCormack (eds), Understanding Counterfactuals, Understanding Caus-
ation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 186–207.
Menzies, P. 2012. ‘The Causal Structure of Mechanisms’, Studies in History and Philosophy of
Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 43(4): 796–805.
Menzies, P. and Price, H. 1993. ‘Causation as a Secondary Quality’, British Journal for the
Philosophy of Science, 44: 187–203.
Nolan, D. 1997. ‘Impossible Worlds: A Modest Approach’, Notre Dame Journal of Formal
Logic, 38: 535–72.
Pearl, J. 2009. Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference, Second Edition. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Stalnaker, R. 1968. ‘A Theory of Conditionals’, in N. Rescher (ed.), Studies in Logical Theory.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 98–112.
Woodward, J. 2003. Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Yablo, S. 1992. ‘Mental Causation’, The Philosophical Review, 101: 245–80.
 2
Causal Counterfactuals
and Impossible Worlds
Daniel Nolan

There seem to be tight connections between claims about what caused what, and
many claims about what would have happened if things had been otherwise.1
A special, but important, case of these are the connections between causal structure
and what would have been different had things been different. A lot of careful and
ingenious work has gone into trying to articulate the connections between the two,
though it is probably safe to say that no completely satisfactory account has yet
emerged: or at the very least, those who are completely satisfied with an account of
the connection between causation and counterfactuals are few, and disagree with
each other about which is the completely satisfactory account.
This chapter is not directly in the service of either of the ambitious analytic
projects of analysing causation in terms of the holding of certain counterfactuals,
nor of analysing counterfactuals in terms of causal matters. It focuses instead on one
of the traditional puzzles that connect the two that arise almost whatever one takes
the connection between counterfactuals and causation to be. The puzzle has no neat
label that I am aware of, but it arises in its clearest form when we consider
counterfactuals involving antecedent states that involve a difference from the actual
course of events at a particular time, and a consequent, at least in part involving a
state somewhat later than the time of the antecedent difference. In the possible
worlds framework, the puzzle is often put in terms of what other differences there
are in the relevant possible worlds where the antecedent is true. Do those worlds
match ours with respect to nearly all their pasts until the time relevant to the
antecedent? Do they require ‘small miracles’ relative to the laws of the actual

1
This research was supported by the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme
(project number DP130104665). Thanks to the audience at the Doing Philosophy: From Metaphysics to
Ethics Workshop at Bundanoon, NSW and to Arif Ahmed, Helen Beebee, Rachael Briggs, Adam Elga, Alan
Hájek, and Peter Menzies for discussion. Especial thanks, also, to the late Peter Menzies for his role in
introducing me to the topics I have been grappling with in this chapter: he will be sorely missed.
 DANIEL NOLAN 

world? Is their causal structure the same except for an ‘intervention’ on a state
associated with the antecedent?...and so on. Let me label this problem the ‘deviation
problem’ to suggest that it concerns what deviations from actuality would be required
for the antecedent to be true, in the class of counterfactuals of interest.
In this chapter I will propose a novel solution to the deviation problem. This solution
will have several signal advantages over a number of the better-known proposed
solutions to this problem, though it also incurs some distinctive costs. I am not sure,
then, whether something like it will turn out to be the best solution, though I am sure it
deserves a run for its money alongside its better-known cousins. I will do so by
presenting the puzzle and solution in a closest-worlds framework of the Stalnaker–
Lewis variety: those familiar with alternative systems will likely be able to see easily
enough how to fit the kind of positive proposal I offer into those approaches.
After some remarks about the problem my solution is intended to solve, and the
kinds of resources I will deploy to construct my version of the solution, I will argue
for a number of desiderata for a solution that traditional approaches compromise,
before presenting my solution and displaying that it can satisfy those desiderata.
Finally, I will discuss some of the vices of the particular solution I offer, and while I do
not intend to suggest this solution is without costs, I will have some things to say
about why those vices may not be as great drawbacks as they might initially appear.

1 The Target
The problem I wish to address in this chapter is more specific than the general problem
of the truth conditions of counterfactuals. It is the narrower problem of offering a story
about the truth conditions of what I am calling causal counterfactuals. So it would be
good to begin by being a bit more specific about which counterfactuals I have in mind.
The counterfactuals I will pay attention to are those whose antecedents concern a
specific one-off event or state, and their consequents deal with what happens after
that event or state (or as a consequence of a failure of the antecedent event to
influence the consequent). Furthermore, they are the non-backtracking counterfac-
tuals of this sort. A backtracker, intuitively, is a counterfactual that invites us to
consider what would have had to be different in the causal ancestry of an event if it
were to have come about. How exactly to demarcate which counterfactuals are
backtrackers is controversial, but see Lewis 1979 (33–4) for the locus classicus of a
characterization of back-tracking conditionals.
The causal counterfactuals that are my focus here all come with an antecedent time.2
Some counterfactual conditionals have antecedents that are about a relatively particular
event: ‘if I had set the fire alarm off at 11.00 this morning, the fire service would have
been here by 11.30’. In such cases, we can talk about a particular time associated with

2
Lewis 1979 introduces the idea of an antecedent time TA, though he characterizes it as ‘the time the
antecedent is about’, which is not quite how I will characterize the notion I wish to use.
 CAUSAL COUNTERFACTUALS AND IMPOSSIBLE WORLDS

the antecedent: roughly, the time at which the situation described by the antecedent
would have obtained. In the example, that time would be some period around 11 a.m.
Many other antecedents suggest a time in a much less explicit way. ‘If I had skipped
breakfast, I would have had more to eat at lunch’ suggests a time around my normal
breakfast time, or perhaps my actual breakfast time. Not every counterfactual is
associated in this way with a time, and it would be natural to extend the account
given to cases where there are a number of salient times associated with an antecedent
of a causal counterfactual, but I will restrict my discussion for tractability.
For the purposes I want to use the notion, the ‘antecedent time’ associated with a
counterfactual will not always be the exact time that the event associated with the
antecedent would take place. It will often need to extend some relatively short time
before that event. The motivating idea is that the antecedent time is the time at which
a world where the antecedent occurs would have to rapidly become quite different
from the actual world, so will typically involve difference from the actual world some
time immediately before as the ‘run-up’. (Were I to have turned off on the previous
exit ramp, it would not be by a last-minute swerve or by teleportation, but rather may
well have been by getting into the correct lane, signalling a turn, etc.) So it seems
better to say that the antecedent time can include some period before the time of the
event explicitly invoked by the antecedent. A tricky and unsolved problem is exactly
how much of the run-up to the relevant event is best to include in the ‘antecedent
time’. The puzzle about setting an antecedent time is unfinished business, but the
details should not matter for current purposes.3
The target problem, then, is the deviation problem for causal counterfactuals.
What would be different were the antecedent of a causal counterfactual true? Or, to
put it in the world terminology introduced in §2, what are the most relevantly similar
worlds where the antecedent of such a counterfactual is true?
The proposal to be offered will be straightforwardly generalizable in a number of
ways, including to cases where antecedents have a number of natural antecedent
times associated with them, to some counterfactuals with general antecedents, and
even to counterfactuals where the states associated with the antecedent and conse-
quent are non-causally related. But the interested reader can chart for herself how the
proposal in this chapter can be generalized, as even the relatively narrow range of
counterfactuals I have picked out will give us quite enough fish to fry.

2 Resources
The most salient commitment of the approach to be used is to an apparatus of
worlds, possible and impossible. Relying on accounts of counterfactual conditionals

3
A general account will also need to say when an antecedent time ends, and may want to derive the fact
that we treat the past differently from the future in causal counterfactual contexts from some more basic
principle.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
brizna, vna miserable ocasion
para le despegar de sí. Dize que
por tener grande edad le perdio el
respeto que le deuia como a
señor. O que le trata mal sus
hijos; o que quiere mandar más
que él; y si eres moço leuantate
que te le quieres echar con la hija,
o con la muger; o que te hallaron
hablando con vna donzella de
casa en vn rincon. De manera
que nunca les falta con que
infame y miserablemente los
echar, y avn sin el salario que
siruio, y donde penso el
desuenturado del sieruo que auia
proueydo a la pobreza y
neçesidad en que pudiera venir
se ofreçio de su voluntad a la
causa y ocasion de muy mayor,
pues echado de aquellas agenas
casas viene forçado al hospital.
Alli viejos los tales y enfermos y
miserables los dan de comer y
beber y sepoltura por limosna y
amor de Dios. Resta agora,
Miçilo, que quieras considerar
como cuerdo y auisado animo
todo lo que te he representado
aqui, porque todo lo esperimenté
y passó por mí. No çeues ni
engañes tu entendimiento con la
vanidad de las cosas desta vida,
que talmente suelen engañar, y
mira bien que Dios y naturaleza a
todos crian y produçen con
habilidad y estado de poder gozar
de lo bueno que ella crió, si por
nuestro apetito, oçio y miseria no
lo venimos a perder, y de aqui
adelante contentate con el estado
que tienes, que no es çierto digno
de menospreçiar.
Miçilo.—¡O gallo
bienauenturado! que
bienauenturado me has hecho oy,
pues me has auisado de tan gran
bien; yo te prometo nunca serte
ingrato a benefiçio de tanto valor.
Solo te ruego no me quieras
desamparar que no podre viuir sin
ti; y porque es venido el dia
huelga, que quiero abrir la tienda
por vender algun par de çapatos
de que nos podamos mantener
oy.

Fin del deçimo nono canto del

gallo.
 NOTAS:
[1102] G., canto del gallo.
[1103] G., poseen.
[1104] G., morir.
[1105] G., acordarsseme.
[1106] G., el daño que despues de tragado el çeuo en el anzuelo
está, y teniendo la meluca en la boca para la tragar no te la hago
echar fuera antes que prendiendo la punta en tu paladar bomites
la sangre y vida con dolor.
[1107] G., el veneno.
[1108] G., no ha de aprouechar mi.
[1109] G., fuerça.
[1110] G., ¿como podre yo aprobar vuestra opinion?
[1111] G., se suple.
[1112] G., pleytos.
[1113] G., los.
[1114] G., poder soliçitar.
[1115] G., los sienten.
[1116] G., y casa.
[1117] G., trabajo, y por el consiguiente más miseria y
enfermedad que lleuan.
[1118] G., deuen desear aquella vida, por solo el deleyte y
contentamiento que da vibir en aquellas anchas y espaçiosas
casas, habitaçion de dioses y de sola persona Real y inçitados de
aquellas grandes esperanças que prometen aquellos poderosos
señores con su real y generosa conuersaçion.
[1119] G., por gozar solamente de aquellos marauillosos tesoros,
aparadores de oro.
[1120] G., al cunplimiento de vuestra neçesidad.
[1121] G., hallara.
[1122] G., propias.
[1123] G., pobres.
[1124] G., día.
[1125] G., grande.
[1126] G., en tal vida.
[1127] G., a la.
[1128] G., acaben.
[1129] G., porque se acuerde de tu.
[1130] G., dignidad.
[1131] G., que vas a.
[1132] G., patrimonio.
[1133] G., seruiçio.
[1134] G., a tu amo.
[1135] G., que te aconteçe que preguntandote el señor que
hombre fue el rey Tholomeo, respondas tu que fue hermano y
marido de Clopatra; o otra cosa que va muy lexos de la intinçion
de tu señor.
[1136] G., dizen que es temor.
[1137] G., de tu habilidad, persona y linaje.
[1138] G., y esta pesquisa que de ti.
[1139] G., a tu.
[1140] G., que digan que se sirue.
[1141] G., sabios y cuerdos.
[1142] G., oculto y sonoliento.
[1143] G., tu saber, cordura y discreçion.
[1144] G., trihunfador.
[1145] G., mereçes, no de roble o arrayan como los otros en la
Olimpia.
[1146] G., cosas.
[1147] G., alguna.
[1148] G., de.
[1149] G., ante.
[1150] G., vna gran.
[1151] G., quanto a grandes salarios.
[1152] G., con.
[1153] G., inuidiosos.
[1154] G., pues.
[1155] G., puede.
[1156] G., osas.
[1157] G., les tienen.
[1158] G., çinquenta.
[1159] G., la.
[1160] G., que te manda tu señora.
[1161] G., que yo tanto amo.
[1162] G., confiar.
 ARGUMENTO
DEL VIGESSIMO Y
VLTIMO CANTO

En este vigessimo canto el auctor

representa a Demophon, el
qual viniendo vn dia a casa de
Miçilo su vezino a le visitar le
halló triste y afligido por la
muerte de su gallo, y
procurando dexarle consolado
se vuelue a su casa.

Demophon. Miçilo.
Demophon.—¡O Miçilo! vezino y
amigo mio, ¿qué es la causa que
ansi te tiene atormentado por
cuydado y miserable
aconteçimiento? veote triste,
flaco, amarillo con representaçion
de philosopho, el rostro lançado
en la tierra, pasearte por este
lugar obscuro dexado tu contino
offiçio de çapateria en que tan a
la contina te solias ocupar con
eterno trabajo, ¿consumes agora
el tiempo en sospiros? Nuestra
igual edad, vezindad y amistad te
obliga a fiar de mí tus tan
miserables cuydados; porque ya
que no esperes de mí que
cunpliese tus faltas ayudarte he
con consejo; y si todo esto no
estimares, bastarte ha saber que
mitiga mucho el dolor comunicar
la pena, prinçipalmente
contandose a quien en alguna
manera por propria la sienta.
¿Qué es de tu belleza y alegria,
desemboltura y comunicaçion con
que a todos tus amigos y vezinos
te solias dar de noche y de dia en
çenas y combites y fuera dellos?
ya son pasados muchos dias que
te veo recogido en soledad en tu
casa que ni me quieres ver ni
hablar, ni visitar como solias.
Miçilo.—¡O mi Demophon! mi
muy caro hermano y amigo. Solo
esto quiero que como tal amigo
de mí sepas, que no sin gran
razon en mí ay tan gran muestra
de mal. Prinçipalmente quando
tienes de mí bien entendido que
no qualquiera cosa haze en mí
tan notable mudança, pues has
visto en mí auer disimulado en
varios tienpos notables toques de
fortuna y infortunios tan graues
que a muy esforçados varones
huuieran puesto en ruyna, y yo
con igual rostro los he sabido
passar. Avnque comunmente se
suele dezir que al pobre no ay
infortunio, que aunque esto sea
ansi verdad no dexamos de sentir
en nuestro estado humilde lo que
al anima le da a entender su
natural. Ansi que tengo por çierto,
Demophon, que no ay igual dolor
de perdida ni miseria que con
gran distançia se compare con el
mio.
Demophon.—Mientras más me le
has encareçido más me has
augmentado la piedad y miseria
que tengo de tu mal; de donde
naçe en mí mayor deseo de lo
saber. Por tanto no reserues en tu
pecho tesoro tan perjudiçial, que
no hay peor espeçie de auariçia
que de dolor. Por çierto en poco
cargo eres a naturaleza pues
pribandote del oro y riquezas, de
pasiones y miserias fue contigo
tan liberal que en abundançia te
las comunicó. Dime porqué ansi
te dueles, que no podré consentir
lo passes con silençio y
disimulaçion.
Miçilo.—Quiero que ante todas
las cosas sepas, ¡o Demophon!
que no es la que me fatiga falta
de dineros para que con tus
tesoros me ayas de remediar, ni
de salud para que con medicos
me la ayas de restituir. Ni tanpoco
me aflixo por mengua que me
hagan las tus vasijas, ni aparatos
y arreos de tapetes y alhajas con
que en abundançia te sueles
seruir. Pero faltame de mi casa vn
amigo, vn conpañero de mis
miserias y trabajos y tan igual que
era otro yo; con el qual poseya yo
todos los tesoros y riquezas que
en el mundo ay; faltame, en
conclusion, vna cosa, Demophon,
que con ningun poder ni fuerças
tuyas la puedes suplir: por lo qual
me escuso de te la dezir, y a ti de
la saber.
Demophon.—No en vano suelen
dezir, que al pobre es proprio el
filisofar, como agora tú; yo no
creo que has aprendido esa
retorica en las scuelas de
Athenas, con que agora de nueuo
me encareçes tu dolor: ni sé qué
maestro has tenido della de poco
acá.
Miçilo.—Ese maestro se me
murio, cuya muerte es causa de
mi dolor.
Demophon.—¿Quien fue?[1163].
Miçilo.—Sabras, amigo, que yo
tenia vn gallo que por mi casa
andaua estos dias en conpañia
destas mis pocas gallinas que las
albergaua y recogia y defendia
como verdadero marido y varon.
Suçedio que este dia de
carnestolendas que passó, vnas
mugeres desta nuestra vezindad,
con temeraria libertad, habiendo
solamente cuenta, y
pareçiendoles que era el dia
priuillegiado me entraron mi casa
estando yo ausente, que
cautelosamente aguardaron que
fuesse ansi, y tomaron mi gallo y
lleuaronle al campo, y con gran
grita y alarido le corrieron
arroxandosele las vnas a las
otras: y como quien dize[1164],
daca el gallo, toma el gallo, les
quedauan las plumas en la mano.
En fin fue pelado y desnudo de su
adornado y hermoso vestido; y no
contentas con esto, rendiendosele
el desuenturado sin poderles
huyr, confiandose de su
inoçençia: pensando que no
pasara adelante su tirania y[1165]
crueldad, subjetandoseles con
humildad, pensando que por esta
via las pudiera conuençer y se les
pudiera escapar, sacaron de sus
estuches cuchillos, y sin tener
respecto alguno a su inoçençia le
cortaron su dorada y hermosa
çeruiz, y de comun acuerdo
hiçieron çena opulenta dél.
Demophon.—Pues ¿por faltarte
vn gallo te afliges tanto que estás
por desesperar? Calla que yo lo
quiero remediar con embiarte otro
gallo criado en mi casa, que creo
que hará tanta ventaja al tuyo
quanta haze mi despensa a la
tuya para le mantener.
Miçilo.—¡O Demophon! quanto
viues engañado en pensar que mi
gallo perdido con qualquiera otro
gallo se podria satisfazer.
Demophon.—¿Pues qué tenia
más?
Miçilo.—Oyeme, que te quiero
hazer saber que no sin causa me
has hallado philosopho rectorico
oy.
Demophon.—Dimelo.
Miçilo.—Sabras que aquel gallo
era Pythagoras el philosopho,
eloquentissimo varon, si le has
oydo dezir.
Demophon.—Pythagoras,
muchas vezes le oy dezir. Pero
dime ¿cómo quieres que entienda
que el gallo era Pythagoras: que
me pones en confusion?
Miçilo.—Porque si oyste dezir de
aquel sapientissimo philosopho,
tambien oyrias dezir de su
opinion.
Demophon.—¿Quál fue?
Miçilo.—Este afirmó que las
animas passauan de vn cuerpo a
otro. De manera que dixo que
muriendo vno de nosotros luego
desanparando nuestra alma este
nuestro cuerpo en que vibio se
passa a otro cuerpo de nueuo a
viuir: y no sienpre a cuerpo de
honbre. Pero aconteçe que el que
agora fue rey passar[1166] a
cuerpo de vn puerco, vaca ó leon,
como sus hados y suçeso[1167] lo
permiten, sin el alma lo poder
evitar; y ansi el alma de
Pythagoras despues aca que
naçio auia viuido en diuersos
cuerpos, y agora viuia en el
cuerpo de aquel gallo que tenia
yo aqui.
Demophon.—Esa manera de
dezir ya la oy que la afirmaua él.
Pero era un mentiroso,
prestigioso y embaydor, y tanbien
como el era efficaz en el persuadir
y aquella gente de su tienpo era
sinple y ruda, façilmente les hazia
creer qualquiera cosa que él
quisiesse soñar.
Miçilo.—Çierto es yo que ansi
como lo dezia era verdad.
Demophon.—¿Como ansi?
Miçilo.—Porque en aquel gallo
me habló y me mostró en muchos
dias ser él.
Demophon.—¿Que te habló?
Cosa me cuentas digna de
admiraçion. En tanta manera me
marauillo de[1168] lo que dices por
cosa nueua que sino huuiera
conoçido tu bondad y sinçera
condiçion pensara yo agora que
estauas fuera de seso y que
como loco deuaneas. O que
teniendome en poco pensauas
con semejantes sueños vurlar de
mí. Pero por Dios te conjuro ¡o
Miçilo! y por nuestra amistad, la
qual por ser antigua entre
nos[1169] tiene muestra de
deydad, me digas muy en
particular todo lo que en la verdad
es.
Miçilo.—¡O Demophon! que sin
lagrimas no te lo puedo dezir,
porque sé yo solo lo mucho que
perdi. Auianme tanto faboreçido
los hados que no creo que en el
mundo haya sido honbre tan feliz
como yo. Pero pareçeme que
este fabor fue para escarneçer de
mí, pues me comunicaron tan
gran bien con tanta breuedad,
que no parece sino que como
anguila se me deleznó.
Solamente me pareçe que
entendí mientra le tuue en le
apretar en el puño para le poseer,
y quando pense que le tenía con
alguna seguridad se me fue.
Tanbien sospecho que los hados
me quisieron tentar si cabia en mí
tanto bien, y por mi mala suerte
no fue dél mereçedor; y porque
veas si tengo razon de lo
encareçer, sabras que en él tenía
yo toda la consolaçion y
bienauenturança que en el mundo
se podia tener. Con él pasaua yo
mis trabajos de noche y de dia: no
auia cosa que yo quisiesse saber
o auer que no se me diesse a
medida de mi voluntad. El me
mostró la vida de todos quantos
en el mundo ay: lo bueno y malo
que tiene la vida del rey y del
çiudadano, del cauallero, del
mercader y del labrador. El me
mostró quanto en el çielo y el
infierno ay, porque me mostró a
Dios y todo lo que gozan los
bienauenturados allá. En
conclusion ¡o Demophon! yo perdi
vn tesoro que ningun poderoso
señor en el mundo más no pudo
poseer.
Demophon.—Por çierto tengo, ¡o
Miçilo! sentir con mucha razon el
gran mal que te han hecho esas
mugeres en pribarte de tanto
bien, quando queriendo satisfazer
a sus vanos apetitos, çelebrando
sus lasçiuas y adulteras fiestas no
perdonan cosa dedicada ni
reseruada por ningun varon, con
tanto que executen su voluntad.
No miraron que tú no eras honbre
con quien tal dia se suelen
festejar, y que por tu edad no
entras en cuenta de los que
çelebran semejantes fiestas. Que
los moços ricos subjetos al tirano
y lasçiuo[1170] amor, enpleados en
las contentar no les pueden negar
cosa que haga a su querer, y ansi
por[1171] los entretener les
demandan en tales dias cosas
curiosas, en el cumplimiento de
las quales conoçen ellas su
mayor y más fiel enamorado y
seruidor; y ansi agora dandoles a
entender que para su laçiuia no
los han menester en el tienpo que
entra[1172] de la quaresma,
mostrando gran voluntad de se
contener pelan aquellos gallos en
lugar de la juuentud; mostrando
menospreçiar su gallardia por ser
tienpo santo el que entra, y que
no se quieren dellos en este
tienpo seruir; y ansi, burlando
dellos, pelan aquellos gallos en su
lugar, dando a entender que los
tengan en poco, pues pelados de
toda su pluma y hazienda en el
tienpo pasado que les fue
disimulado el luxuriar, ya,
recogiendose a la santidad, los
dexan[1173]; ¡o animal tirano y
ingrato a todo bien!; que en todas
sus obras se preçian mostrar su
mala condiçion. ¿Y no vian que tú
no estauas en edad para vurlar de
ti?
Miçilo.—Y avn por conocer yo
bien esa verdad ni me casé, ni las
quise ver; y avn no me puedo
escapar de su tirania, que
escripto me dizen que está que
no ay honbre a quien no alcançe
siquiera la sombra de su veneno y
maldiçion. Solamente me lastima
pensar que ya que me auian de
herir no fue de llaga que se
pudiesse remediar. Quitaronme
mi consejero, mi consuelo y mi
bien. Avn pluguiesse a Dios que
en este tienpo tan santo se
recogiessen de veras y sin alguna
fiçion[1174] tratassen de veras la
virtud. Ayunar, no beber, ni comer
con tanta disoluçion, no se
afeytar, ni vestirse tan
profanamente, ni vurlar, ni mofar
como en otro qualquiera tienpo
comun[1175]. Pero vemos que sin
alguna rienda viben el dia de
quaresma como qualquiera otro.
Son sus fiestas las que aborreçe
Dios, porque no son sino para le
ofender.
Demophon.—Por çierto, Miçilo,
espantado estoy de ver la vurla
destas vanas mugeres; con
quantas inuençiones[1176] passan
su tienpo, y quantas astuçias
vsan para sacar dineros de sus
amantes. Prinçipalmente en estos
pueblos grandes de villas y
çiudades; porque estas cosas no
las saben los aldeanos[1177], ni ha
llegado del todo la maliçia
humana por allá. Por çierto cosas
ay de gran donayre que se
inuentan en estos pueblos
grandes[1178]; con las quales los
inuentores dellas entretienen sus
cosas, y hazen sus hechos[1179]
por su proprio fin de cada qual y
interes; por çierto que me tienen
de cada dia en más admiraçion.
Prinçipalmente en este pueblo
donde ay tanta concurrencia de
gentes, o por causa de corte Real
o por[1180] chançelleria; porque la
diuersidad de estrangeros haze
dar en cosas, y inuentar donayres
que confunden el ingenio auerlas
solamente de notar. Quantas
maneras de santidades fingidas,
romerias, bendiçiones y
peregrinaçiones. Tanto hospital,
colejios de santos y santas; casas
de niños y niñas é hospitales de
viejos. Tanta cofradia de
disçiplinantes de la cruz y de la
pasion, y proçesiones. Tanto
pedigueño de limosnas, que más
son los que piden que son los
pobres que lo[1181] quieren[1182]
reçebir.
Miçilo.—Por çierto, Demophon,
tú tienes mucha razon y vna de
las cosas de que yo estoy más
confuso es de ver que en este
nuestro lugar, siendo tan noble y
el más prinçipal de nuestra
Castilla, donde[1183] ay más
letrados y honbres más agudos
en la conuersaçion y cosas del
mundo y cortesanía, y en estas
flaquezas y engaños que se
ofreçen[1184], son todos en vn
común más façilmente arroxados
y derrocados que en todos
quantos en otros pueblos ay; y
avn engañados para lo aprobar,
auctorizar y seguir[1185]. Que se
atreua vn honbre a entrar aqui en
este pueblo donde está la flor de
cordura y agudeça y discreçion, y
que debajo de vn habito religioso
engañe a todo estado eclesiastico
y seglar, diziendo que hará boluer
los rios atras, y hará cuaxar el
mar, y que forçará los demonios
que en los infiernos estan, y que
hará[1186] parir quantas[1187]
mugeres son, quanto quiera que
de su naturaleza sean esteriles y
que no puedan conçebir[1188], y
que en esto vengan a caer todos
los más prinçipales y generosos
prinçipes y señores, y se le
vengan a rendir quantas dueñas y
donzellas viben en este
lugar[1189]. Que se sufra vibir en
este pueblo vn honbre que debajo
de nonbre de Juan de Dios, no se
le çierre puerta de ningun Señor
ni letrado, ni se le niegue cosa
alguna que quiera demandar, y
después le quemen públicamente
por sometico engañador. Pues,
¿no se ha disimulado tanbien un
clerigo que auia sido primero
frayle veynte años, al qual por
tener muestra de gran santidad le
fue encargado aquel colegio de
niñas? tal sea su salud qual dellas
cuenta dio. ¿En que está esto,
amigo?
Demophon.—A tu gallo quisiera
yo, Miçilo que lo huuieras
preguntado antes que a mí
porque él te supiera mejor
satisfazer. Pero para mi bien creo
que en alguna manera deuo de
açertar; que creo que de los
grandes pecados que ay en este
lugar[1190] viene esta comun
confusion, o çeguedad. Que como
no hay en este pueblo más
prinçipal ni más comun que
pecados y ofensas de Dios;
pleytos, hurtos, vsuras, mohatras,
juegos, blasfemias, symonias,
trapazas y engaños, y despues
desto una puteria general, la qual
ni tiene punto, suelo, ni fin. Que ni
se reserua dia, ni fiesta,
quaresma, ni avn Semana Santa
ni pasqua en que se çese[1191] de
exerçitar como offiçio conueniente
a la republica, permitido y
aprobado por neçesario en la ley,
en pena deste mal nos çiega Dios
nuestros entendimientos, orejas y
ojos, para que auisandonos no
entendamos, y oyendo no
oyamos, y con ojos[1192] seamos
como çiegos que palpamos la
pared. En tanta manera somos
traydos en çeguedad que
estamos rendidos al engaño muy
antes que se ofrezca el
engañador. Hanos hecho Dios
escarnio, mofa y risa a los muy
chicos[1193] niños de muy tierna
edad. ¿En qué lugar por pequeño
que sea se consentira, o
disimulará lo mucho, ni lo muy
poco que se disimula y sufre
aqui? ¿Dónde hay tanto juez sin
justiçia como aqui? ¿Dónde tanto
letrado sin letras como aqui?
¿Dónde tanto executor sin que se
castigue[1194] la maldad? ¿Dónde
tanto escribano, ni más comun el
borron? Que no ay honbre de
gouierno en este pueblo que trate
más que su proprio interes, y
como más se auentajará. Por esto
permite Dios que vengan vnos
zarlos, o falsos prophetas que con
embaymientos, aparençias y
falsas demostraçiones nos hagan
entender qualquiera cosa que nos
quieran fingir. Y lo que peor es,
que quiere Dios que despues
sintamos más la risa que el
interes en que nos engañó.
Miçilo.—Pues avn no pienses,
Demophon, que la vanidad y
perdiçion destas liuianas mugeres
se le ha de passar a Dios sin
castigo; que yo te oso afirmar por
cosa muy çierta y que no faltará.
Que por ver Dios su disoluçion,