Actual causality / Joseph Y. Halpern.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Halpern, Joseph Y., 1953- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Functional analysis.

Probabilities.

Causation.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (ix, 229 pages)

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2016]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

A new approach for defining causality and such related notions as degree of responsibility, degrees of blame, and causal explanation.

Contents:

1 Introduction and Overview 1

Notes 5

2 The HP Definition of Causality 9

2.1 Causal Models 10

2.2 A Formal Definition of Actual Cause 20

2.2.1 A language for describing causality 20

2.2.2 The HP definition of actual causality 22

2.3 Examples 28

2.4 Transitivity 41

2.5 Probability and Causality 46

2.6 Sufficient Causality 53

2.7 Causality in Nonrecursive Models 56

2.8 AC2(b^o)vs. AC2(b^u) 58

2.9 Causal Paths 62

2.10 Proofs 64

2.10.1 Proof of Theorem 2.2.3 64

2.10.2 Proof of Proposition 2.4.6 65

2.10.3 Proof of Proposition 2.9.2 67

Notes 70

3 Graded Causation and Normality 77

3.1 Defaults, Typicality, and Normality 77

3.2 Extended Causal Models 79

3.3 Graded Causation 85

3.4 More Examples 86

3.4.1 Knobe effects 86

3.4.2 Bogus prevention 88

3.4.3 Voting examples 91

3.4.4 Causal chains 92

3.4.5 Legal doctrines of intervening causes 94

3.5 An Alternative Approach to Incorporating Normality 97

Notes 102

4 The Art of Causal Modeling 107

4.1 Adding Variables to Structure a Causal Scenario 108

4.2 Conservative Extensions 114

4.3 Using the Original HP Definition Instead of the Updated Definition 116

4.4 The Stability of (Non-)Causality 117

4.5 The Range of Variables 123

4.6 Dependence and Independence 124

4.7 Dealing With Normality and Typicality 126

4.8 Proofs 127

4.8.1 Proof of Lemma 4.2.2 127

4.8.2 Proof of Theorem 4.3.1 128

4.8.3 Proofs and example for Section 4.4 131

Notes 135

5 Complexity and Axiomatization 139

5.1 Compact Representations of Structural Equations 140

5.2 Compact Representations of the Normality Ordering 142

5.2.1 Algebraic plausibility measures: the big picture 143

5.2.2 Piggy-backing on the causal model 148

5.3 The Complexity of Determining Causality 151

5.4 Axiomatizing Causal Reasoning 154

5.5 Technical Details and Proofs 158

5.5.1 Algebraic plausibility measures: the details 158

5.5.2 Proof of Theorems 5.3.1(c) and 5.3.2(b) 160

5.5.3 Proof of Theorems 5.4.1, 5.4.2, and 5.4.4 161

Notes 167

6 Responsibility and Blame 169

6.1 A Naive Definition of Responsibility 171

6.2 Blame 173

6.3 Responsibility Normality, and Blame 179

Notes 183

7 Explanation 187

7.1 Explanation: The Basic Definition 188

7.2 Partial Explanations and Explanatory Power 192

7.3 The General Definition of Explanation 199

Notes 201

8 Applying the Definitions 203

8.1 Accountability 204

8.2 Causality in Databases 205

8.3 Program Verification 207

8.4 Last Words 211

Notes 212.

Notes:

OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.

ISBN:

9780262336611

0262336618

9780262336604

026233660X

OCLC:

957590577

Access Restriction:

Open Access Unrestricted online access