Causal judgments and causal explanations

Consider the following two instances of the lighting of a match: first, a matche is struck in the railroad smoking car, and the match lights. Second, a match, having been pulled from the assembly line in the match factory, is struck in a supposedly evacuated chamber, the purpose being to test the hardness of the match head. But the chamber has not been properly sealed, and the match lights. In the first case, it seems correct to say that the cause of the lighting of the match was the striking of the match. In the second case, however, the cause can reasonably said to be the presence of oxygen, and not the striking. Rather, we say that this striking is a condition of the lighting, and not the cause whereas in the first case the presence of oxygen is a condition, and the striking is the cause. John S. Mill opposed such talk, arguing that "the real cause is the whole of these antecedents and we have, philosophically speaking, no right to give the name of cause to one of them exclusively of the others." Indeed, Mill went on to assert that "nothing can better show the absence of any scientific ground for the distinction between the causes of a phenomenon and its conditions than the capricious manner in which we select from among the conditions, than we choose to denominate the clause. Although many writers, and particularly the logical empiricists, have voiced no opposition to Mill's view, even within the context of discussion of causal judgment and causal explanation, this tradition is by no means unchallenged. Ducasse, for example, addressed himself to Mill's denial of the justifiability of the distinction between causes and conditions and attempted to provide a principle on the basis of which the distinction could be defended.... Language: en