But even Pearl’s theory plausibly doesn’t appeal to impossible propositions to evaluate ordinary options. Lewis’s or Joyce’s or Skyrms’s certainly doesn’t.
I feel this is a dubious move by Schwarz. Maybe it’s true that Joyce’s and Skyrms’ theories of causation don’t appeal to impossible propositions. Lewis’ - “take the closest possible world where your action is B instead of A” doesn’t, but we can equally ask: is there a fact about which possible world in which our action is B instead of A is the closest? Lewis’ guidance on this account, as I recall, is that we should take the closest possible world “in the ordinary sense”, which strikes me as a dumbfoundingly inadequate attempt to answer this question. I do not think it is an accident that Pearl’s “comparatively sketchy” theory is much more widespread.
The point is: maybe you can pin a particular difficulty on FDT but not CDT, but that doesn’t mean the various accounts of causation don’t suffer from objections of similar strength, it just means that if they do, they differ in their particularities. I think they probably do.
I feel this is a dubious move by Schwarz. Maybe it’s true that Joyce’s and Skyrms’ theories of causation don’t appeal to impossible propositions. Lewis’ - “take the closest possible world where your action is B instead of A” doesn’t, but we can equally ask: is there a fact about which possible world in which our action is B instead of A is the closest? Lewis’ guidance on this account, as I recall, is that we should take the closest possible world “in the ordinary sense”, which strikes me as a dumbfoundingly inadequate attempt to answer this question. I do not think it is an accident that Pearl’s “comparatively sketchy” theory is much more widespread.
The point is: maybe you can pin a particular difficulty on FDT but not CDT, but that doesn’t mean the various accounts of causation don’t suffer from objections of similar strength, it just means that if they do, they differ in their particularities. I think they probably do.