Together they wrote a very enlightening book entitled Negative Kausalität (2012), which examines the question of whether negative entities such as omissions and non-actions can be causes or causal factors. This question has moral and legal dimensions, because it leads to the question of whether harmful actions are more blameworthy than non-actions, and whether actively causing harm is more blameworthy than passively allowing harm. The relative blameworthiness of harmful actions versus non-actions also leads to the question of whether intentional omissions of morally obligatory actions are more blameworthy than inadvertent omissions, and whether the blameworthiness of such omissions depends on the severity of the consequences (since harmless omissions may not be considered as morally blameworthy as those that have harmful consequences).
As an example of the causality of omissions or non-actions, Birnbacher and Hommen describe a scenario in which a subject A goes on vacation and asks his co-worker B to water the plants in his office while he is away. B agrees to do so but fails to keep his word, and by the time A returns to the office, the plants have all died. B's omission of the action that A expected him to do is seen as a causal factor in the death of the plants.
As another example of omission causality, they describe a scenario in which a subject A regularly drinks coffee in the morning, but one morning doesn't, and this change in his usual daily routine prompts B to ask what is going on with him today. A's omission of something that B expected him to do is the cause of B's question.
Omission (Unterlassung) may need to be distinguished from negligence (Fahrlässigkeit), which may take the form of a failure to exercise the care required in a given situation, thereby causing harm, even though the subject may not have intended to cause harm or have even foreseen it. The subject has thus violated a duty of care.1 Negligence, like omission, may take the form of non-action or failure to do something.
Doubts about whether omissions (Unterlassungen) or non-actions (Nicht-Handlungen) may be considered as causes (Ursachen) may also be associated with doubts about whether they may be considered as effects (Wirkungen). One solution to this problem may be to consider omissions as quasi-causal, hypothetically causal, or causal under counterfactual conditions, in which case the performance of an action that was not actually performed would certainly (according to the "strong" interpretation) or probably (according to the "weak"interpretation) have prevented the consequences in question. The strong interpretation may be epistemically problematic insofar as it places a much higher burden of proof on anyone who claims to know with certainty that an action that was omitted would have prevented a given event from occurring.2 Indeed, the claim that there may be a completely deterministic connection between actions or non-actions and their effects is difficult to substantiate. It's almost always possible to imagine circumstances in which additional factors could intervene to disrupt the causal connection between an action or non-action and its intended effect.3
Birnbacher and Hommen make clear that to say the relation between non-actions and their consequences is one of hypothetical causality is not to say that it is one of actual causality. Hypothetical causality is not actual or genuine causality.4 However, they admit that the case in which A causes harm to B by omitting to do something may not always be so different from the case in which A actively harms B, and that we may need to ask whether we really need to approach the problem of moral responsibility differently in the two cases. Is there actually a genuine causality in the harms A actively causes B, but not in the harms that A causes B through inaction?
They explain that under a broad definition of omission, omission refers to the non-performance (Nicht-Ausführung) of an action (Handlung) that an agent could have performed under the given conditions. In order for the agent to have omitted performing the action, they must at least have been capable of performing that action. A narrower definition of omission, however, might also stipulate the expectedness (Erwartetheit) or requiredness (Erfordertheit) of the omitted action under the given conditions. Under this definition, an agent can only omit performing an action they were expected or required to perform under the given conditions.5
Other examples of situations in which omissions may act as causal factors include (1) when A's omission of a certain action is a signal for (or triggers) a certain action by B, and (2) when A's omission of a required action causes B to act in A's place.
All omissions need not be intentional. If someone omits to do something, they do not necessarily have to have an explicit intention to omit doing that thing.6
Birnbacher and Hommen note that the legal philosopher Michael S. Moore rejects the idea that omissions or non-events can be causes, because he says that non-events cannot be causal relata. Causal relations can only occur between events, and indeed, there are no such things as non-events; there are are only uninstantiated types of events.7Allowing harm to occur should therefore not be mistaken for causing harm by omission.
Birnbacher and Hommen, however, argue that omissions or non-actions are no less real than the actions they contrast with. Negative events can be observed, just as their positive counterparts can be observed.8 The question then is: do we have a theory of causality that allows for the causal efficacy of omissions?
They explain that while physicalist theories of causality, which postulate a physical relation between cause and effect, may be incompatible with the causality of omissions or non-actions, other theories, such as regularity theory, interventionism, and various forms of counterfactual theory may be compatible.
According to regularity theory, if a set of causal factors S is causally sufficient for a particular event W, then W regularly follows S, and individual occurrences of S are causal for W only as long as this regularity exists. The causality of S for W is seen in the regularity with which W follows S. However, a weakness of this theory is that it may fail to distinguish between causal relations and mere correlations in which there is no causal relation.9
According to regularity theory, if a set of causal factors S is causally sufficient for a particular event W, then W regularly follows S, and individual occurrences of S are causal for W only as long as this regularity exists. The causality of S for W is seen in the regularity with which W follows S. However, a weakness of this theory is that it may fail to distinguish between causal relations and mere correlations in which there is no causal relation.9
Interventionist theories of causality may distinguish between causal relations and correlations by postulating an external intervention (or event, or condition) that causes the omission or non-action, which then causes the given effect. For example, if B forgets to water A's plants because he has taken drugs that make him forget the promise he made to A, then his taking the drugs and his forgetting to water the plants (and thus omitting the action he was expected to do) may both be causal factors for the death of the plants.
According to counterfactual theory, the regularity that exists between cause and effect can be extended beyond actually occurring cases to counterfactual cases. Thus, in the example of causality described above, if B were not to water A's plants while A is away on vacation, then under the given background conditions, this omission would be causally sufficient for A's plants to die, in all possible worlds with the same nosological structure as the actual world.10
According to counterfactual theory, the regularity that exists between cause and effect can be extended beyond actually occurring cases to counterfactual cases. Thus, in the example of causality described above, if B were not to water A's plants while A is away on vacation, then under the given background conditions, this omission would be causally sufficient for A's plants to die, in all possible worlds with the same nosological structure as the actual world.10
Birnbacher and Hommen also explain that there tends to be a normative asymmetry between actions and non-actions insofar as actively causing harm is often judged more severely than failing to prevent harm, even if the harm is the same in the two cases. Some of the qualitative differences between active and passive harms may be determined by the degree of intentionality, deliberateness, and willfulness on the part of the agent. Thus, for example, the Ten Commandments ("Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal," etc.) are predominantly prohibitions on actions, rather than prohibitions on omissions.11
The causal efficacy of omissions may also be seen in the fact that some omissions are seen as expected or desirable, such as refraining from playing a radio in the library or refraining from talking during a concert performance.
Negative causes of events may include non-actions, omissions, inhibitions, absences, deficiencies, and non-occurrences of events. These negative causes can form links in causal chains, just like positive causes. And just as non-actions and omissions may only be seen as causes if the agent could have performed the non-performed or omitted action, so other negative causes may only be seen as causes if they could logically or nomologically have been possible.
An example of an absence as a causal factor would be the absence of a traffic light at a busy intersection, causing traffic congestion at that intersection. Another example of an absence as a causal factor would be the absence of snowfall at a ski resort, causing a decline in the number of tourists at that resort. Other examples include the absence of rain as a cause for drought, and the absence of oxygen as a cause of a match not lighting when struck.
An example of an absence as a causal factor would be the absence of a traffic light at a busy intersection, causing traffic congestion at that intersection. Another example of an absence as a causal factor would be the absence of snowfall at a ski resort, causing a decline in the number of tourists at that resort. Other examples include the absence of rain as a cause for drought, and the absence of oxygen as a cause of a match not lighting when struck.
According to Birnbacher and Hommen, the inflation objection to the causality of absences is that a myriad of absences may be postulated as negative causal factors for any given event. For example, the absence of an elephant, the absence of a hippopotamus, and the absence of a rhinoceros in my bedroom may all be postulated as causal factors for my being able to sleep without being disturbed. A way of countering this objection may be to formulate criteria by which causally relevant factors are distinguished from irrelevant ones. With regard to the causality of omissions, such criteria might include restriction of the concept of omission to the non-performance of actions that are expected or required. However, the non-performance of unexpected or unsolicited actions may also in some cases be causal factors for events, so additional criteria must be considered. Other such criteria might be intended to exclude all negative causal factors that seem to be trivial, but even this strategy might be unsuccessful if some negative causal factors that at first seemed to be trivial later turned out to be significant. Thus, Birnbacher and Hommen conclude that, despite the difficulty of countering the inflation objection, certain strategies for reducing the number of negative possible causes to be considered for any given event may still be preferable to restricting consideration of possible causes to only positive ones.
FOOTNOTES
1Dieter Birnbacher and David Hommen, Negative Kausalität (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), p. 10.
2Ibid., p. 19.
3Ibid., p. 20.
4Ibid., p. 21
5Ibid., p. 29.
6Ibid., p. 19.
7Michael Moore, "For What Must We Pay? Causation and Counterfactual Baselines," San Diego Law Review, Vol. 40, 2003, p. 1223.
8Birnbacher and Hommen, p. 36.
9Ibid., p. 101.
10Ibid., p. 107.
11Ibid., p. 115.
No comments:
Post a Comment