Mackie's Theory of Causation Revivified: New Oil in Old Jars
Michael
Strevens
Stanford University
Cases of overdetermination or preemption continue to play an important role in the debate about the proper interpretation of causal claims of the form C is the cause of E. I argue that the best treatment of causal preemption cases is given by Mackie's venerable INUS account of causal claims. The Mackie account suffers, however, from problems of its own. Inspired by its ability to handle preemption, I propose a dramatic revision to the Mackie account---one that Mackie himself would certainly have rejected---to solve its problems. The result is, I contend, the best available account of causal claims.