.

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THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
volume cxi, no. 7, july 2014

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SOPHISTICATED EXCLUSION AND
SOPHISTICATED CAUSATION *

T
here seem to be two strong intuitions regarding the mind:
the nonidentity intuition and the causality intuition. On the
one hand, many of us tend to believe that even if the mental
depends in a close way on the physical, mental properties remain dis-
tinct from, or nonidentical with, physical properties. On the other
hand, it seems obvious that our mental states of various kinds (sen-
sations, perceptions, beliefs, desires, and so on) have the power of
causing our behavior and changing the world. However, the noto-
rious “exclusion problem” intends to show that the two intuitions
are in fact incompatible: if mental properties are nonidentical with
physical properties, then mental properties are causally impotent—
the putative causal powers of the mental would be excluded by those
of the physical.1 For many philosophers, myself included, it might
be the hardest thing to give up either intuition. So we need to solve
the exclusion problem in a compatibilist way.
Many proposed solutions to the exclusion problem can at best
reject some simplified exclusion arguments, but fail to block more
advanced versions of the generic argument.2 In this paper, I will

* I am grateful to James Woodward, two anonymous reviewers of this journal, and

those who attended presentations of earlier versions of this article at Donghua Uni-
versity, Renmin University of China, and Sun Yat-sen University for helpful discussion
and comments.
1
See Jaegwon Kim, “The Non-Reductivist’s Troubles with Mental Causation,”
in John Heil and Alfred Mele, eds., Mental Causation (New York: Oxford, 1993),
pp. 189–210; Kim, Mind in a Physical World: An Essay on the Mind-Body Problem and
Mental Causation (Cambridge: MIT, 1998); and Kim, Physicalism, or Something Near
Enough (Princeton: University Press, 2005).
2
See Lei Zhong, “Can Counterfactuals Solve the Exclusion Problem?,” Philosophy
and Phenomenological Research, lxxxiii, 1 ( July 2011): 129–47; Zhong, “Counterfactuals,
Regularity and the Autonomy Approach,” Analysis, lxxii, 1 ( January 2012): 75–85;
and Zhong, “Why the Counterfactualist Should Still Worry about Downward Causa-
tion,” Erkenntnis, forthcoming.

0022-362X/14/1107/341–360 ã 2014 The Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

341
342 the journal of philosophy

put forward a new version of the exclusion argument that seems the
most sophisticated in the literature (call it the sophisticated exclusion
argument) and then propose a novel and promising solution to the
exclusion problem. By considering alternative approaches, I contend
that the most plausible way to block the sophisticated exclusion argu-
ment is to reject the Causal Realization principle, which says that if
property A causes property B on an occasion t, then either (1) A
causes any supervenient property of B on occasion t; or (2) A causes
any subvenient property of B on occasion t.
Then I will argue that the Causal Realization principle is inco-
herent with a sophisticated understanding of causation, the dual-
condition conception of causation, as I dub it. According to this conception,
A causes B if and only if, roughly speaking, the presence of B depends
upon the presence of A and the absence of B upon the absence of
A. Such an idea was suggested as early as by David Hume, and most
recently by a number of philosophers including Christian List, Peter
Menzies, and James Woodward.3 This paper will focus on Woodward’s
interventionist version, which is a well-developed theory of causation
and has gained wide respect in recent years.
I note that some philosophers have already appealed to the inter-
ventionist idea of causation for solving the exclusion problem. 4
Nevertheless, they either just focus on refuting some simplified ver-
sions of the exclusion argument (such as the exclusion argument that
appeals to Kim’s Causal Inheritance principle), or propose wrong
directions to solve the exclusion problem (for example, by suggesting
systematic mental-physical overdetermination). None has discussed
whether interventionism can reject the principle of Causal Realization.
The paper is structured as follows. In section i, I will briefly
present James Woodward’s interventionist theory of causation as

3
David Hume, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1772), ed. Tom L.
Beauchamp (New York: Oxford, 1999); Christian List and Peter Menzies, “Nonreduc-
tive Physicalism and the Limits of the Exclusion Principle,” this journal, cvi, 9
(September 2009): 475–502; Menzies and List, “The Causal Autonomy of the Special
Sciences,” in Cynthia Macdonald and Graham Macdonald, eds., Emergence in Mind
(New York: Oxford, 2010), pp. 108–28; James Woodward, Making Things Happen:
A Theory of Causal Explanation (New York: Oxford, 2003); and Woodward, “Mental
Causation and Neural Mechanisms,” in Jakob Hohwy and Jesper Kallestrup, eds.,
Being Reduced: New Essays on Reduction, Explanation, and Causation (New York: Oxford,
2008), pp. 218–62.
4
Menzies and List, “The Causal Autonomy of the Special Sciences,” op. cit.; Panu
Raatikainen, “Causation, Exclusion, and the Special Sciences,” Erkenntnis, lxxiii,
3 (November 2010): 349–63; Lawrence A. Shapiro, “Lessons from Causal Exclusion,”
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, lxxxi, 3 (November 2010): 594–604; Woodward,
“Mental Causation and Neural Mechanisms,” op. cit.; and Woodward, “Interventionism
and Causal Exclusion,” preprint, URL: http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/8651.
 sophisticated exclusion and sophisticated causation 343

well as the dual-condition idea within the interventionist framework.

In section ii, I will introduce the sophisticated exclusion argument
and highlight its premises. In section iii, I will consider a possible
objection to the sophisticated exclusion argument, which attacks
one premise of the argument, the Non-overdetermination principle.
I will argue that it is implausible, especially within the interventionist
framework, to suppose that mental and physical properties system-
atically overdetermine the effects. In section iv, I will propose my
solution to the exclusion problem that aims to deny the Causal Reali-
zation principle. I will argue that this principle is incompatible with
Woodward’s sophisticated interventionist account of causation that
incorporates the dual-condition conception.
i. woodward’s interventionist theory of causation
Woodward’s theory is commonly regarded as the most developed
version of interventionism, although related ideas had been proposed
by many other philosophers.5 Roughly speaking, on Woodward’s
account, X is a cause of Y (where X and Y are two variables6) with
respect to a variable set V if an intervention that changes the value
of X would also change the value of Y when all other relevant vari-
ables in V are fixed at some value.7
Interventionism seems to capture an important difference between
genuine causation and mere correlation: if X causes Y, a suitable inter-
vention that changes X would also change Y; if X is merely correlated
with Y, on the other hand, Y would not change under manipulation
of X. This is in accordance with the widespread view among social and
natural scientists that causation is closely connected to manipulation.
But not any manipulation should be regarded as a proper instance of
intervention that is relevant to causation. Intuitively, an intervention
should be “an idealized, unconfounded experimental manipulation
which is appropriate for determining whether one variable is causally
related to the other variable.” 8 In order for something to count as an

5
See R. G. Collingwood, An Essay on Metaphysics (Oxford: Clarendon, 1940);
Douglas Gasking, “Causation and Recipes,” Mind, lxiv, 256 (October 1955): 479–87;
Judea Pearl, Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Influence (New York: Cambridge, 2000); Georg
Henrik von Wright, Explanation and Understanding (Ithaca: Cornell, 1971); Woodward,
Making Things Happen, op. cit.; and Woodward, “Mental Causation and Neural Mecha-
nisms,” op. cit.
6
According to Woodward, a variable is “simply a property, quantity etc., which is
capable of taking two or more ‘values’.” See Woodward, “Mental Causation and Neural
Mechanisms,” op. cit., p. 222.
7
See Woodward, Making Things Happen, op. cit., p. 59. See also Woodward, “Mental
Causation and Neural Mechanisms,” op. cit., for later development.
8
Woodward, “Mental Causation and Neural Mechanisms,” op. cit., p. 7.
344 the journal of philosophy

intervention, according to Woodward, the following conditions need

to be satisfied:
I is an intervention variable for X with respect to Y if and only if
1. I causes X.
2. I acts as a switch for all other variables that cause X. That is, certain
values of I are such that when I attains those values, X ceases to
depend on the values of other variables that cause X and instead
depends only on the value taken by I.
3. Any directed path from I to Y goes through X. That is, I does
not directly cause Y and is not a cause of any causes of Y that are
distinct from X except, of course, for those causes of Y, if any, that
are built into the I-X-Y connection itself; that is, except for (a) any
causes of Y that are effects of X (i.e., variables that are causally
between X and Y ) and (b) any causes of Y that are between I and
X and have no effect on Y independently of X.
4. I is (statistically) independent of any variable Z that causes Y and
that is on a directed path that does not go through X.9

Next I want to address an important issue concerning interventionist

mental causation. In the context of mental causation, we are con-
cerned with whether mental properties are causally efficacious,
whereas the interventionist theory regards variables as the relata
of causal claims. So we need to switch from property talk to vari-
able talk. According to interventionists, while a general treatment
in the interventionist framework would deal with causation involv-
ing many-valued variables, causation involving properties is a special
case in which the variables are binary, with the values corresponding
to the presence or absence of those properties.10 So we can think of a
property X as having two values: x p (the presence of X ) and xa (the
absence of X ). Then an interventionist account of property causation
can be formulated as follows:
(N) A property X causes another property Y if and only if
(N1) If an intervention that sets X 5 xp were to occur (while all
other relevant variables in the causal graph are fixed), then
Y 5 y p; and
(N2) If an intervention that sets X 5 xa were to occur (while all
other relevant variables in the causal graph are fixed), then
Y 5 y a.11

9
Woodward, Making Things Happen, op. cit., p. 98.
10
See List and Menzies, “Nonreductive Physicalism and the Limits of the Exclusion
Principle,” op. cit.; Woodward, “Mental Causation and Neural Mechanisms,” op. cit.
11
For a similar formulation, see Woodward, “Mental Causation and Neural Mecha-
nisms,” op. cit.
 sophisticated exclusion and sophisticated causation 345

Let us call (N1) the presence condition, and (N2) the absence condition. (N)
seems to resonate with Hume’s classic passage on causation:
We may define a cause to be an object followed by another, and where
all the objects, similar to the first, are followed by objects similar to the
second. Or, in other words, where, if the first object had not been, the
second never had existed.12
This passage implicitly captures both the presence condition and the
absence condition as we call them now (although Hume seems to mis-
takenly regard the two conditions as equivalent). When (N1) and (N2)
hold, we can say that an intervention that changes the value of X
(from x p to x a, or the reverse) would change the value of Y accord-
ingly. Within an interventionist framework, this is equivalent to saying
that property X causes property Y.13 (N) thus expresses an interven-
tionist version of the dual-condition account of causation.
On David Lewis’s particular account of world similarity, it is trivi-
ally true that C □→ E (where C and E are two actual events or prop-
erty instances). So, for Lewis, the presence condition on causation
is insignificant; his theory of causation is thus primarily concerned
with the absence condition (“ØC □→ Ø E ”). However, the presence
condition is non-trivial in that it “rules out insufficiently specific
causes.”14 So, the dual-condition conception of causation that I rec-
ommend should not presuppose Lewis’s criteria of world similarity.
To discuss this in more detail is beyond the scope of this paper, but I
tend to believe that, as I will argue later, the dual-condition account
of causation seems to better capture our intuitions about causation
than Lewis’s account.
Although I acknowledge that other versions of the dual-condition
idea may also be worth developing,15 in this paper I only focus on
Woodward’s interventionist account. Woodward’s interventionism
enjoys several attractive features. First, this theory is not anthro-
pocentric or subjective like earlier versions of interventionism.
In Woodward’s view, interventions do not have to involve agency or
intention—an intervention can be an entirely natural event.

12
Hume, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, op. cit.
13
In a widely adopted terminology, to say that property A causes property B is
a shorthand way of saying that an event that instantiates A causes another event that
instantiates B in virtue of A and B.
14
List and Menzies, “Nonreductive Physicalism and the Limits of the Exclusion
Principle,” op. cit., p. 484.
15
According to List and Menzies, property F causes property G in the actual world
“if and only if it is true in the actual world that (i) F is present □→ G is present;
and (ii) F is absent □→ G is absent.” See ibid., p. 483.
346 the journal of philosophy

Second, as Woodward himself emphasizes, this theory is non-

reductive in the sense that it does not aim to define causation in
non-causal terms. The theory only insists that in characterizing what
it is for X to cause Y, we need to make use of other sorts of causal
information, such as information about the causal relation between
I and X. So, this theory is immune from the circularity problem,
which caused serious trouble for earlier versions of interventionism.
Third, the interventionist approach to causality has a “contrastive
focus.” There is an increasingly popular idea that causation at bottom
is not a binary relation “c causes e,” but rather involves a contrastive rela-
tion: “c rather than c * causes e rather than e *.”16 Woodward’s inter-
ventionism also incorporates this idea. On his account, X causes Y if a
change on X under intervention from one state to some specific alter-
native leads to a change on Y from one state to an alternative state.
Fourth, Woodward’s theory seems better, in several respects, than
other difference-making theories of causation, such as Lewis’s coun-
terfactual theory (or more accurately, a Lewisian counterfactual
account of type causation).17 For example, Woodward’s intervention-
based account provides a more precise standard for characterizing
causation than Lewis’s similarity criteria.18 Moreover, Woodward’s
theory seems to offer a simpler and more natural solution to some
putative problems with traditional counterfactual theories, such as
the common cause problem and the overdetermination problem.19
ii. sophisticated exclusion and causal realization
Recently, a number of philosophers have appealed to the inter-
ventionist theory of causation to defend the causal efficacy of mental
properties. But most of them focus only on simple versions of the
exclusion argument, for example, the exclusion argument that
appeals to Kim’s Causal Inheritance principle.20 As I argued else-
where, some theories of causation, such as Lewis’s counterfactual
account and the regularity account, can help block simple exclusion

16
See Christopher Hitchcock, “The Role of Contrast in Causal and Explanatory
Claims,” Synthese, cvii, 3 ( June 1996): 395–419; Menzies, “The Exclusion Problem,
the Determination Relation, and Contrastive Causation,” in Hohwy and Kallestrup,
eds., Being Reduced, op. cit., pp. 196–217; Jonathan Schaffer, “Contrastive Causation,”
Philosophical Review, cxiv, 3 ( July 2005): 327–58.
17
David Lewis, “Causation,” this journal, lxx, 17 (Oct. 11, 1973): 556–67; and
Lewis, “Causation as Influence,” this journal, xcvii, 4 (April 2000): 182–97.
18
Woodward, Making Things Happen, op. cit.
19
Woodward, “Mental Causation and Neural Mechanisms,” op. cit.
20
See, for example, Menzies and List, “The Causal Autonomy of the Special
Sciences,” op. cit.; Raatikainen, “Causation, Exclusion, and the Special Sciences,”
op. cit.; Shapiro, “Lessons from Causal Exclusion,” op. cit.; Woodward, “Mental Cau-
sation and Neural Mechanisms,” op. cit.
 sophisticated exclusion and sophisticated causation 347

arguments, but fail to reject more advanced versions of the generic

argument.21 We will see if interventionism has a better chance. Let
us consider the sophisticated exclusion argument as follows:
1. (Supervenience) Mental properties supervene on physical properties.
2. (Nonidentity) Mental properties are not identical with physical
properties.
3. (Causal Completeness of Physics) If an instance of a physical property
has a cause that occurs at t, it has a (sufficient) physical cause that
occurs at t.22
4. (Causal Realization) If property A causes property B, then either (i) A
causes any supervenient property of B instantiated on this occasion
(upward causation); or (ii) A causes any subvenient property of B
instantiated on this occasion (downward causation).23
5. (Non-overdetermination) It is not the case that mental and physical
properties causally overdetermine the effects (in a systematic way).
6. (Conclusion) Therefore, mental properties are causally inefficacious
(the putative causal powers of mental properties are excluded by
those of physical properties).

See Figure 1 below:

M1 M2 M1 M2

P1 P2 P1 P2

Figure 1

21
Zhong, “Can Counterfactuals Solve the Exclusion Problem?,” op. cit.; Zhong,
“Counterfactuals, Regularity and the Autonomy Approach,” op. cit.; and Zhong, “Why
the Counterfactualist Should Still Worry about Downward Causation,” op. cit.
22
Here physical properties are commonly understood as fundamental physical
properties, which are the subjects of physics. See, for example, Karen Bennett,
“Why the Exclusion Problem Seems Intractable, and How, Just Maybe, to Tract It,”
Noûs, xxxvii, 3 (September 2003): 471–97; Tim Crane, “The Mental Causation
Debate,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, lxix, 1 ( June 1995):
211–36; Kim, Mind in a Physical World, op. cit. Some philosophers may advocate a
stronger and more controversial version of Completeness, which understands physical
properties as non-mental properties that are either identical with or realized by
fundamental physical properties. For such a view, see David Papineau, Thinking about
Consciousness (New York: Oxford, 2002); Ralph Wedgwood, The Nature of Normativity
(New York: Oxford, 2007). The stronger version of Causal Completeness of Physics
seems to presuppose the Causal Realization principle. If Causal Realization is no longer
acceptable, this version of Completeness should be rejected as well.
23
It is worth noticing that the Causal Realization premise was not included in pre-
vious versions of the exclusion argument.
348 the journal of philosophy

M1 is a mental property. M2 is a macro-level or higher-level property

(for example, a mental, behavioral, or social property). P1 and P2
are physical realizers of M1 and M2, respectively.24 Given the Causal
Completeness of Physics, we can assume that P1 causes P2.25 Then
according to the Nonidentity thesis and the Non-overdetermination
thesis, it follows that M1 does not cause P2. But this is not enough
for the purpose of establishing causal exclusion. As long as mental
properties can cause some higher-level properties, the causal efficacy
of the mental that matters would still be largely preserved, even if
mental properties cannot cause (fundamental) physical properties.
The exclusion argument should aim to show that M1 does not cause
M2 either.
By assuming the Causal Realization principle, the sophisticated
exclusion argument seems to show that M1 cannot cause M2 either.
The Causal Realization principle is a disjunction of two sub-principles:
the principle of upward causation and the principle of downward
causation.26 Either of the two principles (together with other premises)
will lead to the conclusion that M1 does not cause M2.
Consider the principle of upward causation first. Given the upward
causation principle, if P1 causes P2, then P1 causes M2. And accord-
ing to the Causal Completeness of Physics, P2 is caused by P1. Thus
it follows that P1 causes M2. Given the Non-overdetermination thesis
and the Nonidentity thesis, M1 does not cause M2.
Then turn to the principle of downward causation. According to
the downward causation principle, if M1 causes M2, then M1 causes
P2. In other words, if M1 does not cause P2, then M1 does not cause
M2. And we have already shown that M1 does not cause P2. Thus it
follows that M1 does not cause M2.
Let us check the premises of this argument. The Supervenience
thesis and the Causal Completeness of Physics thesis are widely
accepted. Moreover, the Nonidentity thesis is assumed to be true

24
To accord with the standard reading of the Causal Completeness of Physics,
P1 and P2 are two physical properties in the narrow sense, that is, in the sense
of fundamental physical properties.
25
Someone might say that the Causal Completeness principle does not entail that
P2 is caused by the realizer of M1, P1—it is possible that P2 is caused by another
physical property P3 which is not the realizer of M1 (but instantiated at the same
time as M1). But this does not matter much. If P3 causes P2, then according to the
Non-overdetermination principle, it follows that M1 does not cause P2. Then as I will
show below, if the principle of downward causation is true, it follows that M1 does
not cause M2 either.
26
In Kim, “The Non-Reductivist’s Troubles with Mental Causation,” op. cit., he
introduces a stronger principle of causal realization, which is the conjunction of
the upward causation principle and the downward causation principle. But the cur-
rent weaker version is adequate for the purpose of arguing for causal exclusion.
 sophisticated exclusion and sophisticated causation 349

for the sake of argument. Then we are left with the Causal Realiza-
tion principle and the Non-overdetermination principle. In the
next section, I will consider a possible objection to the sophisticated
exclusion argument that attacks the Non-overdetermination principle.
I will argue that this objection does not work. Then it seems that the
only plausible solution to the exclusion problem is to deny the Causal
Realization principle.
Some philosophers do not discuss the Causal Realization principle
when they argue that a mental property M rather than its physical
realizer P should be taken as the cause of some effect.27 But their
approach is either controversial or incomplete. On the one hand,
if the effect is another physical property, this proposal violates the
Causal Completeness of Physics. On the other hand, if the effect is
a higher-level property, the suggestion that M rather than P is the
cause is inconsistent with the Causal Realization principle. That is,
to argue that mental properties rather than physical properties can
sometimes cause higher-level properties, we have to reject the Causal
Realization principle.
At first sight, both the upward causation principle and the down-
ward causation principle are quite intuitive. Kim says about the down-
ward causation principle as follows:
To cause a supervenient property to be instantiated, you must cause
its base property (or one of its base properties) to be instantiated. To
relieve a headache, you take aspirin: that is, you causally intervene in
the brain process on which the headache supervenes. That’s the only
way we can do anything about our headaches.28
The upward causation principle also appears to be quite plausible. If
you cause a person to be in such and such neural state that realizes
the person’s pain, it seems to follow that you cause the person to be
in pain. If you change the physical state of a painting to the extent that
the painting becomes beautiful, then it seems reasonable to say that
you cause the painting to be beautiful.
However, our quick intuitions regarding the two principles may
be unreliable. In order to fully evaluate the two principles, we need
to discuss whether the two principles are supported by a respectable
theory of causation. In section iv, I will argue that neither of the
two principles is supported by the interventionist framework. If the
Causal Realization principle is false, we can have the so-called

27
See, for example, Menzies and List, “The Causal Autonomy of the Special
Sciences,” op. cit.; Raatikainen, “Causation, Exclusion, and the Special Sciences,” op. cit.
28
Kim, Mind in a Physical World, op. cit., pp. 42–43.
350 the journal of philosophy

“autonomy” option that M1 causes M2 and P1 causes P2, but M1

does not cause P2 and P1 does not cause M2.29 It is worth noticing
that, as I mentioned earlier, M2 can be any higher-level property—
it is not limited to a mental property. Thus, the autonomy approach
should not be understood as parallelism, which is the view that mental
properties can only cause mental properties. On the autonomy solu-
tion I propose, although mental properties cannot cause (fundamen-
tal) physical properties, they can cause higher-level properties (such
as behavioral and social properties)—if so, human agency would be
preserved in the physical world.
Finally, I wish to stress that in this paper mental properties are
assumed to be multiply realizable by physical properties. Certainly,
nonidentity does not entail multiple realizability; it is possible that
mental properties are singly realizable by, but remain distinct from,
physical properties. But since the thesis of multiple realizability is
almost universally accepted by non-reductive physicalists, it is reason-
able to suppose this if we already assume mental-physical noniden-
tity. Moreover, many philosophers understand property identity in
terms of necessary co-extension. On their view, if mental properties
were singly realizable by physical properties, mental properties
would be identical with physical properties. So to assume multiple
realizability is a more robust and less controversial way of charac-
terizing nonidentity. Furthermore, it would be much easier to argue
against the distinctive causal powers of mental properties if they
are singly realizable rather than multiply realizable. If the exclusion
argument works only by rejecting multiple realizability, the exclusion
problem would be quite narrow and less damaging. So the propo-
nents of the exclusion problem should attempt to show that irre-
ducible mental properties are causally inefficacious even if they
are multiply realizable by physical properties.
iii. why non-overdetermination?
Although defenders of mental causation have hardly discussed the
sophisticated exclusion argument, many of them express their
doubts about the Non-overdetermination principle in other contexts.30

29
For earlier ideas of the autonomy approach, see Thomas M. Crisp and Ted A.
Warfield, “Kim’s Master Argument,” Noûs, xxxv, 2 (June 2001): 304–16; John Gibbons,
“Mental Causation without Downward Causation,” Philosophical Review, cxv, 1 ( January
2006): 79–103; Ausonio Marras, “Kim’s Principle of Explanatory Exclusion,” Australasian
Journal of Philosophy, lxxvi, 3 (September 1998): 439–51; Amie Thomasson, “A Non-
reductivist Solution to Mental Causation,” Philosophical Studies, lxxxix, 2–3 (March 1998):
181–95.
30
Bennett, “Why the Exclusion Problem Seems Intractable, and How, Just Maybe,
to Tract It,” op. cit.; Brandon Carey, “Overdetermination and the Exclusion Problem,”
 sophisticated exclusion and sophisticated causation 351

So we can anticipate a possible objection to the sophisticated exclusion

argument that aims to attack the Non-overdetermination premise.
Some philosophers even insist that this is the only way to block the
exclusion argument.31
However, as I discussed earlier, in order to reject the exclusion
argument, we do not have to deny the Non-overdetermination prin-
ciple; we can reject the principle of Causal Realization. Moreover,
as I will argue below, this overdetermination approach does not
work. First of all, it seems that the opponents have not provided
convincing arguments for systematic overdetermination by mental
and physical properties. What is more important, if we look at
the issues carefully, we will find, contrary to what many interven-
tionists think, that the interventionist theory of causation actually
favors the principle of Non-overdetermination (given other reason-
able theses, such as the thesis of multiple realizability).
Let me say something about causal overdetermination. I use the
term “causal overdetermination” in a broad sense: to say that prop-
erty A and property B causally overdetermine the occurrence of E is
just to say that A and B are two (sufficient) causes of E.32 A standard
case of overdetermination is the one in which the two sufficient
causes of the effect are metaphysically independent of each other.33
E is overdetermined in the standard sense by A and B 5df
(i) If A had happened without B, E still would have happened; and
(ii) If B had happened without A, E still would have happened.34
Consider the shootings of a tiger by two hunters. Suppose that the
two shootings are set up in such a way that either would have killed

Australasian Journal of Philosophy, lxxxix, 2 ( June 2011): 251–62; List and Menzies,
“Nonreductive Physicalism and the Limits of the Exclusion Principle,” op. cit.; Raatikainen,
“Causation, Exclusion, and the Special Sciences,” op. cit.; Shapiro, “Lessons from Causal
Exclusion,” op. cit.; Woodward, “Mental Causation and Neural Mechanisms,” op. cit.; and
Woodward, “Interventionism and Causal Exclusion,” op. cit.
31
For example, Woodward says: “Anyone rejecting the exclusion argument of
course will be committed to this sort of overdetermination.” See Woodward, “Inter-
ventionism and Causal Exclusion,” op. cit., p. 36.
32
Strictly speaking, a single property cannot be a sufficient cause of any effect.
But when I say property A and property B are two sufficient causes of E, I just mean
that there are two distinct and sufficient causes of E occurring at the same time
such that one includes property A but not property B, and the other includes prop-
erty B but not property A.
33
Some philosophers, such as Bennett, use the term “overdetermination” in a
narrow sense, that is, in the sense of independent overdetermination. See Bennett,
“Why the Exclusion Problem Seems Intractable, and How, Just Maybe, to Tract It,”
op. cit.
34
Ibid., p. 480.
352 the journal of philosophy

the tiger even if the other had failed. Then the death of the tiger is
causally overdetermined by the two shootings.
However, it is commonly assumed that mental properties super-
vene upon physical properties. So the model of independent over-
determination does not apply to mental causation. Jaegwon Kim
puts it this way:
In standard cases of overdetermination, like two bullets hitting the
victim’s heart at the same time…each overdetermining cause plays a
distinct and distinctive causal role. The usual notion of overdetermi-
nation involves two or more separate and independent causal chains
intersecting at a common effect. Because of supervenience, however,
that is not the kind of situation we have here.35
Cases of independent overdetermination, though rare, are quite
intelligible. No one denies that there could be some cases of inde-
pendent overdetermination. In contrast, we are reluctant to say that
both the supervenient property and the subvenient property are
sufficient causes of the same effect. In the literature on causation,
there are cases in which the subvenient property is a better candi-
date for the cause than the supervenient property; there are also
cases in which the supervenient property rather than the subvenient
property should be regarded as the real cause.36 But there are
no clear cases in which both the supervenient and the subvenient
property are the (sufficient) causes of the same effect. Therefore,
it seems ad hoc to postulate mental-physical overdetermination for
solving the exclusion problem.
More importantly for our purposes, I find that the interventionist
theory of causation is unfriendly to the overdetermination proposal.
Some philosophers insist that interventionism can have conceptual
room for denying the Non-overdetermination principle. But their
conclusion is based on a simplified understanding of the picture. In
discussing whether interventionism is compatible with mental-physical
overdetermination, those philosophers only take the Supervenience
thesis into consideration. The conclusion may be different if we add
other (reasonable) assumptions. Let us turn back to the sophisticated
exclusion argument and discuss whether M1 and P1 can causally over-
determine P2, on an interventionist account. Now we add another
plausible thesis, the assumption that M1 is multiply realizable—that
is, P1 is one of the multiple realizers of M1.

35
Kim, Physicalism, or Something Near Enough, op. cit., p. 48.
36
See Woodward, “Mental Causation and Neural Mechanisms,” op. cit.; Stephen
Yablo, “Mental Causation,” Philosophical Review, ci, 2 (April 1992): 245–80.
 sophisticated exclusion and sophisticated causation 353

Suppose that P1 causes P2 (given the Causal Completeness of

Physics). On the interventionist account, to say that P1 causes P2
is to say that the two sentences below are true:
(1) If an intervention that makes P1 present were to occur (while all
other relevant variables are fixed), then P2 would also be present;
(2) If an intervention that makes P1 absent were to occur (while all
other relevant variables are fixed), then P2 would also be absent.
But I want to show that given the truths of (1) and (2), and given
multiple realizability, M1 does not cause P2 within the interven-
tionist framework. In other words, I will argue that the two con-
ditions below are not satisfied—while (4) is true, (3) is false:
(3) If an intervention that makes M1 present were to occur (while
all other relevant variables are fixed), then P2 would also
be present;
(4) If an intervention that makes M1 absent were to occur (while all
other relevant variables are fixed), then P2 would also be absent.

Given mental-physical supervenience, if M1 is absent, P1 is also

absent. Then according to (2), if an intervention were to make P1
absent, P2 would also be absent. Thus it follows that if an interven-
tion were to make M1 absent, then P2 would also be absent—that
is, (4) is true. However, (3) is false. Given multiple realizability, M1
could be realized by a physical property other than P1, say, P1*. Sup-
pose that an intervention makes P1* (rather than P1) present on
some occasion. In that case, the intervention also makes M1 present.
But since P1 is absent, P2 would also be absent, according to (2). So,
although an intervention makes M1 present in that case, P2 would
be absent. That is to say, (3) does not hold.
Here is an example.37 Suppose that a pigeon has been trained to
peck at objects in the following way:
(5) If the pigeon were to see a scarlet object under interventions (while
all other relevant variables are fixed), then the pigeon would peck
at it;
(6) If the pigeon were to see a non-scarlet object under interventions
(while all other relevant variables are fixed), then the pigeon would
not peck at it.38

37
The example is inspired by, but different from, Yablo’s (ibid.) original example.
38
It is worth noticing that whereas the red-scarlet relation is a relationship
between determinables and determinates, it is controversial whether mental prop-
erties are related to physical properties in such a way. But my example focuses
on the point that red is multiply realized by its shades, analogous to mental-physical
multiple realization.
354 the journal of philosophy

On the interventionist account, we can say that the object’s being

scarlet causes the pigeon’s pecking. Now we ask whether red is also
the cause of pecking—that is, whether (7) and (8) are both true:
(7) If the pigeon were to see a red object under interventions (while
all other relevant variables are fixed), then the pigeon would peck
at it;
(8) If the pigeon were to see a non-red object under interventions
(while all other relevant variables are fixed), then the pigeon would
not peck at it.

Red (M1)

Scarlet (P1) Pecking (P2)

Figure 2

We can consider Figure 2 above for illustration. It is easy to see that

(8) is true. Red is realized by scarlet—if an object is not red, it is not
scarlet either. So, if the pigeon would not peck at a non-scarlet object,
it would not peck at a non-red object—that is, if (6) is true, then (8) is
also true. But (7) seems false. As we know, red is multiply realized by
scarlet, crimson, and so on. Suppose that the pigeon were to see a
crimson object under interventions. In that case, the pigeon would
not peck at the object, even if it were red. That is to say, (7) is false.
We have the strong intuition that the object’s being red is not the
cause of the pigeon’s pecking—the interventionist account accom-
modates this intuition.
I hope I have shown that the proposal of mental-physical over-
determination is incoherent with the interventionist theory of cau-
sation (given the thesis of multiple realizability). If someone
attempts to block the exclusion argument by appeal to inter-
ventionism, it would be self-defeating for her to attack the Non-
overdetermination principle—she should find other ways out.
iv. interventionism and causal autonomy
From what has been discussed above, it seems we ought to con-
clude that the only plausible way to block the exclusion argu-
ment is to deny the principle of Causal Realization, that is, to reject
both the upward causation principle and the downward causation
 sophisticated exclusion and sophisticated causation 355

principle.39 This solution should not be raised merely as a conceptual

possibility, but rather should be bolstered by a respectable account of
causation. In the current section, I will attempt to argue that we can
appeal to Woodward’s interventionism, which is a plausible theory
of causation for independent reasons, to block the principle of
Causal Realization.
Let us discuss first whether interventionism can reject the principle
of upward causation. See Figure 3 for illustration.

M2

P1 P2
Figure 3

We already know that P1 causes P2. This causal relation can be

interpreted, within the interventionist framework, as the two con-
ditionals below:
(1) If an intervention that makes P1 present were to occur (while all
other relevant variables are fixed), then P2 would also be present;
(2) If an intervention that makes P1 absent were to occur (while all
other relevant variables are fixed), then P2 would also be absent.

And in order to decide whether P1 causes M2, we should consider

the two conditionals:
(3) If an intervention that makes P1 present were to occur (while all
other relevant variables are fixed), then M2 would also be present;
(4) If an intervention that makes P1 absent were to occur (while all
other relevant variables are fixed), then M2 would also be absent.
It is not hard to find that (3) is true. According to (1), if an inter-
vention were to make P1 present, then P2 would be present.
Given mental-physical supervenience, if P2 were present, then
M2 would also be present. Thus it follows that if an intervention

39
What I try to deny is the principle of upward/downward causation. In other
words, I deny that property A’s causing property B entails A’s causing the super-
venient property of B, say, property C, and that A’s causing C entails A’s causing
B. But I am not denying that sometimes A could be both the cause of B and the
cause of C for other reasons.
356 the journal of philosophy

were to make P1 present, then M2 would also be present—that is,

(3) is true.
How about (4)? According to (2), if an intervention were to make
P1 absent, then P2 would be absent. But M2 is multiply realized
by physical properties. On some occasions, although P2 is absent,
M2 is still present by being realized by another physical property
P2*. So, even if an intervention were to make P1 absent, M2 could
still be present—(4) does not hold. In a word, even if P1 causes
P2, P1 may not cause M2, which allows the possibility that M2 is
caused by M1. Therefore, the causal efficacy of mental properties
remains intact.
Now let us consider whether interventionism can help block the
downward causation principle. See Figure 4 below:

M1 M2

P2
Figure 4

Suppose for the sake of argument that M1 causes M2. That is, the
two conditionals below are true:
(5) If an intervention that makes M1 present were to occur (while all
other relevant variables are fixed), then M2 would also be present;
(6) If an intervention that makes M1 absent were to occur (while all
other relevant variables are fixed), then M2 would also be absent.
In order to determine whether M1 causes P2, we need to discuss
whether both of the two conditions below are satisfied:
(7) If an intervention that makes M1 present were to occur (while all
other relevant variables are fixed), then P2 would also be present;
(8) If an intervention that makes M1 absent were to occur (while all
other relevant variables are fixed), then P2 would also be absent.
Consider (8) first. Given mental-physical supervenience, M2 is
realized by P2. That is, if M2 is absent, P2 must also be absent.
According to (6), if an intervention were to make M1 absent, then
M2 would also be absent. It thus follows that if an intervention
were to make M1 absent, then P2 would also be absent—(8)
is true.
 sophisticated exclusion and sophisticated causation 357

However, (7) seems false. According to (5), if an intervention were

to make M1 present, M2 would also be present. But it does not
follow from the presence of M2 that P2 must be present. Given
multiple realizability, M2 could be realized by other physical prop-
erties. Suppose that although P2 is absent on this occasion, M2 is
still present by being realized by another physical property P2*. So,
even if an intervention were to make M1 present, P2 could still be
absent. That is, (7) is false. Therefore, even if M1 causes M2, M1
may not cause P2—the downward causation principle fails. Equiva-
lently, even if M1 does not cause P2, M1 could still cause M2. The
causal efficacy of M1 can thus be preserved.
It is interesting to note that some interventionists endorse the
principle of downward causation. For example, Woodward writes:
[I]t is appropriate not only to draw an arrow from M1 to M2 when
interventions on M1 are associated with changes in M2, but also to
draw an arrow from M1 to P2 in such cases, since P2 will also change
under interventions on M1.40
For Woodward, if the principle of downward causation is true, the
causal powers of mental properties would be extended (from M1’s
causing M2 to M1’s causing P2). It seems Woodward does not realize
that the principle of downward causation (together with other rea-
sonable assumptions) implies the causal inefficacy of mental proper-
ties, as the sophisticated exclusion argument shows.
Leaving aside the question of what follows from the principle of
downward causation, I want to diagnose why some philosophers
(mistakenly) believe that interventionism licenses the downward
causation principle—in particular, why they believe that “P2 will
also change under interventions on M1.” There may be two reasons.
First, perhaps due to the influence of traditional counterfactual
theories of causation, when some philosophers consider whether
the value of a property would change under interventions, they
are mainly interested in changes from the presence of a property
to the absence of the property.41 Certainly, if M2 were absent under
interventions, then P2 would also be absent under those interven-
tions (given that M2 is realized by P2). So, if we only consider the
cases in which M1 and P2 are already present, it easily follows that
an intervention that changes the value of M1 would also change
the value of P2 (by changing the value of M2). However, this is

40
Woodward, “Interventionism and Causal Exclusion,” op. cit., p. 16.
41
See Lewis, “Causation,” op. cit.; Raatikainen, “Causation, Exclusion, and the Spe-
cial Sciences,” op. cit.
358 the journal of philosophy

not enough to determine whether M1 causes P2. As I emphasized

in section i, in order to fully evaluate the possible causal relation
between property X and property Y, we should consider not only
the absence condition (N2), but also the presence condition (N1).
Second, some philosophers may understand P2 as the whole
supervenience base of M2, which consists of all physical realizers
of M2.42 Since mental properties supervene upon physical proper-
ties, there cannot be a mental difference without a physical dif-
ference. So, if P2 were the whole supervenience base of M2, any
change of M2 would entail a change of P2. On the one hand, if
M2 were absent under interventions on M1, P2 would also be absent
under those interventions. On the other hand, if M2 were present
under interventions on M1, then at least some physical realizer in
the set P2 would be present. Thus, the downward causation principle
seems to be vindicated within the interventionist framework. How-
ever, it is problematic to understand P2 as the whole supervenience
base of M2, which is in fact an indefinite or even infinite disjunction
of the physical realizers.43 Many philosophers argue that such a
disjunctive “property” is not a genuine property.44 What is more
important, regardless of whether such disjunctive properties are
real properties, they are unsuitable relata for any sort of causal
relation.45 According to our common understanding of causation,
an event C causes another event E in virtue of certain individual
properties that are instantiated by C and E, but not in virtue of
some disjunctive properties the disjuncts of which include those
individual properties. For example, a brick’s hitting a window
causes the window’s being broken in virtue of some properties
that are instantiated on this occasion. Philosophers disagree on
what properties are causally relevant here: some may maintain
that the causal event occurs (partly) in virtue of the fragility of
the window, whereas others may insist that the event occurs due
to the window’s particular physical property that realizes fragility

42
Woodward seems to understand the physical realizer as the whole supervenience
base or something like that. See Woodward, “Interventionism and Causal Exclusion,”
op. cit., p. 14. Here let me put aside the question of whether this reading of Woodward
is correct.
43
Our assumption of multiple realizability rules out the possibility that the dis-
junction of the physical realizers is equivalent to an individual physical property—
if so, then the mental property would be singly realizable.
44
D. M. Armstrong, A Theory of Universals: Universals and Scientific Realism
(Cambridge, UK: University Press, 1978); Paul Audi, “How to Rule out Disjunctive
Properties,” Noûs, xlvii, 4 (December 2013): 748–66.
45 Lewis, “New Work for a Theory of Universals,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy,

lxi, 4 (December 1983): 343–77.

 sophisticated exclusion and sophisticated causation 359

(call it “P1”). But both seem to agree that it is not in virtue of the
disjunctive property that consists of all physical realizers of fra-
gility (P1 Ú P2 Ú P3 … Ú Pn ). Since it is individual properties that
figure in causal relations, the exclusion problem is concerned with
whether the causal powers of a mental property are excluded by
its individual physical realizers on every occasion.46 To vindicate
mental causation is thus to show that on at least some occasions
the effects are caused by mental properties rather than individual
physical realizers.
To sum up, I have argued that the interventionist theory of cau-
sation can reject both the upward causation principle and the down-
ward causation principle, and hence support the autonomy option
that M1 causes M2 and P1 causes P2, but M1 does not cause P2 and
P1 does not cause M2. To end this section, I will use an example
to illustrate the whole picture of causal autonomy. This is also a case
involving a pigeon, but this time the scenario is more complicated.
See Figure 5 below:

Red (M1) Touching (M2)

Scarlet (P1) Pecking (P2)

Figure 5

As in the earlier example, the pigeon will peck at an object if and

only if it is scarlet. But in addition, the pigeon has been trained
to touch an object in some way or other if and only if it is red.
The pigeon can touch a thing with different parts of the body, such
as beak, head, and wing—pecking is one of the multiple realizers of
touching. In the interventionist terminology, we can say that (a) the
presence and absence of red under interventions would lead to
the presence and absence of touching, respectively; and (b) the
presence and absence of scarlet would lead to the presence and
absence of pecking, respectively. However, as I argued earlier, given

46
See, for example, Kim, Mind in a Physical World, op. cit.; and Kim, Physicalism,
or Something Near Enough, op. cit.; List and Menzies, “Nonreductive Physicalism and
the Limits of the Exclusion Principle,” op. cit.
360 the journal of philosophy

the truths of (a) and (b) and given multiple realizability, we can
find that (c) the absence of scarlet under interventions would
not lead to the absence of touching; and (d) the presence of red
under interventions would not lead to the presence of pecking. The
interventionist dual-condition idea of causation seems to accom-
modate and explain our strong intuition that scarlet (rather than
red) causes specking, and red (rather than scarlet) causes touching.
v. conclusion
The exclusion problem is perhaps the trickiest problem for non-
reductive physicalism. Although there have been various proposals
to solve the exclusion problem, many of them are in wrong direc-
tions. As I have pointed out, the most plausible solution to the
exclusion problem is to reject the Causal Realization principle.
In this paper, I have attempted to block the sophisticated exclu-
sion argument by appeal to the dual-condition conception of cau-
sation that is exhaustively developed in Woodward’s interventionist
theory. I have argued that neither the upward causation principle
nor the downward causation principle is acceptable within the
interventionist framework: while the upward causation principle
is unable to meet the absence condition, the downward causation
principle fails to satisfy the presence condition. I hope that the
paper thus proposes a novel and promising defense of mental
causation—if so, then we do not have to get stuck between epi-
phenomenalism and reductionism.
lei zhong
The Chinese University of Hong Kong