The non-reductive physicalist would like to believe that mental properties are not identical to physical properties; that there are complete causal explanations of all events in terms of physical properties; and that there are sometimes explanations of events in terms of mental properties. However, some have argued that these claims cannot all be true, since they are collectively inconsistent with a principle of causal exclusion. In this paper I argue that the best formulation of the interventionist theory of causation (...) entails the falsity of the exclusion principle. However, I argue that it does so at the cost of revealing a weakness in the interventionist theory itself. (shrink)

Causal exclusion arguments are taken to threaten the autonomy of the special sciences, and the causal efficacy of mental properties. A recent line of response to these arguments has appealed to “independently plausible” and “well grounded” theories of causation to rebut key premises. In this paper I consider two papers which proceed in this vein and show that they share a common feature: they both require causes to be proportional to their effects. I argue that this feature is a (...) bug, and one that generalises: any attempt to rescue the autonomy of the special sciences, or the efficacy of the mental, from exclusion worries had better not look to proportionality for help. (shrink)

I describe a phenomenon that has not yet been described in the epistemology literature. I label this phenomenon expression-style exclusion. Expression-style exclusion is an example of how s...

Some non-reductionists claim that so-called ‘exclusion arguments’ against their position rely on a notion of causal sufficiency that is particularly problematic. I argue that such concerns about the role of causal sufficiency in exclusion arguments are relatively superficial since exclusionists can address them by reformulating exclusion arguments in terms of physical sufficiency. The resulting exclusion arguments still face familiar problems, but these are not related to the choice between causal sufficiency and physical sufficiency. The upshot is (...) that objections to the notion of causal sufficiency can be answered in a straightforward fashion and that such objections therefore do not pose a serious threat to exclusion arguments. (shrink)

What do ethics codes and guidelines tell us about who is vulnerable in research? To what are they vulnerable? And how might this vulnerability be addressed? These questions guided our analysis of 57 research ethics codes and guidelines that mention the involvement of vulnerable persons in research. The chapter draws upon the findings from this analysis to help explain how and why some people might be excluded from research unnecessarily. The investigation is also informed by the findings from an empirical (...) study into the perspectives of 22 researchers who have extensive experience of undertaking research with vulnerable individuals. Their encounters with research governance measures, including research ethics approvalEthics approval and research ethics codes, expose challenges that can exacerbate unnecessary exclusionExclusion from research. We learn from the researchers and the research ethics codes that governance measures intended to protect the vulnerable from exploitationExploitation in research can lead to unfair exclusionExclusion when applied in a blanket fashion. Research governance guidelines and processes must encourage a more nuanced understanding of what it means to be vulnerable in research to ensure that people are not left behind unnecessarily. (shrink)

In this paper I reconstruct and evaluate the validity of two versions of causal exclusion arguments within the theory of causal Bayes nets. I argue that supervenience relations formally behave like causal relations. If this is correct, then it turns out that both versions of the exclusion argument are valid when assuming the causal Markov condition and the causal minimality condition. I also investigate some consequences for the recent discussion of causal exclusion arguments in the light of (...) an interventionist theory of causation such as Woodward's (2003) and discuss a possible objection to my causal Bayes net reconstruction. (shrink)

The workplace encounters challenge due to the absence of inclusive environments, resulting in potential loss of top-tier talent, diminished productivity and diminished business performance. This research endeavours to construct a comprehensive framework for the integration of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) individuals, focusing on embedding gender and sexual minorities. This study examines the relationship between diversity-friendly workplace management and LGBT integration through advocacy by allies (ABA) and family role modelling. The research framework is constructed based on the principles of (...) sociometric, signalling and family systems theory and is undertaken within the Indian IT/ITES sector, involving 546 employees across 9 technology parks through a survey methodology. The analysis was carried out utilizing Smart PLS software, employing structural equation modelling and making predictions using partial least squares. Mediation and moderation analyses were performed. Findings demonstrate that effective management of diversity-friendly workplaces has a favourable impact on the integration of LGBT individuals in work environments. Results also suggest that ABA plays a supporting role in this relationship through complementary mediation, while the influence of family role modelling is moderated. This study contributes substantially to both theoretical understanding and managerial practices. A cross-cultural, longitudinal and a qualitative perspective could have added more insights to the study. (shrink)

.This paper contains my reply to four commentators in a symposium (published in the journal Jurisprudence) on my book Legal Directives and Practical Reasons (OUP 2018). The commentators who offered their beneficial contributions to this exchange are Dimitrios Kyritsis, Haris Psarras, Fábio Perin Shecaira, and Torben Spaak. The exchange concerns several aspects of the book, including my critique of Joseph Raz’s pre-emption thesis (and, in particular, his notion of authority-given exclusionary reasons); my critique of an antithesis which I called ‘the (...) weighing model’; the alternative position I put forward under the label ‘the dispositional model’; the relationship between the foregoing positions; and the links between my account and the criteria of legal validity. (shrink)

A quite popular approach to solving the Causal Exclusion Problem is to adopt a counterfactual theory of causation. In this paper, I distinguish three versions of the Causal Exclusion Argument. I argue that the counterfactualist approach can block the first two exclusion arguments, because the Causal Inheritance Principle and the Upward Causation Principle upon which the two arguments are based respectively are problematic from the perspective of the counterfactual account of causation. However, I attempt to show that (...) the counterfactualist approach is unable to refute a sophisticated version (i.e. the third version) of the exclusion argument in that the Downward Causation Principle, a premise of the third exclusion argument, is actually implied by the counterfactual theory of causation. Therefore, even if other theories of causation might help the non-reductive physicalist to solve the exclusion problem, the counterfactual theory of causation cannot. (shrink)

The continuously evolving digitization of how we facilitate and disseminate information, educate ourselves, study, and how we do business presents a critical disruption of fundamental rights insofar as it manifestly increases the dependence of their application on digital technology and on a digital infrastructure of a networked world.Access to the benefits of the Internet and the digital ecosystem enhances digital inclusion, which in turn improves social and economic inclusion. The right to access the Internet establishes a social right aiming at (...) restraining social injustice and discrimination between the “haves” and the “haves not.” Nevertheless, the level of access to the Internet and participation in the information society is not only volatile but very often also unequal and discriminatory. Inequality and discrimination applied in Internet access lead to the creation of a digital divide.The digital organization of work based on the platform economy system, and the consequent bipolar division of labor into unskilled and high-tech labor are only some elements highlighting the new digital reality in the workplace environment. Given the immense footprint of the digital transformation on the organization of an enterprise, and the required skills it needs in order to thrive in the digital economy’s ecosystem, it is imperative for national, supranational, and international authorities, as well as for employers and trade unions to promote policies that expand work opportunities, eliminate workforce’s inequalities and the risk of being excluded from the benefits of the digital economy. Such a comprehensive policy framework could be based on three pillars: lifelong learning, collective representation, and algorithmic decision-making control. (shrink)

Advocates of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) often argue that, although the provision of PAS is morally permissible for persons with terminal, somatic illnesses, it is impermissible for patients suffering from psychiatric conditions. This claim is justified on the basis that psychiatric illnesses have certain morally relevant characteristics and/or implications that distinguish them from their somatic counterparts. In this paper, I address three arguments of this sort. First, that psychiatric conditions compromise a person’s decision-making capacity. Second, that we cannot have sufficient certainty (...) that a person’s psychiatric condition is untreatable. Third, that the institutionalisation of PAS for mental illnesses presents morally unacceptable risks. I argue that, if we accept that PAS is permissible for patients with somatic conditions, then none of these three arguments are strong enough to demonstrate that the exclusion of psychiatric patients from access to PAS is justifiable. (shrink)

Is it possible to justify territorial rights? Provided a justification for territorial rights can be found, does it ground claims toparticularterritories? And provided a claim to particular territories can be justified, what kind of claim is it? Is it a claim to jurisdiction? A claim to control resources? A claim to control the movement of people across borders? In this paper I review some prominent accounts seeking to answer these questions. After outlining their main features, I focus on some difficulties (...) they encounter, in particular with regard to the justification of exclusion. (shrink)

This commentary offers a coherent reading of the papers presented in the special issue ‘Exclusion, Engagement, and Empathy: Reflections on Public Participation in Medicine and Technology’. Focusing on intellectual self-trust it adds a further perspective on the harmful epistemic consequences of social exclusion for individual agents in healthcare contexts. In addition to some clarifications regarding the concepts of ‘intellectual self-trust’ and ‘social exclusion’ the commentary also examines in what ways empathy, engagement and participatory sense-making could help to (...) avoid threats to intellectual self-trust that arise form being excluded from participation in communicative practices in the context of healthcare. (shrink)

This chapter delineates several distinct (and often problematically conflated) kinds of sexual exclusion: (1) lack of access to sexual gratification or pleasure, (2) lack of access to partnered sex, and (3) lack of social/psychological validation that comes from being seen as a sexual being. Liberman offers proposals about what our collective responses to these harms should be while weighing in on debates about whether there are rights to various kinds of sexual goods. She concludes that we ought to provide (...) mechanical assistance to those who are incapable of self-stimulation, enhance access to sexual education for everyone, and engage in a systematic effort to change the harmful social norms, stereotypes, and cultural ideals that drive exclusion from partnered sex and can lead to social invalidation. (shrink)

Supporters of open borders sometimes argue that the state has no pro tanto right to restrict immigration, because such a right would also entail a right to exclude existing citizens for whatever reasons justify excluding immigrants. These arguments can be defeated by suggesting that people have a right to stay put. I present a new form of the exclusion argument against closed borders which escapes this “right to stay put” reply. I do this by describing a kind of (...) class='Hi'>exclusion that has not been discussed in depth, which I call “territorial exclusion.” Territorial exclusion is the process according to which the group that wishes to exclude current citizens secedes from the territory in which those citizens reside. I argue that the wrongness of territorial exclusion explains why there is no pro tanto right for a state to exclude immigrants, because otherwise there would be a pro tanto right for the state to kick people out by seceding from the territory they inhabit. Because kicking people out like this is typically wrong, borders cannot be closed. (shrink)

Jaegwon Kim’s influential exclusion argument attempts to demonstrate the inconsistency of nonreductive materialism in the philosophy of mind. Kim’s argument begins by showing that the three main theses of nonreductive materialism, plus two additional considerations, lead to a specific and familiar picture of mental causation. The exclusion argument can succeed only if, as Kim claims, this picture is not one of genuine causal overdetermination. Accordingly, one can resist Kim’s conclusion by denying this claim, maintaining instead that the effects (...) of the mental are always causally overdetermined. I call this strategy the ‘ overdetermination challenge’. One of the main aims of this paper is to show that the overdetermination challenge is the most appropriate response to Kim’s exclusion argument, at least in its latest form. I argue that Kim fails to adequately respond to the overdetermination challenge, thus failing to prevent his opponents from reasonably maintaining that the effects of the mental are always causally overdetermined. Interestingly, this discussion reveals a curious dialectical feature of Kim’s latest response to the overdetermination challenge: if it succeeds, then a new, simpler and more compact version of the exclusion argument is available. While I argue against the consequent of this conditional, thereby also rejecting the antecedent, this dialectical feature should be of interest to philosophers on either side of this debate. (shrink)

The philosophical literature contains at least three formulations of the problem of causal exclusion. Although each of the three most common formulations targets theories according to which some effects have ‘too many determiners’, no one is reducible to either of the others. This article proposes two ‘new’ exclusion problems and suggests that exclusion is not a single problem but a family of problems unified by the situations they problematize. It is shown, further, that for three of the (...) most popular attempts to solve one or another of the ‘old’ problems, each remains vulnerable to one of the ‘new’ exclusion problems. (shrink)

Two strains of interventionist responses to the causal exclusion argument are reviewed and critically assessed. On the one hand, one can argue that manipulating supervenient mental states is an effective strategy for manipulating the subvenient physical states, and hence should count as genuine causes to the subvenient physical states. But unless the supervenient and subvenient states manifest some difference in their manipulability conditions, there is no reason to treat them as distinct, which in turn goes against the basic assumption (...) of nonreductive physicalism. On the other hand, one can preserve the distinction between the two by introducing asymmetric manipulability conditions that the supervenience thesis entails. But this response can be used to argue that mental causes never have physical effects. However, this argumentation can also be used to show that mental causes can have mental effects. (shrink)

Philosophers have recently expressed interest in the question as to whether there is a right to sex, a right whose justification is motivated by the existence of sexually excluded people – people who suffer from involuntary long-term sexual deprivation (owing, say, to a chronic medical condition). This paper, after offering preliminary remarks about what a right to sex and its objects might be and who might have this right, surveys seven justifications for the right: linkage arguments, need, well-being, a minimally (...) decent life, being a basic good, justice, and relationships. The paper argues that a right to sex does not likely exist because none of the justifications are convincing. The paper then argues that despite the lack of justification, and because sexual exclusion is a problem worthy of attention, people's sexual needs can be addressed through the lens of goals instead of rights. This not only takes sexual exclusion seriously enough but also avoids the crucial problems associated with rights-talk, especially that of sexual coercion. (shrink)

The Causal Exclusion Problem is raised in many domains, including in the metaphysics of macroscopic objects. If there is a complete explanation of macroscopic effects in terms of the microscopic entities that compose macroscopic objects, then the efficacy of the macroscopic will be threatened with exclusion. I argue that we can avoid the problem if we accept that macroscopic objects are ontically vague. Then, it is indeterminate which collection of microscopic entities compose them, and so information about microscopic (...) entities is insufficient to provide a complete explanation of certain properties of macroscopic objects. After outlining this solution, I consider several objections. (shrink)

The Exclusion Argument, which aims to deny the causal efficacy of irreducible mental properties, is probably the most serious challenge to non-reductive physicalism. Many proposed solutions to the exclusion problem can only reject simplified exclusion arguments, but fail to block a sophisticated version I introduce. In this paper, I attempt to show that we can refute the sophisticated exclusion argument by appeal to a sophisticated understanding of causation, what I call the 'Dual-condition Conception of Causation'. Specifically, (...) I argue that the dual-condition account of causation gives strong support to the so-called 'Autonomy Solution', which contends that even if mental properties are unable to cause (fundamental) physical properties, they can still cause higher-level properties (such as mental, behavioral, and social properties)—if so, human agency would be preserved in the physical world. (shrink)

In my book, The Rights of Others, I developed a discourse-theoretic approach to questions of political membership in liberal democracies, which include practices of citizenship, as well as of immigration, refuge and asylum. This article revisits five issues in response to various criticisms. How can we justify democratic exclusions? Is there a `right to membership' and how can it be reconciled with the different practices of various constitutional democracies? Is there a distinction between normatively acceptable and normatively problematic restrictions on (...) political membership? Does the concept of `democratic iterations' describe normative or empirical processes? How plausible is the binarism of the national and the global? I argue that democratic exclusions can be justified by not discriminating against would-be citizens and immigrants on the basis of ascriptive criteria. Ascriptive characteristics, like one's sex and skin colour, are not the product of one's voluntary doings. Democratic iterations are empirical processes which can be judged in the light of normative criteria deriving from discourse theory. Furthermore, while the binarism of national and global is problematical, alternative configurations of political membership at the present are not more defensible. (shrink)

This paper discusses Peter Menzies' work on the exclusion argument. I defend an interventionist treatment of the argument that differs in some respects from the approach advocated by Menzies and Christian List.

Jaegwon Kim argues that unreduced mental causes are excluded from efficacy because physical causes are sufficient in themselves. One response to this causal exclusion argument is to embrace some form of overdetermination. In this paper I consider two forms of overdetermination. Independent overdetermination suggests that two individually sufficient causes bring about one effect. This model fails because the sufficiency of one cause renders the other cause unnecessary. Dependent overdetermination suggests that a physical cause is necessary and sufficient for a (...) given effect, but it necessitates a mental cause of the effect as well. This model fails because the necessity of the mental cause renders the physical cause individually insufficient. (shrink)

Karen Bennett has recently articulated and defended a “compatibilist” solution to the causal exclusion problem. Bennett’s solution works by rejecting the exclusion principle on the grounds that even though physical realizers are distinct from the mental states or properties that they realize, they necessarily co-occur such that they fail to satisfy standard accounts of causal over-determination. This is the case, Bennett argues, because the causal background conditions for core realizers being sufficient causes of their effects are identical to (...) the “surround” conditions with which the core realizers are metaphysically sufficient the states or properties that they realize. Here we demonstrate that the background conditions for the causal sufficiency of core realizers for their effects are not identical to the core realizer’s surrounds, nor do backgrounds necessitate such surround conditions. If compatibilist solutions to exclusion can be defended, a different argument will be needed. (shrink)

A much discussed argument in the philosophy of mind against non-reductive physicalism leads to the conclusion that all genuine causes involved in mental phenomena must be reductive physical causes. The latter ostensibly exclude any other causes from having genuine effects in human thought and behaviour. Jaegwon Kim has been the chief exponent of this line of argument, calling it variously the causal exclusion argument or the supervenience argument against non-reductive physicalism. I will analyse this argument and show that some (...) of its key assumptions are unwarranted. Two assumptions on which I will particularly focus are the causal closure of the physical and the prohibition against causal overdetermination when multiple sufficient causes are involved in some effect. The upshot will be that rather than lower-level physical causes always excluding or pre-empting possible mental causes, context plays a key role in determining what kinds of causation are at work in human behaviour and how those causes cooperate. (shrink)

Block [Block, N. . Two neural correlates of consciousness. Trends in Cognitive Science, 9, 46–52] and Snodgrass claim that a signal detection theory analysis of qualitative difference paradigms, in particular the exclusion failure paradigm, reveals cases of phenomenal consciousness without access consciousness. This claim is unwarranted on several grounds. First, partial cognitive access rather than a total lack of cognitive access can account for exclusion failure results. Second, Snodgrass’s Objective Threshold/Strategic model of perception relies on a problematic ‘enable’ (...) approach to perception that denies the possibility of intentional control of unconscious perception and any effect of following different task instructions on the presence/absence of phenomenal consciousness. Many of Block’s purported examples of phenomenal consciousness without cognitive access also rely on this problematic approach. Third, qualitative difference paradigms may index only a subset of access consciousness. Thus, qualitative difference paradigms like exclusion failure cannot be used to isolate phenomenal consciousness, any attempt to do so still faces serious methodological problems. (shrink)

Is there a problem of causal exclusion between micro- and macro-level physical properties? I argue (following Kim) that the sorts of properties that in fact are in competition are macro properties, viz., the property of a (macro-) system of 'having such-and-such macro properties' (call this a 'macro-structural property') and the property of the same system of 'being constituted by such-and-such a micro- structure' (call this a 'micro-structural property'). I show that there are cases where, for lack of reducibility, there (...) is a prima facie intra-level causal competition between the two kinds of properties. The problem can be resolved without giving up on the causal efficacy of the macro-structural properties if we understand instances of macro-structural properties to be parts of micro-structural property instances. The parthood relation between both kinds of property instances can be mapped onto the way physical theory deals with the relation of their descriptions in the framework of perturbation theory. The application of this framework to the problem of emergent properties is discussed. (shrink)

In this article I reply to four critics. Responding to Linda Alcoff, I contend that my original two-dimensional framework discloses the entwinement of economic and cultural strands of subordination, while also illuminating the dangers of identity politics. Responding to James Bohman, I maintain that, with the addition of the third dimension of representation, my approach illuminates the structural exclusion of the global poor, the relation between justice and democracy, and the status of comprehensive theorizing. Responding to Nikolas Kompridis, I (...) defend a view of recognition that prioritizes the critique of institutionalized injustice. Responding to Rainer Forst, I argue that such a critique is better formulated in participation-theoretic than justification-theoretic terms. (shrink)

Learning from the past prepares one for being able to cope with the future. History is made up of strings of relationships. This article follows a historical line from colonialism, through apartheid to post-colonialism in order to illustrate inter-religious relations in South-Africa and how each context determines these relations. Social cohesion is enhanced by a post-colonial theology of religions based on the current context. By describing the relationship between Christians and Muslims during the 17th–18th centuries in the Cape Colony, lessons (...) can be deduced to guide inter-religious relations in a post-colonial era in South Africa. One of the most prominent Muslim leaders during the 17th century in the Cape Colony was Sheik Yusuf al-Makassari. His influence determined the future face of Islam in the Cape Colony and here, during the 18th century, ethics started playing a crucial role in determining the relationship between Christians and Muslims. The ethical guidance of the Imams formed the Muslim communities whilst ethical decline was apparent amongst the Christian colonists during the same period. The place of ethics as determinative of future inter-religious dialogue is emphasised. Denial and exclusion characterised relationships between Christians and Muslims. According to a post-colonial understanding of inter-religious contact the equality and dignity of non-Christian religions are to be acknowledged. In the postcolonial and postapartheid struggle for equality, also of religions, prof Graham Duncan, to whom this article is dedicated, contributed to the process of acknowledging the plurality of the religious reality in South Africa. (shrink)

The research hypothesis that we call border as method offers a fertile ground upon which to test the potentiality and the limits of the topological approach. In this article we present our hypothesis and address three questions relevant for topology. First, we ask how the topological approach can be applied within the heterogeneous space of globalization, which we argue does not obey the dialectic of inclusion and exclusion. Second, we address the claim of neutrality that is often linked to (...) the topological approach. Our point is that in mapping a space of flows and porous borders, the topological approach must be grasped in its ambivalence; it can become a tool for control as well as a tool for the expansion of freedom and equality. Finally, we argue that it is useful, perhaps even necessary, to locate the topological approach on the border, investigating concrete practices of border crossing that challenge the very possibility of a neutral mapping. (shrink)

In their target article, Galasso (2024) highlights the limitations of upstream inclusion in precision medicine research to produce downstream benefits to participants and proposes precision public...

A number of writers, myself included, have recently argued that an “interventionist” treatment of causation of the sort defended in Woodward, 2003 can be used to cast light on so-called “causal exclusion” arguments. This interventionist treatment of causal exclusion has in turn been criticized by other philosophers. This paper responds to these criticisms. It describes an interventionist framework for thinking about causal relationships when supervenience relations are present. I contend that this framework helps us to see that standard (...) arguments for causal exclusion involve mistaken assumptions about what it is appropriate to control for or hold fixed in assessing causal claims. The framework also provides a natural way of capturing the idea that properties that supervene on but that are not identical with realizing properties can be causally efficacious. (shrink)

Jan-Werner Müller argues convincingly that any talk about institutions (and consequentially of the crisis of democracy today) takes us back to the principles they embody. ‘Return to the first princ...

In this paper, I describe a hitherto overlooked kind of practical irrationality, which I call irrational option exclusion. An agent who suffers from this problem does not merely fail to act on her best judgement – she fails to realize that the superior action is even an option for her. I furthermore argue that this kind of irrationality is serious enough to undermine moral responsibility. I show that an agent suffering from this problem has compromised reasons-responsiveness, does not really (...) express her will through action, and has a hard time doing otherwise; thus, from the standpoint of several popular moral responsibility theories, we ought to conclude that her responsibility is at the very least diminished. (shrink)

Religious freedom has many roots, and no simple story can explain the contours of its appropriate protections, but there is an important democratic strand in the case for religious freedom. That strand is about enabling the members of a political society, with their conflicting fundamental convictions, to reason together as political equals. Focusing on the First Amendment’s establishment clause, I argue that strong protections of religious freedom are not only about protecting religious conviction, conscience, and conduct from intrusive government regulation. (...) They also are about the inclusion of equals in the enterprise of self-government. That inclusion presents a central challenge to pluralist democracies, but also lies at the heart of their moral promise. (shrink)

The inclusion and exclusion of Queensland First Nations’ historically focuses on the legislative frameworks that impacted on their lives and on subsequent generations. Prior to European contact and colonisation, Australia’s First Peoples governance practiced a spiritual affiliation with the land of those places that they belonged to and had inherited, and their relationships to other people and places. Traditional and contemporary practices of their Dreaming were practiced in generational cultural codes of conduct in trade and ceremonial practice of lore (...) and law. First nation’s hospitable generosity gave shelter and food to explorers, distressed settlers, or convicts absconding from colonial impoundments in the early years of the nineteenth century. Hospitality was not reciprocated when Aboriginal people became captives of the colonisers, instead they became imprisoned, and their movements restricted. The exclusion and inclusion of First Nations’ people through the legislative frameworks controlled their lives post colonisation, particularly from the historic legislative framework within the State of Queensland, but also other states. Wearne (A clash of cultures: Queensland Aboriginal Policy, 1824–1980. Uniting Church of Australia, Brisbane, 1980, 72) suggests three distinct periods from first contact to the late twentieth century, within the policies and practices of successive Queensland governments:Occupation and Extermination (1824–1872);Protection and Segregation (1983–1957); andAssimilation (1957–1980). (shrink)

The basic idea behind the Competitive Exclusion Principle is that species that have similar or identical niches cannot stably coexist in the same place for long periods of time when their common resources are limiting. A more exact definition of the CEP states that, in equilibrium, n number of sympatric species competing for a common set of limiting resources cannot stably coexist indefinitely on fewer than n number of resources. The magnitude or intensity of competition between species is proportional (...) to the degree of overlap in their niches or use of resources. Species that stably coexist do so because there are “important differences” in their niches or use of common limiting resources. (shrink)

I think that there is an awful lot wrong with the exclusion problem. So, it seems, does just about everybody else. But of course everyone disagrees about exactly _what_ is wrong with it, and I think there is more to be said about that. So I propose to say a few more words about why the exclusion problem is not really a problem after all—at least, not for the nonreductive physicalist. The genuine _dualist_ is still in trouble. Indeed, (...) one of my main points will be that the nonreductive physicalist is in a rather different position vis à vis the exclusion problem than the dualist is. Properly understanding nonreductive physicalism—and clearly recognizing that it is, after all, a form of _physicalism_—goes a long way toward solving the exclusion problem. (shrink)

Hitchcock demonstrated that the validity of causal exclusion arguments as well as the plausibility of several of their premises hinges on the specific theory of causation endorsed. In this paper I show that the validity of causal exclusion arguments—if represented within the theory of causal Bayes nets the way Gebharter suggests—actually requires much weaker premises than the ones which are typically assumed. In particular, neither completeness of the physical domain nor the no overdetermination assumption are required.

Causation is extrinsic. What an event causes depends not just on its own nature and the laws, but on the environment in which it occurs. Had an event occurred under different conditions, it may have had different effects. Yet we often want to say that causation, in at least some respect, is not extrinsic. Events exert an influence on the world themselves, independently of what other events do or do not occur in their surroundings. This paper develops an account of (...) such influence and argues that it provides a solution to the causal exclusion problem. By locating that solution largely within the metaphysics of causation, we can solve the exclusion problem without taking on a commitment to a theory of mind. (shrink)