Reasons, Conditions, and the Possibility of Choice
by
Charles Lamson
If you throw a piece of chalk out the window and it falls to the ground, it would be reasonable to say that gravity caused it to fall. To understand why this happened, you might read a physics book. You would not ask the chalk to explain why it fell. On the other hand, if you threw yourself out of a window and fell to the ground, we would want to know why. Most people would not accept "gravity" for an answer, if you could answer at all.
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Our actions are not caused by natural forces (the way that gravity causes chalk to fall). Does it make sense to say that heat causes people to go to the beach? Even though a lot of people might go to the beach when it gets hot. So to say that the weather caused them to go would be silly. People can choose other ways to cool off. Or they choose to do nothing at all. Chalk cannot make choices. So it is fair to apply the language of causes to chalk and other inanimate objects. We should be wary, however, of applying this language to humans.
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