Dear Colleagues

Richard Wright has in fact been kind enough to contribute no less than 2 chapters to this volume. There are many other authors who have also contributed. For those of you interested, here are the details:-

http://www.hartpub.co.uk/books/details.asp?isbn=9781849460866


The book will be published at the beginning of October.


Best wishes

Richard

Dr Richard Goldberg


Reader in Law
School of Law
Taylor Building
King's College
University of Aberdeen
Old Aberdeen
AB24 3UB
Tel: 012224 272745
________________________________________
From: Jason Neyers [jneyers@uwo.ca]
Sent: 31 August 2011 12:55
To: obligations@uwo.ca
Subject: ODG: Cause-in-Fact

Dear Colleagues:

Those interested in causation will be interested in a new article by ODGer Richard Wright entitled "The Ness Account of Natural Causation: A Response to Criticisms" which is available here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1918405.

It appears that it is forthcoming in PERSPECTIVES ON CAUSATION, Chapter 14, R. Goldberg, ed., Hart Publishing, 2011

From the summary:

Abstract:
The NESS (necessary element of a sufficient set) account of natural (scientific, ‘actual’, ‘factual’) causation is usually acknowledged to be a more satisfactory and comprehensive account than the traditional sine qua non (‘but for’) account. However, objections have been raised to the claim that the NESS account fully captures the concept of natural causation and properly handles all types of situations. Various types of counter-examples have been proposed. More fundamentally, it is argued that the NESS account is viciously circular, since causal terminology often is used in its elaboration and it relies upon the concept of causal laws.

Many of the objections raised against the NESS account assume that it is essentially the same as Herbert Hart’s and Tony Honoré’s ‘causally relevant factor’ account and John Mackie’s INUS account. In section II of this chapter I distinguish these three accounts, which differ in important ways that make the latter two accounts vulnerable to objections to which the NESS account is immune, and I offer an account of causal laws that I believe rebuts the claim that the NESS account is viciously circular. In section III I argue that the NESS account handles properly the various types of situations that have been raised as alleged counter-examples to its comprehensive validity.




--
--
Jason Neyers
Associate Professor of Law
Faculty of Law
University of Western Ontario
N6A 3K7
(519) 661-2111 x. 88435


The University of Aberdeen is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013683.