Eric Marcus, “Rational Causation” (Harvard UP, 2012)
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What is rational causation and why does it matter for explaining actions and beliefs?
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Welcome to New Books and Philosophy, a podcast channel of the New Books Network, where we talk with philosophers about their new book. I'm Carrie Figdor, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa, and I'm co-host of the channel along with Robert Talice. Today's interview is with Eric Marcus, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Auburn University. His book Rational Causeation is just out from Harvard University Press. We often explain actions and beliefs by citing the reasons for which they are done or believed. The reason I took off my hat at the funeral was because I was paying respects to the deceased. And the reason I believed that taking off my hat was appropriate was because I believed that the deceased deserved respect.
So much is part of what is sometimes called the space of reasons and reason giving, a space that people occupy, but objects like apples don't. We could explain an apple's falling because the wind blew strongly. But the explanation doesn't require us to ascribe any reasons to the apple. Acting for reasons is reserved for creatures with minds. But what is the difference in the because when we say that I took off my hat because I was paying my respects and that the apple fell because the wind blew? How is this difference to be explained? Marcus takes on this complex question in an intriguingly unorthodox fashion. The orthodox view tries to assimilate rational causation to the same causal picture we use for apples.
Marcus challenges the physicalistic framework in which this answer is embedded, and Aries for a position that is neither reductive nor dualistic. On his view, rational causation is a kind of difference making that involves the exercise of special rational abilities. And as a result of these abilities. Minds make a robust causal difference to what we do and what we believe and That is independent of the way in which minds depend on brains. Let's turn to the interview. Hi, I'm with Eric Marcus. Are you there? Hi. Hi, Eric. Uh welcome to New Books in Philosophy.
Glad to be here.
Um so your your new book, uh Rational Causation from Harvard Us University Press is um a a highly unorthodox approach to a problem uh within the general um context of the problem of mental causation. Um and that is, you know, how we are supposed to explain uh the sorts of reasons giving explanations uh that we give when we talk about why we might believe something or why we um act when we when we have reasons for these things. Um And the topic itself is is fairly complicated. So um before we get into the actual details of the book, um uh it might be good to just start uh with a little bit of background about um yourself, your you know, how you got into philosophy, um and then how you got to this particular topic of rational causation.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is rational causation and why does it matter for explaining actions and beliefs?
0:00–9:52
2
How does Marcus distinguish the ‘because’ of human reasons from the ‘because’ of physical events like a falling apple?
9:52–19:06
3
What is the orthodox (psychologism) view of rational explanations and why does Marcus reject it?
19:06–26:26
4
How does Marcus define rational causation as a special kind of difference‑making rather than ordinary physical causation?
26:26–33:55
5
Why does Marcus claim that actions are representations of what is to be done rather than mere bodily movements?
33:55–41:57
6
How does the theory handle animals acting for reasons without the capacity for self‑conscious reason‑giving?
41:57–49:30
7
What is Marcus’s position on physicalism and how does he relate mental causal powers to the physical world?
49:30–57:22
8
What are the next steps in Marcus’s research after *Rational Causation*?
57:22–1:05:14
Speakers
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