Mapping higher-level causal efficacy

Abstract

AbstractA central argument for non-reductive accounts of group agency is that complex social entities (states, companies, churches, political parties) are capable of exerting causal influence independently of and superseding the causal efficacy of the individuals constituting them. A prominent counter is that non-reductionists run into an insuperable dilemma between identity and redundancy – with identity undermining independent higher-level efficacy and redundancy leading to overdetermination or exclusion. This paper argues that critics of non-reductionism can manage with a simpler and more persuasive reductio strategy called mapping: allow that group agents are causally efficacious in their own right and chart (a) how their causal efficacy is carried out; (b) how it relates to the causal efficacy of individual determiners; (c) how it connects to the causal relevance of background structural factors. The focus exclusively on whether groups are or are not causally efficacious black-boxes implementation, while close attention to how causation is wired increases the visibility of individualist arguments and countenances structure-oriented explanations.