Closure, counterfactualist causation, and Zhong’s new causal argument for physicalism

Abstract

I assess Zhong’s new “causal argument” for physicalism, which differs from previous such arguments in that the premises and conclusion pertain (not just to physical, but) to “physically acceptable” entities or features, which may be either physical or “grounded by” (i.e., metaphysically dependent on) the physical. Zhong argues that his new causal argument improves on previous versions in that the conclusion (unlike previous causal arguments, he maintains) supports non-reductive as well as reductive versions of physicalism, and in that the premises of his argument are better motivated than those of the original arguments. I argue that neither of these motivations are in place. Along the way, I offer a new reason to reject non-contrastive counterfactual accounts of causation.