1 On Rainbows & Slavery From physical to social mechanisms.

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On Rainbows & Slavery

From physical to social mechanisms

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Social Causation

• Causal stories in the social sciences– The economist wants to understand the ‘credit crunch’ – The sociologist wants to understand social deprivation– The historian wants to understand the abolition of the slave

trade

• The notion of ‘social mechanisms’ has come to prominence in such causal stories– PsychologyPsychology: avoidance of ‘cognitive dissonance’– EconomicsEconomics: determination of price by ‘supply and demand’

mechanism– SociologySociology: mechanisms of social control (from disapproval to

imprisonment)

• But there is disagreement about what a ‘social mechanism’ is:– Some associate it with physical mechanisms– Others associate it with patterns of behaviour

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Physical Mechanisms

• Go back to basics – consider physical mechanisms• Intuitively we think of physical mechanisms as observable

mechanical devices

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Physical Mechanisms

• Problem is that such an intuitive understanding won’t work for many other examples, i.e rainbows and social mechanisms

The cause of the primary rainbow is a double refraction and a simple reflection in the water drops;The cause of a secondary rainbow if a double reflection and a double refraction in the water drops

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Physical Mechanisms

• Definition and model (primary rainbow)

Definition: A mechanism for a behaviour is a complex systemsystem that produces that behaviour by the interactioninteraction of a number of parts, where the interactions between parts can be characterized by direct, invariant, variable-relating generalizations.

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Social Mechanisms

• This definition fits social mechanisms: A number of parts (institutions, groups, individual agents) are interrelated by certain social interactions.

• A ‘social mechanism is a plausible hypothesis, or set of plausible hypotheses, that could be the explanation of some social phenomenon, the explanation being in terms of interactions between individuals and other individuals, or between individuals and some social aggregate.’

• But are these social interactions like the interactions in physical mechanisms?

• NoNo: social mechanisms are based on trends; physical mechanisms are based on laws of nature.

• Trends are inductive generalizations from initial conditions : they are not universal and don’t support counterfactuals

• Trends can be reversed, whilst laws of nature cannot• The very knowledge of trends can be used to reverse that very

trend which is impossible in the case of laws of nature

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Social Mechanisms and the Slave Trade

• Can social mechanisms explain the abolition of the slave trade (1807)?

• Historians of the slave trade generally consider 3 factors as important:

– Economic factors– Religious factors– Enlightenment ideas

– NoteNote: ideas are not part of the definition of a social mechanism, yet they played a causal role

• In order to incorporate ideas we need a wider model of social causation: Weber’s notion of ‘adequate causation’

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Adequate causation

• A social event is adequately explained causally, if a cluster of (necessary and sufficient) conditions can be identified, which serves as likely explanans of the explanandum.

• No need for ‘social’ mechanisms?

• The Enlightenment ideas were needed to channel anti-slavery sentiments into a particular direction of social action

• Parliamentary procedures served as the social mechanism which converted Enlightenment ideals into political action

• The Enlightenment ideas and the parliamentary procedures constituted a sufficient cluster of conditions to adequately explain the abolition of the slave trade, and by extension, the formation of rainbows