Finding shared laws: Ladders Philosophy 152 Philosophy of Social Science Week 10 Winter 2011.

Finding shared laws: Ladders

Philosophy 152 Philosophy of Social Science

Week 10 Winter 2011

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RecallTheory Claim 2.1: The facts relevant for predicting ‘T will contribute positively to the production of O in S’ include

There is a causal law that holds in S from implementation till time of outcome in which T figures as a cause of O.

Help in finding shared laws:

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Straight sturdy ladders

So you can climb up and down across levels of abstraction without mishap.

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Ensuring right ladders to right places

The same isn’t always the same.

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• There may be a set of laws that –enable X to cause Y in the study–may be shared with the target.

Yet in the target they do not connect X and Y.

• Because what counts as a realization of a given factor in the study need not do so in the target.

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The abstract and the concrete• Laws that hold relatively widely generally involve

abstract features.• Abstract features are always instantiated in more concrete ones.• A GE Lessing fable:

A marten eats the grouse. A fox throttles the marten; the tooth of the

wolf, the fox.The weaker are always prey to the stronger.

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What counts as a straight line?

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What counts in the circs as a lever?

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Bangladesh Integrated Nutrition Project vs the Tamil Nadu INP

Bangladesh

Tamil Nadu

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Candidate shared principles, Bangladesh and Tamil Nadu

1. Better nutritional knowledge in mothers plus food supplied by the project for supplemental feeding improves children’s nutrition.

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Candidate shared principles, Bangladesh and Tamil Nadu

1. Better nutritional knowledge in mothers plus food supplied by the project for supplemental feeding improves children’s nutrition.

2. Better nutritional knowledge in mothers plus supplemental feeding of children improves children’s nutrition.

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Principle more likely to be shared3. Better nutritional knowledge results in better

children’s nutrition in those whoa. provide the child with supplemental feeding,b. control what food is procured,c. control how food gets dispensed andd. hold the child’s interests as central in

performing 2. and 3.

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Broken ladders• In Bangladesh

– Food supplied ≠ supplementary food.

– Being a mother ≠ the features in b.&c.

• There is a shared principle at a higher level of abstraction.

• But there were no ladders to reach it from programme features in Bangladesh.

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BINP shows…

1. The same isn’t always the same2. This limits the usefulness of it-works-

somewhere claims.But1’. In different contexts very different things can

be the same.2.’ It-works-somewhere claims can support policy

predictions far away and very different from the study populations that warrant them.

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Finding and warranting shared laws

• These can be at high levels of abstraction – so hunt there.

• Warrant– Is the law really shared?– Does T in a successful study really instantiate a

cause in the abstract shared law?– Does the policy really instantiate a cause in the

abstract shared law in your situation?

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Those in controlof food purchase and distribution

Mothers ???

Tamil Nadu Anywhere else

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Child welfare example

• Being pushed to go to parenting classes can mean different things in different cultural groups.

• It could be– A learning experience– A humiliation

With opposite outcomes.• This can lead both to accepting policies that won’t work

for you or rejecting those that will, depending on which is study and which is target population.

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Pressure to comply

Compliance Humiliation

Aggression

Pressure toattendclasses

Attendanceatclasses

Violencetowardschild

Mind the gap

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In situation S, X causes U cause V causes W…causes Y because

• X and U constitute more abstract features X1 and U1 in S.

• U and V constitute more abstract features U2 and V2 in S.

• And so forth.• Note the new subscripts.• X causes Y by law in S but the laws that allow it to

do so don’t join up.

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Simplified pencil-sharpener: Open window (A) and fly kite (B). String (C) lifts small door (D) allowing moths (E) to escape and eat red flannel shirt (F). As weight of shirt becomes less, shoe (G) steps on switch (H) which heats electric iron (I) and burns hole in pants (J). Smoke (K) enters hole in tree (L), smoking out opossum (M) which jumps into basket (N), pulling rope (O) and lifting cage (P), allowing woodpecker (Q) to chew wood from pencil (R), exposing lead. Emergency knife (S) is always handy in case opossum or the woodpecker gets sick and can't work.

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Pulling one end of pulley

Raising ofweight at other end

Breaching of a closed container

Releasing ofcontainer contents

Flying the kite Opening of a door

Releasing of moths

Mind the gap

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Lesson

The road from ‘It works somewhere’ to ‘It will work for us’ requires a lot of scrambling up and down.

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Review – relevance

• Two kind of facts directly relevant to predicting ‘T will contribute to O in S’.

1. Production of O in S is governed by a law L in which T appears as a cause of O.

2. All the factors necessary under L to support T in producing a contribution to O obtain in S.

Other facts are relevant – indirectly – if they are relevant to establishing either of these facts.

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Review – role of RCTs

• A positive outcome in an RCT in situation/population X is directly relevant to ‘X is governed by a law, say L, in which T causes O.’

• This can be indirectly relevant to ‘S is governed by a law in which T causes O’ conditional on the fact ‘X and S share L.’– Conditionally relevant on A relevant iff A holds.– Presumably we’d like good reason before we assume this.

• RCTs are not relevant to ‘All the supporting factors required by L for T to contribute to O obtain in S.’

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It’s a long and tortuousroad from it-works-somewhere to

it-will-work-for-us

In Sum…

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And…

The road is shaky and needs reliable support all the way along.

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To consider…If you want to get there,

maybe ‘it works

somewhere’ may not be the best starting point.