Can a theory of laws' regularity offer a useful explanation of causality?

The human mind naturally looks for causes since it thinks that nothing happens randomly. An successful explanation of causation, in the words of philosopher and metaphysician Alyssa Ney (2014), is crucial because it may amount to "a full account of the nature of our reality and what it is like" (p.220). Thus, it can tell us, for instance, how a bullet fired (the cause, 'c') and John F. Kennedy's assassination (the consequence, 'e') are related. While theories of causation examine this in great depth, theories of laws may be able to improve such beliefs to explain causation. Nomic regularity theory, for example, the regularity theory that seeks to account for causality via the laws of nature (thus "nomic"), appears to derive from a regularity theory of laws (hence "RVL," since it is a regularity perspective of laws). In order to account for the relationship between cause and effect and thus explain causation, RVL appears to develop the nomic-based theory by I maintaining that the laws of nature describe c and e since they frequently result in e following from c, and (ii) describing what the laws of nature—which are intended to explain causation—consist of themselves. That is how the tale goes.

In order to determine if RVL actually offers a credible explanation of causation, this article will examine point (ii) by creating the nomic regularity theory based on natural laws. Although the regularity perspective of laws undoubtedly contributes to our understanding of causation, it does not offer a very satisfying explanation of causation.

Figure 1. David Hume is renowned for his elegant prose, radical empiricism, scepticism of religion, and most notably his critical account of causation. He is widely recognised as one of the most influential philosophers to write in English (Jessop, 2022)

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