Counterfactual Triviality and Structural Causal Models

Studies in Logic, Vol. 15, No. 6 (2022): 28–48   PII: 1674­3202(2022)­06­0028­21

Xiaoan Wu

Abstract.

J. Williams (2012) proposes a version of counterfactual triviality (CT). I carefully examine the four premises on which Williams’ CT relies. Within the framework of the Structural Causal Model (SCM), I show that two of them (CRT and CVPP) apply to two different types of counterfactuals respectively, so that the  of them is not equivalent, thus proving that Williams’ version of CT is not valid.