Advent 5

Volume 5 (Castir to Cole): Causality or Causation.

This one carries reverberations for anyone who has ever studied and practised Law. It also has important contexts in philosophy and science but let's stick to something I know a bit about - I can already hear the snorts of derision emanating from my litigation colleagues who would (not entirely baselessly) question what precisely any commercial lawyer might know about any aspect of the law, never mind something as delicate as causation. Nonetheless I will plough on.

I dimly recall those lectures on the Law of Tort delivered by the brilliant Tony Guest in those over-heated subterranean lecture rooms at King's. It is the greatest compliment to the estimable Professor Guest that I actually managed to stay awake for his lectures, hung-over and sleep-deprived as I too often was. My first degree was not the cerebral high-point of my time in education.

Anyway, causation. This is how I recall it: in terms of liability for a negligent act, the plaintiff has to establish a causal link between the negligent act and the damage alleged. That is to say that the damage would not have occurred but for the act. Once you have got over that hurdle we get onto the question of damages and that is tied-up in the knot of foreseeability, blah blah.

For me the importance of causation is best illustrated by examples where there is no causation but one is somehow implied by the lazy application of post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning. And if you want a brilliant explanation of that phenomenon then you can do no better than refer to series 1, episode 2 of the matchless West Wing. Or if you want real-life examples just tune-in to any political show and listen to the shysters of all political hue. The standard of public debate is disgraceful, but then I've told you that before.