Why does the author give the example of a policy leading to a famine?
Counterfactual history, the speculation about what would have happened if some event had gone differently, is sometimes dismissed as a parlour game. The dismissal is too quick. Every claim that an event caused another contains an implicit counterfactual: to say that a policy led to a famine is to say that without it the famine would not have occurred, or would have been less severe. The question is whether such judgements are made carefully or carelessly. Careful counterfactuals are disciplined: they change as little as possible, they stay within what contemporaries thought possible, and they are honest about uncertainty. They cannot tell us what would have happened, but they can show how much weight an alleged cause can bear.
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: C. To show that a causal claim carries an implicit judgement about what would otherwise have happened
- Step 1: The passage says to claim that a policy led to a famine is to say that without it the famine would not have occurred or been less severe.
- Step 2: That is the implicit counterfactual.
Answer
To show that a causal claim carries an implicit judgement about what would otherwise have happened.
Why not the others: The example shows what a causal claim implies, not that policies always cause famines, that famines can be predicted, the history of one famine or that policy is unimportant.
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