Causal Arguments In Antiphon's 'Third Tetralogy'

Causal Arguments in the Third Tetralogy In his “Third Tetralogy,” Antiphon presents both sides of the argument in a murder trial, where the victim started a fight with the accused, but is then killed. In this paper, I will present the prosecution’s argument for why the accused is guilty through reasons of causality, intent, and excessive force, using numbered premises leading to the conclusion of guilt. I will then present their reasoning for these premises, briefly discussing which arguments are stronger or weaker. After that, I will present what I think is the most important part of the defence’s arguments to attack the prosecution’s causal premises, and consequently show their argument to be unsound. In my own critical analysis I will discuss

In finding a way to proceed for the prosecution, it is important to note that causality here seems to carry with it a sense of moral responsibility, instead of mere physical causality. When attempting to find an ultimate cause, what they really seem to be looking for is the first cause with relevant moral responsibility attached, since otherwise the simple, morally arbitrary act of going to the bar, or committing any act which ultimately led one to go to the bar where the fight took place, could be a condition of guilt in a trial for murder. Since this conclusion is absurd, the prosecution would need to establish that one of the physical causes leading to the fight before the initial instigation from the victim was morally relevant to the events of the case, or that any of those prior causes bear moral responsibility, if they wanted to argue against the victim being the ultimate cause. With that said, it seems like the best course of action would be to admit that the victim was the ultimate cause, but argue that while the doctor’s treatment may have been the immediate physical, morally arbitrary cause, the accused’s strike was the most immediate, morally relevant cause of death. Since the prosecution has already said that doctors, under Greek law, cannot be held responsible for the patients they lose, it allows them to argue that the next most immediate cause, the accused’s strike, was the most immediate cause capable of carrying legal responsibility. Thus, using the defence’s causal chain argument, they can show that the accused is still, in a sense, the immediate cause of death that is relevant to the