Outline
In my causal essay, I will discuss the events that can lead up to the event of a house fire occurring. My outline will go as follows:
Introduction
Brief outline of causality and introduce the idea of the causality of a house fire.
Thesis statement
A prime example of this is a house fire – causality, in this instance, is a specific series of events that can lead to a house fire happening.
The various events that could lead up to a house fire happening. Alternative views of house fire causality Human Error.
Conclusion
Causal research is concerned with the idea of how events lead up to a particular conclusion. For example, when a news story breaks on the television, it is invariably the result of a series of events that have caused it to happen and equally, the news event can also be seen as being a potential cause for another event to happen in our own lives. Many discuss the idea of ‘contingency’ when contemplating causality and probability and suggest that events nearly always happen as a direct result of something else happening (Shafer 1). A prime example of this is a house fire – causality, in this instance, is a specific series of events that can lead to a house fire happening.
Statistically, a house fire is more likely to occur if at least one individual who lives there is a smoker (Day & Jackson 222) implying that one causal effect of a house fire could be the chain of events that begin with an individual choosing to smoke as a young person, causing them to be a lifelong smoker. Equally, a house fire could be due to the incapacitation of the smoke alarms. An individual may have forgotten to change the battery in their smoke alarm, fallen asleep in front of the television and left a cigarette burning and a house fire could be caused as a result. There is a broad spectrum of events that could lead to a house fire’s occurrence. Most specifically, human ignorance and forgetfulness could be classified as the primary causes of a house fire. The resulting events that happen as a consequence of the house fire could be an investigation which involves a number of professional bodies, the people who live there may need to find alternative accommodation (which in turn causes their families to be impinged upon), an insurance claim may need to be filed (depending on the severity of the fire) which will involve a significant amount of work from a number of people and potentially the building may need re-building too. The causality of a single faulty battery in a smoke alarm or a cigarette left lit.
Interestingly, many classify ‘fire’ as being the cause of a house fire in the first place (Pearl 326). However, it is also clear from the discussion here that a number of other causes lead up to the start of the fire implying that the line of causality can potentially be traced back to the home owner choosing to join their friends in having a cigarette secretly at school, for instance; all the way up to the individual failing to put out their cigarette before falling asleep or failing to change the dead battery in the smoke alarm. Causality is largely due to human error and it tends to be over-simplified as such (Reason 91) implying that the root causes of a phenomenon are often over-looked. However, there is a distinct chain of events (a selection of a chain of events, even) that leads up to the event being caused and then, as a result of that event, a further chain which leads to a series of other outcomes too. Most phenomena can be traced back through their causality in order to decipher why they occurred at all.
References
Day, David & Jackson, Albert. Popular Mechanics Complete Home How-To. New York: Hearst Books, 2004. Print.
Pearl, Judea. Causality: models, reasoning and inference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Print.
Reason, J. T. Human Error. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Print.
Shafer, Glenn. The Art of Causal Conjecture. Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1996. Print.
