Morgenbesser’s coin, counterfactuals and independence

In assessing counterfactuals, should we consider circumstances which match the actual circumstances in all probablistically independent fact or all causally independent fact? Jonathan Schaffer argues the latter and claims that the former approach, advanced by me, cannot deal with the case of Morgenbesser’s coin. More generally, he argues that, where there is a difference between the two, his account yields our intuitive verdicts about the truth of counterfactuals where mine does not (Schaffer 2004: 307, n. 16). In this brief note, I explain how my approach deals with the case of Morgenbesser’s coin and argue that the situation is, in fact, the reverse. To keep things brief, I rely upon Schaffer’s paper for general explanation of the context of our debate. In Morgenbesser’s case, the world is indeterministic, Lucky bets heads when the coin is in mid-air, the coin comes up tails and we are invited to consider the following intuitively true counterfactual.