Causal chain

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Avg. difficulty: 3.6

Causal chains often appear as support for causal conclusions. For example, if the conclusion is "A causes C," the premises could say "A causes B" and "B causes C." Evidence like this does lend some support for the conclusion by fleshing out the causal mechanism.
That said, causal chains do not provide ironclad support. Most commonly, causal chains can be broken by introducing additional factors that outweigh those mentioned in the chain (see the "Weighing factors" tag).
For example, let's say smoking cigarettes causes an elevated mood, and an elevated mood leads to improvements in physical health. While it's true that ONE element of cigarette smoking has a positive, indirect impact on physical health, OTHER elements of cigarette smoking directly damage physical health, undercutting the claim that "smoking cigarettes leads to improvements in physical health."

If in a WSE question (most common), look for additional causal factors that could weigh against the chain's purported effects.
Look also for link assumptions between the concepts in the causal chain, or between those concepts and the conclusion. Link assumptions are subtle shifts in terminology that mean the concepts being linked up change from one claim to the next.
If in a MSS question, look for weakly-worded conclusions that merely assert that A can have some effect on C, as opposed to conclusions asserting a definite, overall causal relationship when other factors could be present.

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