Fallacy of the single cause
The
fallacy of the single cause, also known as
complex cause,
causal oversimplification,
causal reductionism, and
reduction fallacy, is a fallacy of questionable cause that occurs when it is assumed that there is a single, simple cause of an outcome when in reality it may have been caused by a number of only jointly sufficient causes. It can be logically reduced to: X occurred after Y. Therefore, Y caused X Often after a tragedy it is asked, "What was
the cause of this?" Such language implies that there is one cause, when instead there was probably a large number of contributing factors. However, having produced a list of several contributing factors, it may be worthwhile to look for the strongest of the factors, or a single cause underlying several of them. A need for simplification may be perceived in order to make the explanation of the tragedy operational, so that responsible authorities can be seen to have taken action. For instance, after a school shooting, editorialists debate whether it was caused by the shooter's parents, violence in media, stress on students, or the accessibility of guns.