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The paper uses a de-relativized (or objectified) variant of Woodward’s definition of direct type-level causation to develop an account of causal ceteris paribus (cp) laws. It argues that the relation between X and Y needs to satisfy three conditions in order to qualify as one of direct type-level causation, that satisfaction of these conditions guarantees the applicability of claims of direct type-level causation, that the context of applicability motivates referring to these conditions as cp conditions, and that claims of direct type-level causation qualify as laws if they are explanatorily deep. The account of causal cp laws defended by the paper derives from a de-relativized variant of Woodward’s definition of direct type-level causation but can be shown not to conflict with Woodward’s thesis that there is no such thing as a cp law.

DOI: 10.1007/s11229-015-0703-7

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