 Intuitively, we should be able to derive the defeasible conclusion that the victim is still alive after waiting, but dead after waiting and shooting: Alive\((s_1) \amp \neg\)Alive\((s_2)\). However, none of the nonmonotonic logics described above give us this result, since each of the three instances of the law of inertia can be violated: by the victim’s inexplicably dying while we are waiting, by the gun’s miraculously becoming unloaded while we are waiting, or by the victim’s dying as a result of the shooting. Nothing introduced into nonmonotonic logic up to this point provides us with a basis for preferring the second exception to the law of inertia to the first or third. What’s missing is a recognition of the importance of causal structure to defeasible consequence.[10]