psychological explanation and causal deviancy

JOSEPH OWENS

PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATION AND CAUSAL DEVIANCY

The appearance, in 1963, of Donald Davidson’s ‘Actions, Reasons andCauses’, marked a turning point in action theory and philosophy of mind.Powerful considerations – of a Wittgenstein sort – had convinced muchof the philosophical world that ordinary psychological explanation is notcausal in character (e.g. Wittgenstein 1958; Winch 1958; Anscombe 1959;Melden 1961). Davidson, however, was unmoved, and in this classic paper,he took on the prevailing wisdom, exposing the weaknesses in some ofthe most vaunted arguments of the anti-causal theorists and offered a newand powerful argument for the causal construal. So persuasive were hisarguments that within a few years the tide had turned completely, and itbecame commonplace to simply assume the causal interpretation, directingreaders, if argument be needed, to Davidson’s paper (Churchland 1970;Cummins 1983; Dretske 1988).

However, recent developments in the philosophy of mind, in particu-lar the rise of psychological externalism, are once again casting seriousdoubt on the causal interpretation. Familiar thought experiments seem toshow that physically identical individuals can differ in psychological statessuch as belief and desire – the very states that figure in the explanation ofbehavior (Burge 1979). And, in a variety of ways, this brings pressure tobear on the causal interpretation. First, many theorists, Burge included, seethese thought experiments as undercutting all forms of identity theory – asincompatible even with token identities – and this raises intuitive, if notinsurmountable, difficulties for the causal interpretation; if we allow thatmental events are not identical with physical events, then to suppose thatpsychological explanation is causal is to suppose that nonphysical eventsplay a role in the causal genesis of physical events (behavior) – and this,of course, is anathema to most theorists.2 A second problem has to do withcausal powers and differences in explanatory state. If explanatory statescausally explain behavior, then differences in explanatory state should becorrelated with differences in causal powers – the different explanatorystates should be such as to cause different kinds of behaviors. In the fa-miliar Twin-Earth examples, the twins differ in explanatory states – they

Synthese115: 143–169, 1998.© 1998Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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differ in their beliefs – there seems to be no reason whatsoever to supposethat the twins or the various states instantiated by the twins, differ in causalpowers. Crudely put, the twins are, by hypothesis, as alike as two identicalsteel balls; and while context might serve to justify different descriptionsof such identical steel balls, it won’t justify the more powerful suppositionthat they differ in causal powers. Difference in explanatory power simplydoes not seem to be linked to difference in causal powers in the way inwhich one would expect if the explanations were truly causal (e.g. Fodor1987, chapt. 2).

Though these examples threaten the causal interpretation, they leaveDavidson’s original argument unscathed, and, the full impact of external-ism is sure to be underestimated so long as it remains part of the commonwisdom that Davidson has established the causal interpretation. Indeedsome are tempted by the obviousmodus tolens: following Davidson, theyassume that these explanations are causal; they note the tensions betweenexternalism and the causal understanding of psychological explanation,and they point to this as one more reason to reject externalism; they use thecausal construal to reject or at least diminish the force of the Twin-Earththought experiments.2

It is time to reexamine this classic argument, and that is what I proposeto do in this paper. Despite its well deserved reputation, it is, I claim,unsound. In Section 1, I set out the central argument; in Sections 2 and3, I expand on the argument and critically evaluate it. Finally, in Section 4,I briefly review some alternative readings of the argument.

1. THE MASTER ARGUMENT

Davidson’s argument has two essential components: First he argues that acertain, restricted kind of psychological explanation is causal.

Psychological explanations which cite a subject’s primary reason foracting are causal in character (I will refer to this as thecausal thesis)(Davidson 1963, 4).

For our purposes we can think of these explanations as ones which citethe relevant antecedent beliefs and desires of the agent, the beliefs anddesires which rationalize and explain her behavior, the beliefs and desireswhich reveal the action as attractive to her and constitute her reason foracting; explanations such as: Mary took her driver’s license because shewantedto buy the bicycle andthoughtshe would need some identification.3

Of course, as Davidson notes, it is often unnecessary to mention both cog-nitive and conative elements: Smith clambered aboard because he thoughthe saw a shark fin; Mary didn’t drink the coffee because she doesn’t like

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sugar. The first claim, then, is thatall such explanations are causal: theyexplain only if the cited beliefs and desires actually caused the behavior inquestion. I will refer to such explanations – explanations which cite onlyantecedent statessuch as belief, desire, emotions such as anger, etc. – asBelief/Desire explanations (B/D explanations for short).

This is a familiar and important category of psychological explanation,but it is only one; psychological explanation is a diverse phenomenon andmany explanations don’t fit this mold: Mary opened the gate to let the dogout; Bill took the course in order to freshen up; Lucy did it for profit; Johnis working today so that he can take Monday off. Whatever analysis oneultimately offers for such explanations, they are different from B/D expla-nations, in that they makeno explicit appeal to antecedent statesof thesubject. Given that they make no appeal to antecedent states, they cannotbe construed asexplicit causal explanations. This negatively characterizedset of explanations (explanations thatdon’t appeal to antecedent statesof the agent) is really quite varied in character, but internal distinctionswithin the group are not seriously relevant to our concerns, and I will referto all such explanations asteleological explanations, and I will speak ofconcepts such asintention, goal, andpurposeas teleological concepts.4

Faced with a multitude of such purported explanations, Davidson has achoice: (i) he can deny that they are explanatory, (ii) he can admit that theyare explanatory in their own right – that they constitute genuine noncausalexplanations, or (iii) he can retain the intuition that they are explanatory,but deny that they are explanatory in their own right; i.e. he can arguethat they are explanatory only because they serve as surrogates for otherexplanations, explanations which appear to cite antecedent states of thesubject, and so are open to be construed as causal. Davidson does not takeoption (i) or (ii). (i) is clearly counter intuitive: these explanations are everybit as explanatory as the explanations he favors, B/D explanations. Strictlyspeaking, Davidson could accept (ii), and allow that these teleological ex-planations are autonomous explanations in their own right; he could allowthat they are noncausal explanations, whose explanatory character doesnot in any way depend on their standing in for belief/desire explanation.He could take this approach and still in principle maintain that belief-desireexplanation are causal. That is, he could opt for a much more limited claim:somepsychological explanations, belief/desire explanations, are causal incharacter, while other psychological explanations of equal standing, tele-ological explanations, are not causal in character. Davidson does not takethis option, and with good reason. This concession, would greatly diminishthe force and interest of the argument: if we have to countenance noncausalpsychological explanation, what is to be gained by insisting that some oth-

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ers are causal. Psychological explanations posed a special problem in thatat least some of these explanations seemed not be causal, and thus the taskwas to give some account of these noncausal explanations. This problemis simply not addressed by one who argues: some ordinary psychologicalexplanations are of the familiar causal kind, while other equally familiarpatterns of psychological explanation are fully explanatory but irreduciblynoncausal. Davidson’s thesis is more interesting than this: his concern isvery generally with explanations which explain an agent’s behavior byciting her reasons for action, whether these reasons are of the B/D sortor of the teleological sort. All such explanations, not merely those of theB/D variety, are causal in character.5 The supposition that some of theseexplanations are genuinely explanatory and are yet irreducibly noncausalis not a viable one for Davidson. This leaves (iii) and this is the courseDavidson takes. He writes:

In order to understand how a reasonof any kindrationalizes an action it is necessaryand sufficient that we see, at least in essential outline, how to construct a primary reason(Davidson 1963, 4). (I will call this the “adequacy thesis”)

Yes, Davidson agrees, these teleological explanations do rationalize andexplain, they enable us to see what the agent saw in the action. But theydon’t do this independently of B/D explanations. To be told that Maryopened the gate to let the dog out explains Mary’s behavior, because itsuggests a different pattern of explanation: Mary wanted to let the dog outand believed that opening the gate would serve this end. And indeed, onereally understands how a teleological explanation rationalizes a subject’sbehavior only if one is able to construct the corresponding Belief/Desireexplanation.

This is the second crucial component in Davidson’s argument: theseteleological explanations are explanatory only to the extent that they sug-gest a further explanation, one which cites the subject’santecedentbeliefsand desires. Once he has established the claim that the teleological expla-nations serve as surrogates for the independently explanatory belief/desireexplanations, Davidson can confine his attention to belief/desire explana-tions; if he can show that these are causal (if he can defend the causalthesis), then he has shown that, at bottom, all psychological explanation iscausal.

With this much behind us, let us take a brief look at Davidson’s centralargument for the causal thesis, what I call hismaster argument.

Noting that nonteleological causal explanations do not display the element of justificationprovided by reasons, some philosophers have concluded that the concept of cause thatapplies elsewhere cannot apply to the relation between reasons and actions, and that thepattern of justification provides, in the case of reasons, the required explanation. But sup-


pose we grant that reasons alone justify in explaining actions; it does not follow that theexplanation is not also – and necessarily – causal. Indeed our first condition for primaryreasons (C1) is designed to help set rationalizations apart from other sorts of explanation.If rationalization is, as I want to argue, a species of causal explanation, then justification,in the sense given by (C1), is at least one differentiating property. How about the otherclaim: that justifying is a sense of explaining so that the ordinary notion of cause need notbe brought in? Here it is necessary to decide what is being included under justification.Perhaps it means only what is given by (C1): that the agent has certain beliefs and attitudesin the light of which the attitude is reasonable. But then something essential has certainlybeen left out, for a person can have a reason for an action, and perform the action, andyet this reason not be the reason why he did it. Central to the relation between a reasonand an action it explains is the idea that the agent performed the actionbecausehe had thereason. Of course we can include this too in our notion of justification; but then the notionof justification becomes as dark as the notion of reason until we can account for the forceof that ‘because’.

One way we can explain an event is by placing it in the context of its cause; causeand effect form the sort of pattern that explains the effect, in a sense of ‘explain’ that weunderstand as well as any. If reason and action illustrate a different pattern of explanation,that pattern must be identified. (Davidson 1963, 9–10)

This argument is not entirely clear, and it has received a number ofinterpretations. But one interpretation has had enormous influence anddeserves to be called thestandard interpretation; it is the most convinc-ing version of the argument and it takes this form (for example, Den-nett 1968, 159–60; Goldman 1970, 78; Scarrow 1981, 13–30; LePore andMcLaughlin 1985, 3–13; Antony 1989, 152–81; Moya 1990, 107).

Any adequate theory must allow for the distinction between beliefs anddesires whichmerelyrationalize an action and those which alsoexplainit. A subject’s beliefs and desires rationalize an action if they show theaction in a favorable light, if they give the agent a reason to act. Clearlyan agent can have reasons that rationalize in this sense, the subject canperform the act rationalized, and these reasonsnot explainwhy the agentdid what she did. Smith has reason to have his car winterized, he knowsits important for reliable operation in the winter and he wants the securityof a reliable car. He has the car winterized; but he has it winterized not forthese reasons, but rather because Mary asked him to have it done, and hewishes to please her. Smith’s desire for a reliable car and his belief thatthe car should be winterized if it is to be reliable serve to rationalize hishaving the car winterized, they provide him witha reason to do what hedoes. But given that he acted for other reasons – to please Mary – theydon’t explain his behavior. Any acceptable theory must provide for thisadditional element, must give us some account of how beliefs must belinked to behavior – over and above merely rationalizing it – if they areto explain it. As Davidson puts it, we must give some accounting of the“because” in “Smith did itbecauseMary asked him to”.

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And, Davidson contends, the causal theorist can provide for an intuitiveaccounting of this crucial additional element: rationalizing beliefs and de-sires explain the subject’s behavior (as opposed to merely rationalizingit) only if they cause it. His opponent, he claims, is unable to make thisdistinction. He can’t appeal to causation, and so apparently does not haveanything to “add” to the rationalizing function of beliefs and desires. Thebest he can do is simply to say thatsometimesthe justification or rational-ization includes explanation. And, Davidson rightly complains; this is noadvance; they have to say something about what marks off the explana-tory from the nonexplanatory rationalization. Simply put, we can markthis distinction using causal notions, and it appears that we can’t mark itwithout them; so apparently we can do justice to the force of the ‘because’in ‘She did it because she believes that,. . . ” only if we suppose that the“because” is causal. This then is the master argument for the claim that B/Dpsychological explanations are causal, and, given the adequacy thesis, wecan infer thatall psychological explanation is causal at bottom.

In the next two sections I expand on this standard version, and arguethat it is deeply defective.

2.

In setting out the argument in Section 1, I mentioned the role of the ade-quacy thesis in the argument, but more needs to be said.

First, as it stands, the adequacy thesis is ambiguous – open to weakerand stronger readings – and the force of the argument is, to a large extent,derived from this ambiguity. The weaker reading is plausible, but it fails tosupport the conclusion Davidson ultimately draws. On the stronger reading– the reading that is essential to the overall argument – the thesis is unde-fended and apparently false. Indeed some of Davidson’s own examples tellagainst it.

On the weaker reading, the adequacy thesis asserts that a correlationobtains between teleological and B/D explanations, in the sense that eachtrue teleological explanation can be paired with a true B/D explanation,and one understands the teleological only if one is able to construct anappropriate correlated B/D explanation. This reading is weak in that onit B/D explanations are given no special conceptual primacy. Read in thisway, the adequacy thesis is compatible with the counter-intuition that oneunderstands and appreciates B/D explanations only if one is able to con-struct the corresponding teleological explanation. This is the adequacythesis suggested by the actual words Davidson uses andto the extent thathe offers an argument for any adequacy thesis it is for this thesis.


On the other hand, it is possible to construe the thesis in a much strongerfashion, as one which goes beyond mere correlation and asserts the pri-macy of the B/D form of explanation. One can read the adequacy thesis asone to the effect that teleological concepts are essentially parasitic on thebelief/desire conceptual scheme, adding nothing to the explanatory powerof the B/D conception. Let me distinguish two versions of this strongerthesis: First (a) one might read it as a thesis to the effect that teleologicalexplanations are essentially derivative, deriving their explanatory powerfrom the more basic B/D explanations. Teleological explanations not onlysuggest correlated B/D explanations, but they are explanatorybecausetheysuggest such explanations; they explainby suggesting such B/D explana-tion. It is the B/D explanations that really do the explaining; teleologicalcharacterizations are mere surrogates, whose explanatory power is whollyderived from the fact that they suggest real explanation of a very differentform, B/D explanations. Or (b) one can view the adequacy thesis as athesis to the effect that the teleological categories and concepts are con-ceptually dispensable, i.e., adding the teleological categories and conceptsto the B/D conceptual apparatus does not enable us to draw additional(explanatorily relevant) conceptual distinctions. The distinctions we drawand understand, using the teleological concepts, can all be drawn and un-derstood without employing this idiom – they can be drawn in the morebasic B/D idiom.We can, in effect, dispense with teleological conceptswhen seeking to understand psychological explanation; we can make allthe essential distinctions we need within the B/D conceptual framework,and teleological concepts are not essential to our understanding of these ex-planatory distinctions. These formulations are somewhat vague, and thereare, no doubt, various other ways of reading the adequacy thesis, but thesetwo will do for my purposes.

Davidson’s explicit argument clearly supports only the weak version ofthe adequacy premise. I shall argue, however, that: (i) the standard versionof Davidson’s argument requires one of the stronger versions, version (b);6

and (ii) not only has he provided us with no reason to accept this versionof the adequacy thesis, there are good grounds for rejecting it and indeedDavidson, himself, has provided us with such reasons. Hence we haveevery reason to reject this most influential of arguments.

Before I turn to (i) and (ii), let me briefly review the facts Davidsoncites in favor of the adequacy thesis.

Fortunately, it is not necessary to classify and analyze the many varieties of emotions,sentiments, moods, motives, passions, and hungers whose mention may answer the ques-tion ‘Why did you do it?’ in order to see how, when such mention rationalizes the action,a primary reason is involved. Claustrophobia gives a man’s reason for leaving a cocktailparty because we know people want to avoid, escape from, be safe from, put distance

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between themselves and, what they fear. Jealousy is the motive in a poisoning because,among other things, the poisoner believes his action will harm his rival, remove the causeof his agony, or redress an injustice, and these are the sorts of things a jealous man wantsto do. When we learn a man cheated his son out of greed, we do not necessarily know whatthe primary reason was, but we know that there was one, and its general nature. (Davidson1963, 7)

Clearly such observations support no more than the simple claim thatwhenever we have a true teleological explanation of behavior, then there isalso a B/D explanation, and one does not fully understand the teleologicalexplanation unless one understands how to construct the correspondingB/D explanation; one won’t, for example, appreciate the explanatory forceof the claim thatS left the party because he is claustrophobic if one doesn’tknow that people want to avoid that which they fear, etc. Such consider-ations support the weak version of the adequacy thesis, but they lend nosupport to either of the stronger forms; in particular,there is nothing inthese remarks to support the general claim that teleological concepts andcategories are conceptually dispensable, that they play no essential rolein our understanding of psychological explanation and the distinctions wedraw in constructing such explanations.

I turn now to (i), to the claim that Davidson needs the strong reading(b) of the adequacy thesis. This problem has been overlooked because therole of the adequacy thesis has been misconstrued. The explicit role ofthe thesis is obvious: it enables Davidson to confine his attention to B/Dexplanations. He argues that B/D explanations are causal and then infers,by the adequacy thesis, that we have a causal explanation whenever wehave any genuine psychological explanation – regardless as to whetheror not it explicitly cites the beliefs and desires that caused the behaviorin question.On this standard construal of the argument, the adequacythesis does not figure in the defense of the restricted causal thesis – itdoes not enter into the defense of the claim that B/D explanations arecausal.We independently establish the claim that B/D explanations arecausal, and only then does the adequacy thesis come into play; it enablesus to conclude that there is a causal explanation in the offingwheneverwe have a genuine psychological explanation, regardless as to whetherthe explanation is of the B/D variety or not. It seems not unreasonable tosuppose that the weak version of the adequacy thesis is all that is neededfor this task. Given the causal thesis, each B/D explanation is causal, andgiven the weak version of the adequacy thesis we infer that there is a B/Dexplanation, and so a causal explanation, available whenever we have anypsychological explanation.

This traditional view of the argument is, however, deeply flawed; theadequacy thesis plays a much more complex role.In addition to its surface


role it also plays a vital but largely unrecognized role in the defense ofthe causal thesis.Consider the master argument once again. Davidsonstarts from the reasonable requirement that an adequate account of ourpsychological practice must accommodate the fundamental distinctionswe draw in that practice; in particular, it must respect the distinction wedraw between instances in which a belief and desire merely rationalize asubject’s action and instances in which they both rationalizeandexplain it,instances in which the subject is said to act as she doesbecauseof these ra-tionalizing beliefs and desires. Davidson’s claim is that the causal theoristand only the causal theorist is in a position to satisfy this requirement. Thecausal theorist can account for the distinction by insisting that we havean explanation only when the rationalizing beliefs and desires cause thebehavior in question. The noncausal theorist, he claims, simply lacks themeans to make this distinction; she can’t give any account of what it ismust be added to rationalizing beliefs and desires if they are to explain andnot merely rationalize. To illustrate this point he looks to an example ofMelden’s:

A man driving an automobile raises his arm in order to signal. His intention, to signal,explains his action, raising his arm, by redescribing it as signaling. What is the pattern thatexplains the action? Is it the familiar pattern of an action done for a reason? Then it doesindeed explain the action, but only because it assumes the relation of reason and action thatwe want to analyze. Or is the pattern rather this: the man is driving, he is approaching aturn; he knows he ought to signal; he knows how to signal, by raising his arm. And now,in this context, he raises his arm. Perhaps, as Melden suggests, if all this happens, he doessignal. And the explanation would then be this: if, under these conditions, a man raises hisarm, then he signals. The difficulty is, of course, that this explanation does not touch thequestion of why he raised his arm. He had a reason to raise his arm, but this has not beenshown to be the reason why he did it. (Davidson 1963, (10–11)

Davidson agrees with Melden, that we can, of course, explain thedriver’s action by citing his intention to signal, his reason for acting; but,he complains, this does not help us understand the distinction we are nowtrying to understand, this simply “assumes the pattern of explanation” –explanation by reasons – that we are trying to throw light on. On the otherhand, if Melden’s claim is that we explain whenever we cite the subject’srelevant (rationalizing) beliefs and desires, then the analysis fails; for theagent clearly can have the relevant beliefs and desires and act for differentreasons entirely. Davidson is here posing a direct challenge to Melden andother noncausal theorists: What must be added to rationalizing beliefs anddesires if they are also to explain, if they are to give the reason why theagent acted? An adequate theory must provide for this distinction. Meldenfails on this score if he equates explaining behavior with citing beliefsand desires that rationalize it – this simply obliterates the distinction. On

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the other hand, in attempting to provide for this distinction, he cannot,as Davidson says, simply “assume the relation of reason and action”; hecannot just avail himself of the very concepts under discussion. So, forexample, it is no help to be told that rationalizing reasons serve to explainan agent’s behavior if, in addition, they constitute the agent’sreasonforacting. This alleged explanation of the difference is no progress, sinceit employs the very concepts we are trying to understand. What we arelooking for is an account of what must be added to rationalizing beliefsand desires for them to be explanatoryor for them to constitute the agent’sreasons for acting.One way to legitimately satisfy this requirement is tosuppose that they must also cause the behavior; but we cannot satisfy thisrequirement by stipulating that they must constitute the agent’s reasons –this is tantamount to telling us that they are explanatory if they explain –no way to meet Davidson’s challenge.

This seems fair enough, but suppose now that a proponent of teleo-logical explanation advances an ever so slightly more ambitious accountof this distinction between merely rationalizing and explanatory beliefsand desires?7 Drawing on the riches of the teleological vocabulary, shereminds us that given any set of rationalizing beliefs and desires we canalways construct corresponding teleological, goal characterizations. Forexample, corresponding to the belief/desire characterization, “wanting towarn oncoming traffic that one is about to make a left turn and believingthat one must extend one’s left arm to do so” we have the goal catego-rization “acting in such a way as to signal a left turn”. The correlationshere are complex, imprecise and at times only a quite generic goal issuggested. But this poses no special problem; there is no reason to thinkthat we are any less adept in constructing goal characterizations from B/Dcharacterizations than we are in constructing B/D characterizations fromgoal characterizations. And now our imagined teleologist points to theimportant fact that the goal characterizations corresponding to true B/Dcharacterizations will sometimes be true, sometimes not. Consider againSmith who has had his car winterized. He has multiple rationalizing be-lief/desire sets: he wants a reliable car and believes that it will be reliableonly if he has it winterized; he wants to please Mary and believes that hewill do so if he winterizes the car. Corresponding to the first B/D charac-terization we have the goal characterization “he acted as he did in order tohave a reliable car”; and corresponding to the second B/D characterizationwe have the very different goal characterization “he acted to please Mary”.Only one of these goal characterizations, the latter one, is true, andthis,the teleologist insists, is why we say that he actedbecausehe wanted toplease Mary. In general, we say that an agent actsbecauseof rationalizing


beliefs and desires B and D when and only when it is true to say that theagent actedtoG, whereG is a goal correlated with the pair B/D. If it is truethat Smith has the car winterizedto please Mary, then we say that he doesit becausehe believes that it will please her and he wants to please her.Moreover, we donot say that the agent actedtoG in those cases in whichthe agent is said to merely act in accordance with her beliefs, in thosecases in which the beliefs and desires merely rationalize. In winterizinghis car, Smith acts in accordance with his wish to have a reliable car, buthe does not do itto have a reliable car: he does it to please Mary. Theseteleological notions,acting to do such and suchor acting for such and suchgoals, seem to be just what we need to mark the difference between mererationalizations and rationalizations which explain.8

None of this is new, and Davidson is not likely to be impressed. He issure to reject this response just as he rejected Melden’s: Belief/desire char-acterizations do indeed suggest goal characterizations, and the teleologistis correct in claiming that a subject may truly be said to actbecauseof agiven belief and desire only if it is true to say of her that she actsto gainthe corresponding goal, G. Of course, this is true, but this simply doesnot advance our understanding. The question before us is: what must beadded to rationalizing beliefs and desires, B/D, for them to also explain thebehavior they rationalize? It is no help to be told that the beliefs and desiresserve to explain the behavior in question if and only if it is true that theagent acted to G (where G is the goal suggested by the beliefs and desiresin question).This is simply one more example of“assuming the relation ofreason and action”, the very relation we are trying to understand.When asubject acts in accordance with rationalizing beliefs and desires, B/D, it istrue that we are sometimes prepared to say he acted to G, while other timeswe are not. But how are we to drawthisdistinction? What we are seeking isa better understanding of the conditions under which it is proper to say thatA actedbecauseof beliefs and desires B/D, the conditions under which itis proper to say that he actedfor this reason, or, we may now add, theconditions under which it is proper to say that he acted in order to gain G.What we want is an account which tells us what relationship must obtainbetween the pair B/D and the behavior it rationalizes for it to be properto say that the agent actedbecauseof B/D, or that sheacted to G?Weneed to say what additional conditions must be satisfied by rationalizingbeliefs for them to be explanatory, and in doing this we simply cannotavail ourselves of this notion ofacting in order to gain G.Our teleologisthas failed to meet this demand, and it’s clear that any other response thatattempts to mark this difference using teleological notions (such as goal,intention, etc.) will be dismissed in like fashion.

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But, and here’s the problem, this response is reasonable, only if one sup-poses that the teleological categories play no essential role in understand-ing the distinctions we draw in our psychological explanatory scheme.In dismissing teleological responses in this fashion, Davidson is clearlypresuming that we can do justice to our intuitive understanding of “S didA becauseshe believed that . . . ” without assuming any understanding of“S did A to gain goal G”, without any understanding of “Her intention wasto . . . ”, etc. He is assuming that the teleological categories and conceptsare dispensable, in the sense that one can make, understand and explainall the explanatorily relevant distinctions that we ordinarily make, withoutmaking any essential appeal to teleological notions; he is assuming that theteleological notions provide for no additional conceptual enlightenment.But this is just to assume the strong form of the adequacy thesis.

3.

I think it safe to conclude then, that Davidson’s master argument doesdepend on the strong reading of the adequacy thesis and that he has offeredus no argument for this thesis. Worse, not only is the thesis undefended, itseems to be clearly false; indeed it falls prey to a variety of examples whichwere of special concern to Davidson – examples of deviant causation. Thiskind of example, originally due to Chisholm, has long been viewed byDavidson and other causal theorists as posing a serious, if not insurmount-able obstacle to another element in the causal picture, thecausal analysisof intentional action, to any analysis of the form:

S intentionally A’s iff S A’s and S’s Aing is caused by the ap-propriate beliefs and desires (those that serve to rationalize S’sbehavior under the description A′′).

This form of analysis is a natural component in the general causal pic-ture endorsed by Davidson – one in which belief, desire and causation arethe central concepts – and when writing ‘Actions, Reasons and Causes’, heheld out hope of such an analysis. Within a few years, however, he had allbut abandoned that hope:

Beliefs and desires that would rationalize an action if they caused it in the right way . . . maycause it in other ways. If so the action was not performed with the intention that we couldread of from the attitudes that caused it. What I despair of is spelling out the way inwhich attitudes must cause actions if they are to rationalize the action [if the action isto be intentional].


Let a single example serve. A climber might want to rid himself of the weight anddanger of holding another man on a rope, and he might know that by loosening his holdon the rope he could rid himself of the weight and danger. This belief and want might sounnerve him as to cause him to loosen his hold, and yet it might be the case that he neverchose to loosen his hold, nor did he do it intentionally. (Davidson 1980a, 79)

Some theorists have attempted to push this example, and others like it,to one side, by arguing that it is a dubious case of agency, that it is anexample of something happening to the climber rather than an example ofhim acting unintentionally. This concern is not relevant to my argument,which has to do with the causal construal of psychological explanationrather than the causal analysis of intentional action. What matters is thefollowing: (i) We have here an example of behavior caused by belief anddesire (of a kind that would normally serve to rationalize the behavior inquestion), and (ii) even though there may a sense in which the cited beliefand desire explain the behavior,this explanation is not of a kind with yourstandard psychological explanation.It differs strikingly from the patternexhibited by routine explanations such as: John serviced the car, becausehe wanted to please Mary. And just as no theory can afford not to recognizethe distinction between beliefs and desires which merely rationalize andbeliefs and desires which rationalize and explain, sono theory can affordto ignore the distinction between the kind of explanation offered in thedeviant case and the kind of explanation offered in the run of the mill case.In ordinary cases – those in which the cited belief and desire provide fora full-fledged psychological explanation – we are in a position to makesense of the behavior, to see what was being aimed at. The explanationenables us to seewhy the agent did what she did; it enables us to see andunderstand what she was trying to do, to what end the action was directed.This is not true of the deviant explanation; here the question as to what theagent was aiming at does not arise, and the corresponding element of thepsychological explanation is simply absent (this, of course, is why manyinsist that this is not a genuine case of action). In offering a full-fledgedpsychological explanation, one gives a subject’s reasons for acting; oneanswers the question “Why did she do it?” by providing a certain kind ofinformation, and, these examples make it clear that this information is notnecessarily provided by citing the mental cause of the behavior. (This men-tal cause may explain why the behavior occurred, but notwhy the subjectdid it). These points seem to be relatively obvious and above contention,and they are independent of the issue as to whether or not this example isan example of genuine action.The central point is that there is an intuitivedistinction here that must be reflected in any adequate account.

But, in any case, there are other familiar examples of deviant causation,in which the deviance is “external” to the agent, examples in which the

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agent clearly acts as a result of his beliefs and desires, and yet the actionfails to be intentional (under the relevant description). To take just oneexample, again from Davidson:

A man may try to kill someone by shooting at him. Suppose the killer misses his victimby a mile, but the shot stampedes a herd of wild pigs that trample the intended victim todeath. Do we want to say that the man killed his victim intentionally? (Davidson 1980, 78)

Once again his answer is negative. Here the killer acts – he kills his victim –and the killing results from the appropriate beliefs and desires, but he doesnot intentionally kill his victim. Call this an instance of ‘external deviancy’to distinguish it from examples of “internal deviancy”, where the deviancytakes place in the very generation of the action.

Davidson saw these examples as scotching any hope of defending acausal analysis of intentional action: if the action is to be intentional itmust, he suggested, not only be caused by the appropriate beliefs anddesires, it must be caused “in the right way”, and he despaired of beingable to spell out what this additional constraint amounted to (Davidson1980, 79). We cannot evade this problem by simply stipulating that wehave an intentional action only if the behavior is caused inthe right way,and leaving it at that.To fall back on such talk of “the right way” is tosimply admit that there must be some additional constraint, some othercondition, over and above being caused by the appropriate beliefs anddesires, a condition we are unable to specify. Davidson, remember, hadchallenged the teleologist to say what distinguishes cases in which we actbecause of our beliefs and desires from those in which these same beliefsand desires merely rationalize. And he did not allow the teleologist to markthis difference by saying that the beliefs and desires explain when andonly when they rationalize the behavior in the right way – the explanatoryway. He denied this strategy to his opponents and he denies it to himself,concluding, with some regret, that there is every reason to think it is simplynot possible to provide an analysis of intentional action in terms of belief,desire, and causation.

This pessimistic outlook has not been shared by everyone, and a numberof theorists, committed to the causal analysis of intentional action, haveattempted to evade the problems posed by these examples. However, thereis every reason to think that Davidson’s pessimism is warranted; none ofthese efforts seems to hold out any real hope of success. This is not theplace to conduct a detailed review, but a brief glance at some of the moreinfluential attempts lends further support to Davidson’s pessimism, and,more importantly, enables us to better appreciate the extent to which theseexamples tell against the strong adequacy thesis and the master argument.Proposed causal analyses of intentional action have all encountered serious


difficulties, and in Section 3.1 I will briefly examine a couple of influentialaccounts. What emerges is this: the theorist has to appeal to somethingmore than belief, desire and causation to exclude the problematic exam-ples, and there is every reason to think that this additional something willnot fit into the causal model. In Section 3.2, I will argue for the stronger andmore important claim that regardless as to whether or not this additionalelement can be forced into the causal framework,the need for such anadditional component is enough to kill the strong adequacy thesis and themaster argument.Let me start then with a couple of attempts to causallydefine intentional action.

3.1.

Alvin Goldman exemplifies one strategy: in his influential book on actiontheory, he stipulates that actions are intentional only if caused by actionplans in characteristic ways, and he leaves it to cognitive science to tell therest of the story, to say what these characteristic ways are:

The difficult question of course is: precisely, what is this “characteristic” mode of causationby which wants and beliefs cause intentional action? To this question, I confess, I do nothave a fully detailed answer. But neither do I think it is incumbent on me, qua philosopher,to give an answer to this question. A complete explanation of how wants and beliefs lead tointentional acts would require extensive neurophysiological information, and I do not thinkit fair to demand of a philosophical analysis that it provide this information. (Goldman1970, 78)

This, however, seems to be just the kind of move rejected by Davidson.The philosopher who defends a causal analysis of intentional action mustprovide some additional constraints on the causal relation – this, after all,is what the examples show – and one cannot avoid this burden by passingit on to cognitive science or what have you. If one is engaged in philosoph-ical analysis, then one cannot advance an analysis, admit that it is open tocounterexamples, and just shrug this off as a problem to be addressed byanother discipline.

Others have attempted to actually specify the additional constraints, andtwo strategies have dominated: (i) eliminate the possibility of interveningfactors such as anxiety by insisting on a very intimate linkage between themental states and the behavior they cause, and (ii) circumvent the prob-lems posed by the examples of external deviancy by appealing to somemental states other than belief and desire– intention is the obvious choicehere. Myles Brand, for example, has elaborated a sophisticated, naturalisticaccount of action which employs both these strategies (Brand 1984).

First, he offers a theory of action designed to exclude the possibility ofinternal deviancy. Actions, he claims, are more than overt behavior (such

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as hand clapping); they extend inside the body, including the physiologicalprocesses leading up to the overt behavior, and this entire sequence mustbe caused by a mental event of the appropriate kind (the right content, etc.)

Richard’s clapping his hands is an event consisting of a causal sequence, part of whichhappens inside Richard’s body, such as events in his nervous system, and part of which ispublicly observable, namely, his hands moving together. That entire complex causal chainis an action, according to the Causal Theory, in virtue of being caused by a nonactionalmental event, say a desire plus belief.

In short an action is a causal sequence, which in the case of bodily action includes overtbehavior, and which in turn is initiated by a nonactional mental event of a specified sort.(Brand 1984, 16)

Internal deviancy is then avoided by insisting that there be no gap betweenthe mental event and the action sequence it causes: “the mental antecedentmust proximately cause the physiological chain leading to overt behavior”(Brand 1984, 16).

Second, Brand stipulates that the act is intentional only if the agent isfollowing his intention in acting as he does(this is to exclude externaldeviancy).9 In appealing to intention, Brand abandons the austere David-sonian conception of mental causation being primarily the work of beliefand desire. This, Brand argues, is simply too austere:

Wanting plus believing . . . is not agood candidate for the proximate cause of action. . . theyare not the kinds of events that directly cause action. The forcefulness of the anxious robberand nervous climber cases derived in part from the identification of the antecedent to actionwith wanting plus believing. Rather the best candidate for the proximate cause of action is. . . intending.(Brand 1984, 31)

Fully aware that the folk notions of intention (or “plan”) and intention-guided behavior are problematical, teleological notions, Brand devotes hislast three chapters to developing a naturalistic, nonteleological account ofintention. He does not offer any reductionistic analysisper seof the folknotions of intention and intention-guided behavior, but, drawing on recentwork in cognitive theory, he indicates in outline how a scientific recon-struction of these folk notions might go.10 He argues that an acceptabletheoretical reconstruction of the folk notion of intention (the proximatecause of action) will incorporate complex cognitive and conative elements;each of these is then in turn resolved into a number of more basic compo-nents (the cognitive, for example, is resolved into monitoring, guidanceand planning components) and a naturalistic model is then suggested foreach component; Schank and Abelson’s Script Theory, for example, is seenas providing the beginnings of a naturalistic (computational) account ofthe planning component (Brand 1984, 218–229).Unlike the folk notionsof intention and intention guided behavior, these theoretical constructs


are nonteleological in character, and so capable of figuring in a causalaccount of action.

In summary, Brand’s picture is this: a subject’s behavior is an actiononly if it is proximatelycaused by the appropriate mental states, and itis intentional if and only if the agent in performing it isfollowing hisplan or intention; and, Brand claims, all of these notions can be natu-ralized, transformed into acceptable, nonteleological theoretical concepts,concepts designed to figure in causal explanations. Despite the fact thatthis account is explicitly designed to accommodate the problems posed bydeviant causal chains, there is, I think, no reason to suppose that any ofthis is likely to mitigate Davidson’s pessimism regarding causal analysesof intention action.I limit myself to a few critical remarks, for, as we shallsee (in 2), even if Brand style intuitions can be employed in defense ofa causal analysis of intentional action, they won’t enable us to save themaster argument.

The first element in this account, extending the action back inside todirectly engage with the appropriate mental state, so as to avoid the pos-sibility of problematic intervening states isad hoc, without any indepen-dent motivation. Of course, action taxonomies are very different from tax-onomies drawn in terms of mere bodily movements: a host of contextualfactors are relevant in determining what an agent did (if anything). But thisprovides no reason to suppose that actions consist of the bodily movementsplus internal physiological causal chains, no reason to think that it is partof our ordinary conception of action that it extends back inside in such away as to be caused in this direct fashion by a complex of mental states. Itis worthy of note that we are told virtually nothing about these processes,nothing about how they are supposedly individuated; they are describedonly as being directly caused by the relevant mental event and as directlyresulting in the behavior of the agent; i.e. the theory characterizes theseprocesses only as having those properties that serve to exclude interveningstates such as anxiety – they serve simply to cement the mental to thebehavior. Not only is this picture unmotivated, it is clearly counterintuitive:we have no hesitation in ordinarily supposing that a subject is genuinelyacting even though a variety of emotional states play a large role in thegenesis of the behavior. Suppose that the climber’s intention to disposeof his colleague gave rise to anxiety which led him to release his fellowclimber more abruptly than he had intended. The anxiety does intervene,but it does not seem to in any way undermine the status of the behavior asanaction.11

The second element, the idea that an action is intentional only if theagent is following his intention is intuitive; there is every reason to think

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that Brand is correct in thinking that something of this sort is necessaryto handle the problem posed by causal deviancy. The examples, after all,are problematical for the simple reason that, even though the agent’s act ofAing is caused by the appropriate beliefs, she is not following her intention(even though he may well have been acting in accordance with his inten-tions). To circumvent these examples we have to appeal to states other thanantecedent states such as belief and desire. One has to impose additionalconstraints on the behavior to ensure that in acting as she does, the agent isfollowing her intention. One might of course appeal to some notion otherthan intention, but if it is going to close the gap it must have some ofthe force of notions such as “following one’s intention”.12 Properly under-stood, this kind of constraint appears to block all the problematic examples,and thus there is no need for the first constraint. However, intuitive or not,it is of no help in the present context, it can’t be employed to rescue thecausal analysis of intentional action from counterexamples. There is noreason to suppose that teleological notions such as “following ones inten-tion”, and “intention guided behavior” fit into the causal framework, noreason to think that we can appeal to such notions in developing a causalanalysis of intentional action. Davidson himself was quite explicit on this:he did not think of such characterizations as involving an appeal to an-tecedent states, and consequently he was not prepared to allow this notionanyessential rolein our understanding of psychological explanation.

Brand’s naturalistic analysis is, of course, intended to block this objec-tion, but I see no reason to think that he is successful in this venture. Heretoo I will limit myself to a few comments. There are numerous problems inBrand’s specific proposed reconstructions of the folk notions. To take justone example: As noted, the cognitive account of the planning componentis drawn in terms of Shank and Abelson’s Script theory. This theory wasoriginally offered as a naturalistic (nonintentional/syntactic) account oflinguistic understanding (more specifically, of the understanding compe-tent speakers have of stories, an understanding which draws on a hordeof background information). The specific theory failed on this score, andthere is no reason to think that it is any more successful as a naturalisticaccount of planning.13 Brand, however, is not likely to be moved; he ex-plicitly insists that he is not to be tied to the details of any of these theories;he recognizes that they all have their problems, andthey are employedsimply to illustrate the general character of a cognitive theory of intentionguided behavior.This strategy does serve to safeguard the theory from ob-jections to the specific cognitive reconstructions of the folk notions, but itdoes so at a price. If these cognitive theories (these theoretically acceptablereconstructions of folk notions) are merely illustrative, if these specific


theories are not intended toreplacethe folk notions in his account of inten-tional action, then the original folk notions are still doing all the real work– the plausibility of the account must turn on some specific notions, and ifnot on the cognitive replacements, then it must turn on the original notions.And these unreconstructed notions are, of course, unabashedly teleologicaland can’t play any essential role in a causal theory of intentional behavior.It may be possible to develop “cognitive counterparts” to our ordinaryintentional notions, but we have no reason to think that this will avoidthe problems posed by causal deviancy if these cognitive notions don’tretain the teleological flavor of the original; something very like intentionis needed. To conclude: recent attempts to provide a causal analysis ofintentional action serve to reinforce Davidson’s skepticism. It seems clearthat: (i) an analysis of intentional action will avoid the problems posedby causal deviance only if it can make use of notions very different frombelief and desire, teleological notions such as following one’s intention,and (ii) since there is no reason to think that such notions can be cast intoa causal mold, a causal analysis of intentional action does not appear to beon the cards.

3.2.

We are now in a position to appreciate the problem these examples posefor the strong adequacy thesis and the master argument.

First, the strong adequacy thesis. The essential point is this: An ade-quate account of intentional action (one able to mark the distinction be-tween intentional action and action which results in a deviant fashion)must employ notions other than belief, desire, and causation; it must em-ploy teleological notions such as intention. Andeven if it were possible todevelop a naturalistic account of these additional notions(e.g., a Brandstyle account of intention-guided behavior), these examples of deviancywould still tell against that thesis.Our review of some recent attempts tocircumvent the problems posed by causal deviancy may be too brief andincomplete to rule out the very possibility of a causal analysis of inten-tional action, but it does serve to show thatthe following two claims aretrue:

(i) We can and do distinguish between examples in which the agent’sbeliefs and desires “merely cause” her behavior from cases in which thecited beliefs and desires provide for full-fledged psychological explana-tion, cases in which they tell us why she did what she did, what she wasaiming at. So long as we allow ourselves the full psychological conceptualapparatus, including the teleological, we are able to mark, understand andexplain this distinction. In the one case the cited beliefs and desires enable

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us to understand what the agent was attempting to gain in acting as she did,in the other case, the question as to what she was aiming at does not evenarise.14

(ii) This distinction cannot be marked in an explanatory account whichlimits itself to causal explanation in terms of antecedent states such asbelief and desire.

These conclusions seem inescapable; there is every reason to thinkthat we cannot draw in the B/D language a distinction we normally drawusing the full psychological repertoire, in which the B/D language is sup-plemented with the teleological. But this amounts to a rejection of thestrong adequacy thesis, a rejection of the supposition that the teleological isdispensable, that it plays no essential role in our understanding of psycho-logical explanation and the distinctions we draw within the psychologicalexplanatory context. In a positive vein, these examples give us every reasonto think that teleological notions play a central role in our understandingof psychological explanation.

Let me stress again the important point that these examples are muchmore devastating to Davidson’s argument than they are to causal analy-ses of intentional action. The fact that an adequate account of intentionalaction must appeal to notions in some way analogous to intention is, ofcourse, profoundly worrisome for theorists such as Brand. But in itselfthis does not decisively tell against the possibility of such analyses;todemonstrate that such an analysis fails, one has to argue, in addition, thatno naturalistic reduction of this teleological notion is in the cards.For usthe story is very different: our concern is with the viability of the strongadequacy thesis, and no such additional argument is necessary for thistask; if we can’t make the distinction between the relevant cases withoutappealing to intention, or some analogous notion –regardless as to whataccount might be offered for intention– then the strong adequacy thesis issimply false, and the master argument fails.

But this is not all: the master argument is in even worse shape than thestrong adequacy thesis. Despite everything we have said, one might stillbe tempted to try to retain the strong adequacy thesis, arguing that whilethe story told does indicate that we need something more than belief/desireand causation, it does not fully demonstrate the indispensable role of theteleological. Certainly, teleological concepts such as intention enable us tomark the distinction between full psychological explanations and deviantcases, but so long as we allow that some other concept might also playthis role, we have not shown the teleological to be indispensable, we havenot shown the strong adequacy thesis to be false. I think this is all wishfulthinking, butthe important and surprising thing is that this does not really


matter. It is of no great account whether or not the necessary additionalpsychological concepts are labeled ‘teleological’ or not; this matter is ofconsequence in determining the fate of this or that specific adequacy thesis,but it is irrelevant when we consider the central strategy of the masterargument.

Recall the challenge Davidson posed for the teleologist: tell me whatdistinguishes those cases in which the rationalizing beliefs and desiresexplain from those in which they merely rationalize? We have now seenclearly that we need some notions other than belief, desire and causation ifwe are to do justice to the distinction between ordinary actions and deviantaction; we need some notion that will serve to mark the distinction be-tween deviant and nondeviant behavior, between those cases in which the(rationalizing) beliefs give the subject’s (psychological) reason for actingas opposed to merely giving the cause of the behavior. We need someadditional concept,T, to close this gap, something such that an agent maybe said to be intentionally Aing only if her behavior is the product of theappropriate beliefs and desires and she also satisfiesT. The important pointis now this: it does not really matter what shape this additional notiontakes; the mere fact that we need it to close this gap dooms the masterargument.If we allow, as we now see we must, that some such notionsplay a crucial role in understanding intentional action, then the teleologistmust be allowed use of this same notion in marking the distinction betweenthose beliefs and desires which both rationalize and explain from those thatmerely rationalize – the distinction, Davidson claimed, only the causal the-orist was in a position to mark.If the teleologist can use such notions, then– regardless of their status as teleological or not – the teleologist can markthe distinction between beliefs and desires which merely rationalize, andthose which also explain. But then, of course, the entire Master argumentfails to get off the ground.

I have pursued this argument against the master argument by reflect-ing on a couple of specific attempts to circumvent the problems posedby deviant causation, but it should be clear that the argument is perfectlygeneral, and does not, for example, rely on the particular deficiencies ofBrand’s or Goldman’s proposals. But in case there is any doubt, let me putthe argument in a perfectly general, if in a somewhat unattractive and bare-boned, form. Recasting it in this form may also help alleviate whateverlingering worries some may still have regarding the status (teleological ornot) of these additional elements.

In each of the problematic examples, we have an agentS; S performsan actionA (e.g., releases her companion); her act ofAing is the productof her beliefs and desiresB andD, where these are of the kind that serve

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to rationalizeAings (e.g., the belief that this is a convenient way to ridoneself of one’s companion, etc.). This is not a case of intentionalAing,however, becauseS, in Aing, is not attempting to gain the goalG (whereG is the goal associated with beliefs and desiresB andD); In releasingher companion,S is not attempting to release her, she is not trying to berelieved of her weight, etc. There are of course, other, alternative ways ofsaying exactly what is missing, but they are all closely allied:S does notintend toG, she is not intentionallyAing, etc.So long as we employ thefull psychological vocabulary(including the teleological) we can say whatis amiss in these cases of deviant causation.An analysis will do justice tothis only if it too serves to exclude these cases of deviant causation, andit will do this only if it appeals to some additional notionT (other thanbelief, desire, and causation) andT is such thatS’s actions areintentionalif they are the product of the right beliefs and desires andT is satisfied (Sis following his intentions in acting,or whatever). The lesson to be drawnis this: if T serves to exclude the deviant examples, if it serves to markout those cases in which the agent is attempting toG, in which the agentis intentionallyAing, then this sameT will also enable the teleologist tomark the distinction between those cases in which a subject actsbecauseof her beliefs and desires (B andD) and those cases in which theymerelyrationalize (the former will be cases in which she acts to gain the relevantgoalG). There is every reason to think thatwhatevernotion we appeal to,to mark the distinction between the deviant and the normal cases, thatsamenotionwill serve to mark the distinction between those cases in which thecited beliefs explain the behavior as opposed to merely rationalizing it.She actsbecauseof her beliefs and desires B and D, when these satisfytwoconstraints: (i) they rationalize her behavior, (ii)and she satisfiesT.

Let me summarize this final step in my argument: I have referred to theadditional concepts as teleological, but now it is clear that nothing muchhangs on this. I think it is fairly obvious that the requisite concepts arelikely to be teleological in the usual sense of that notion; as things nowstand, we have no option but to use such notions in distinguishing betweendeviant and non-deviant cases. But, in the end, this does not really matterto the argument: to mark the distinction between those cases in which thecited beliefs and desires explain the behavior in the ordinary style (wherethey give the agent’s reasons for acting) and cases of deviant causation,one has to appeal to concepts other than belief, desire and causation. It isof no great importance whether or not one calls these additional concepts‘teleological’. What is important is this: if these additional concepts areup to this task, they will surely provide what the teleologist needs to markthe distinction between beliefs and desires which merely rationalize, and


those which also explain.We have to employ concepts other than belief,desire and causation, if we are to do justice to the phenomenon of deviantcausation, and we have every reason to think that these additional conceptswill provide the teleologist with what she needs to mark the distinctionbetween beliefs which merely rationalize, and those which rationalize andexplain.Once again, the argument fails to get off the ground.15

4. CONCLUSION

In examining Davidson’s argument, I have focussed on what I have calledthe standard interpretation, an interpretation that gives center place to themaster argument– to the claim that only the causal theorist can accountfor the difference between beliefs and desires which rationalize behavior,and those which also explain it. This interpretationis the standard one, andonly this interpretation does full justice to the text and to the enormousinfluence of the argument. In closing, I want to say a few words about al-ternative interpretations, one’s which don’t focus on the master argument.The problem with all these alternative interpretations is that they renderthe argument so transparently weak that it is very difficult to see how theargument could ever have had any substantial influence.

One might, for example, focus on the kind of sentiment expressed inthe following remarks:

Talk of patterns and contexts does not answer the question of how reasons explain actions,since the relevant pattern or context contains both reason and action. One way we canexplain an event is by placing it in the context of its cause; cause and effect form the sortof pattern that explains the effect, in a sense of ‘explain’ that we understand as well asany. If reason and action illustrate a different pattern of explanation, that pattern must beidentified. (Davidson 1963, 10)

Davidson here seems to be defending his analysis by arguing that hisanalysis provides for a depth of understanding that is simply not matchedby rival accounts. His account, after all, is fashioned around a notion ofexplanation that we all understand – causal explanation – and so it providesa genuine advance, deepening our understanding of the phenomenon. Onthe other hand, those who attempt to provide for an understanding withoutconstruing the explanations as causal, inevitably employ the very notionsthat we are trying to understand – they offer no genuine advance in under-standing. This argument, which makes no explicit appeal to the centralmove of the Master Argument (an adequate theory must accommodatethe distinction between rationalization and explanation), has nothing goingfor it. The recognition that a causal analysis of psychological explanation

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would provide fora new depth of understandingis no argumentfor theanalysis. The story here is just as it is in other reductionistic contexts.A phenomenalistic interpretation of physical object talk would providefor a ‘new depth of understanding’, but this provides no positive supportwhatsoever for phenomenalistic analyses. Furthermore, complaints that theteleologist is employing the very notions under discussion, has no force,unless one falls back on a version of the strong adequacy thesis.

Perhaps, the complaint here is that theteleologistis offeringno accountat all, that one offers anaccountof psychological explanation only if oneoffers something akin to a reduction; a philosophical account must employnotions drawn from a different sphere; in this case it must avoid all truckwith peculiar psychological or teleological notions. Well if nothing butsuch counts as a philosophical explanation, then the teleologist offers none.But then there is no reason to think that such accounts are in the offing, andthere is certainly no reason to think that the causal account provides us withsuch an account.

These semi-reductionistic intuitions, undoubtedly, color Davidson’s dis-cussion, but they should not be thought of as constituting his central argu-ment; they have very little persuasive force, and certainly his paper wouldnever have had the impact it has had, were the central arguments of thiskind. The central argument, is of a much better form: it points to somethingthat any adequate philosophical account must do; he then argues that hisopponents can’t do it, while the theorist who supposes that psychologicalexplanations are causal can do it. The central argument, the serious argu-ment, the argument that calls out for consideration, is the master argument,and, impressive though it is, this argument fails as an argument for thecausal interpretation of psychological explanation. To draw the distinctionbetween deviant and nondeviant cases we need to employ concepts otherthan concepts of causation and antecedent states, and we have every reasonto think that these additional concepts will provide the teleologist withwhat she needs to mark the distinction between beliefs which merely ra-tionalize, and those which rationalize and explain. Contrary to the receivedposition, we don’t have a good argument for the causal model.15

NOTES

1 Davidson’s own position on the relationship between externalism and causality is prob-lematic. On the one hand, he has authored one of the best known defenses for the claimthat psychological causation requires token identity (on the assumption that we don’t havepsychophysical laws). On the other hand, he accepts central elements of the externalist


picture, and, indeed, he seems to accept Burge’s essentialist view of content, which wouldapparently commit him, like Burge, to a denial of such identities. He writes:

I accept Burge’s premise; I think its denial not merely implausible, but absurd. If twomental events have different contents they are surely different events. What I take Burge’sand Putnam’s imagined cases to show (and what I think The Swampman example showsmore directly) is that people who are in all relevant respects similar . . . can differ in whatthey mean or think. . . . (Davidson1987, 452)

However, he then goes on to liken these Twin cases to his ‘sunburn’ cases (examples inwhich we have two identical skin conditions, only one of which is caused by the Sun, andso only one deserves to be labeled ‘sunburn’); and this suggests a nonessentialist readingof the Twin examples: the twins do not differ in state or event, but only in the kind ofpsychological characterizations that are true of them. It is simply not clear how one shouldread this account.2 One can read the argument ofPsychosemanticsin this fashion.3 Since he maintains that a given action may be described in a variety of ways, and it maybe intentional under some descriptions and not under others, Davidson is forced to give amuch more careful specification of what it is for something to be a primary reason:

R is a primary reason why the agent performed the action A under the de-scriptiond only if R consists of a pro attitude of the agent towards actionswith a certain property, and a belief of the agent that A, under the descriptiond, has that property. (Davidson 1963, 5)

(C1)

Actually this is just a necessary condition for something being a primary reason. David-son was aware that more was needed, but he did not see how to amend it to make itsufficient as well as necessary. When writing this essay he held out hope that this couldbe done, and this is the very hope he later came to abandon when confronted with theproblems posed by deviant causation (see Davidson 1980, xiii).4 On this reading, any explanation which appeals to antecedent states will count as non-teleological, even if it uses such notions as intention; e.g., he intended to warn Smith, andas a result he left the meeting early.5 In addition he sometimes writes as though causal explanation is the only kind of ex-planation that we really have any understanding of, and so he cannot suppose that theseteleological explanations are noncausal and also genuinely explanatory. See Section 4,Conclusion.6 These two versions of the strong adequacy thesis, (a) and (b), are really quite differentand Davidson actually seems to need both. I shall focus on (b), but see note 15 for somecomments on (a).7 The following remarks are not offered as a serious, detailed alternative to the Davidsonianaccount of the linkage; it is a generic sketch, really little more than a caricature, intendedto capture the flavor of a large number of competing teleological accounts. For specificaccounts see, for example, C. Ginet,On Action(1990); A. Collins,The Nature of MentalThings(1987).8 In making this claim the teleologist need not be construed as making a reductive claim,as suggesting that the teleological notions are such as to define belief/desire concepts; herpoint is simply that understanding these concepts, understanding the explanatory role ofbelief, consists largely in grasping these conceptual interconnections and linkages.9 Others such as Thalberg also opt for this response.

168 JOSEPH OWENS

10 He writes:

[L]et me reemphasize two points. First, “Intention” is given a quasi-technical use. It refersto whatever event or complex of events is the proximate causal antecedent to action. Thedetailed explanation of intention will go beyond that provided by folk psychology. . . Thisleads to the second point. Despite the appeal to scientific psychology,my goal is notto explain intention by advocating particular scientific theories. . . Rather the goal is toformulate the conceptual basis for an adequate action theory. That goal is to be accom-plished by the progressive transformation of folk psychology into scientific psychology.The discussion of specific scientific theories is meant to be illustrative of the issues andapproaches(Italics, mine). (Brand 1987, 174. See also p. 191)

11 Of course, certain aspects of the behavior might be unintentional, but that is anothermatter.12 This was quite clear to Davidson.13 John Searle attacked the original account in his now famous “Minds, Brains, and Pro-grams”, (1980). One can reasonably argue that Searle’s argument does not do everythinghe claims for it – it does not really seem to tell against some of the more sophisticated(robotic) A.I. models, but the argument does show that the specific account advancedby Schank and Abelson is inadequate. This particular model, whatever might be said ofvarious refinements, simply does not explain linguistic comprehension.14 This may not constitute a “deep” or “philosophical” understanding of psychologicalexplanation but this is not relevant. This is the distinction we draw and this is how wecharacterize it; this is the understanding we have of it.15 When I distinguished between weak and strong readings of the adequacy thesis, I alsodistinguished two versions of the strong adequacy thesis. I have argued that he needs thestrong version (b), and that this thesis is false. I think it clear that he also needs the otherversion of the strong thesis: he needs to assume that teleological explanations explain,not in some autonomous fashion, butby suggesting an explanation of another kind, aB/D explanation (version (a)). This version faces difficulties of a different kind. Here Iwill mention just one. Teleological explanations are not confined to the explanations ofrational behavior. We employ and rely on a large variety of nonmentalistic functional andteleological explanations in everyday and scientific accounts.

To take just one example from the popular press. In an article on organ transplanta-tion (The Minneapolis Star and Tribune, September 30, 1993, p. 1E), the behavior of thepancreas is explained as follows:

It secretes chemicals called enzymes into the intestines (to help with the digestion of foods)and bicarbonate(which neutralizes stomach acids), and manufactures insulin and glucagon(which regulate the level of sugar in the blood).

Davidson, of course does not consider such explanations; he is concerned only withthe explanation of action. But if teleological explanations of behavior explain onlybysuggestingalternative explanations which cite antecedent states (beliefs and desires), andif we think of these nonmentalistic teleological explanations as genuinely explanatory, thensurely one should expect the analogous form of the thesis to be true for these explanations;we should think of these nonmentalistic teleological explanations as explaining only be-cause they suggest alternative explanations, ones which cite appropriate antecedent statesand events.

There is no reason whatsoever to think that these explanations explain bysuggestingalternative explanations, ones that can be forced into the causal mold. (Of course, one


may argue that there must also be a causal explanation, but that is another matter.) Ifsuch explanations thenexplain in their own right, without being seen as surrogates forcausal explanation, then we have to allow for such patterns of explanation, even if wecannot offer an account of them. They are not causal explanations which explain by citingantecedent states, and they don’t gain their explanatory force by standing in for such causalexplanations. And once we grant this much, why think the story is really different in thecase of rational teleological explanation.

One might of course just simply deny that these are explanatory; but it is difficult tosee how this is any more plausible than the corresponding claim that rational teleologicalexplanations are not really explanatory.16 I wish to thank three anonymous referees of this journal for their helpful comments.

REFERENCES

Anscombe, G. E. M.: 1959,Intention, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.Antony, L.: 1989, ‘Anomalist Monism and the Problem of Explanatory Force’,Philosoph-

ical Review97, 152–181.Brand, M.: 1984,Intending and Acting: Towards a Naturalized Action Theory, MIT Press,

Cambridge, MA.Burge, T.: 1979, ‘Individualism and the Mental’, in P. French, T. Uehling and H.

Wettstein (eds.),Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. VI, University of Minnesota Press,Minneapolis, MN, pp. 73–121.

Churchland, P.: 1970, ‘The Logical Character of Action Explanations’,PhilosophicalReview79, 214–36.

Collins, A.: 1987,The Nature of Mental Things, Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IN.Cummins, R.: 1983,The Nature of Psychological Explanation, MIT Press, Cambridge,

MA.Davidson, D.: 1963, ‘Actions, Reasons and Causes’,Journal of Philosophy60, reprinted

in Davidson, D.,Essays in Actions and Events, Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp. 3–19.Davis, L.: 1979,Theory of Action, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.Dennett, D.: 1968,Content and Consciousness, Humanities Press, New York, NY.Dretske, F.: 1988,Explaining Behaviour, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.Fodor, J.: 1987,Psychosemantics, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.Ginet, C.: 1990,On Action, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Goldman, A.: 1970,A Theory of Human Action, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.Lepore, E. and McLaughlin, B.: 1985, ‘Actions, Reasons and Causes’,Actions and Events:

Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.McIden, A. I.: 1961,Free Action, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.Moya, C.: 1990,The Philosophy of Action, Polity Press, Cambridge, MA.Scarrow, D.: 1981, ‘The Causality of Reasons: A Survey of Some Recent Developments in

the Mind-Body Problem’,Metaphilosophy12, 13–30.Searle, J.: 1980, ‘Minds, Brains and Programs’,Behavioral and Brain Sciences3, 417–24.Winch, P.: 1958,The Idea of a Social Science, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.Wittgenstein, L.: 1958,The Blue and Brown Books, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

Department of PhilosophyUniversity of MinnesotaMinneapolis, MNUSA

psychological explanation and causal deviancy

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