Theism and Explanation - Appeared-to-Blogly

Appendix 161
estimate of her character. On this basis we can judge how likely it is that she
will suffer from weakness of will. Predicting human behaviour is a notoriously
diffi cult business, but it does not seem to be impossible. If it were,
there could be no human social life, which relies on such predictions.
A.3.3 Intentions and Laws
There is a second, and more serious objection to the idea that intentional
explanations are testable. It arises from the claim that intentional explanations
are “anomalous,” in the sense that they do not rely on laws. If there
are no laws connecting intentions and behaviour, or if intentional explanations
do not rely on laws, then on what basis could we use such explanations
to make testable predictions? And if such explanations do not appeal
to laws, can the causal thesis be defended? Can we have a causal explanation
that does not appeal to causal laws? 58
A.3.3.1 Causation and Laws
When discussing the relation between causation and laws (4.2.1), I suggested
that we should distinguish two questions that can arise in this context.
59 The fi rst is a metaphysical question about the nature of causation.
When we say that event A causes event B, are we committed to the idea that
there is a law-like relation between events of type A and events of type B?
But there exists a second question, which must be distinguished from the
fi rst, having to do with the nature of explanation. In order to explain event
B by citing event A, must my explanation cite a law that connects events of
type A with events of type B?
Explanation without laws. It is, in the fi rst instance, the epistemic question
with which I am concerned here. Can we offer a causal explanation of an
event without citing a causal law covering events of this type? My answer is
that we can. And as I shall argue in a moment, an intentional explanation
does precisely this. It is true that one could use an intentional explanation
to construct a general law. Such a law would state that if there existed
another rational agent of precisely this type (having the same beliefs and
desires) then when placed in exactly the same situation he would act in the
same way. (In this sense one could argue that any singular explanation
entails the existence of a regularity, in the sense of a potential regularity.)
But if this is a law, it is an unhelpful one. If we loosen this condition a
little—if we argue that agents having a similar character, in similar situation,
with similar beliefs and desires, will act in similar ways—we may have
something a little more useful. We may be able to construct some generalisations
about human behaviour.
We could also construct such generalisations inductively, by connecting
reports of agent’s intentions with their observed behaviour. By either method,