Practical Reasoning and Historical Inquiry

It has been said that historical explanation differs radically from scientific explanation, because history deals primarily with human actions In explaining actions, we are not concerned with discovering causes of acts, but with elucidating the rationale behind them. While there may be some sense in which reasons operate as causes, explanation in terms of reasons is quite different from causal explanations.' Much of the argument for and against this position has been hampered by a misconstrual of the nature of rational explanation, or explanation of actions in terms of their reasons. Basically, the trouble lies in the belief that, given a reason for an action, the action itself may in some way be deduced from it. This belief is fundamental to Aristotle's practical syllogism. Here one has a universal premise such as "Dry food is good for all humans" and particular premises such as "Here is some dry food" and "I am human," from which the action of eating the dry food is supposed to follow. But we all know that it does not follow. People do not always do what is good for them, and certainly not everything that might possibly be good for them. I cannot even infer that I ought to eat the particular bit of dry food in front of me. A syllogism which would allow such an inference would have to have a premise of a sort which Anscombe quite rightly calls "insane": "Every human ought to eat dry food on every possible occasion."52 Recognition of the failure of the practical syllogism, however, has failed to prevent many from falling into similar traps. A. I. Melden argues that reasons cannot be causes, since, as Hume tells us, a cause cannot be logically related to its effect and since reasons are logically related to the actions which follow from them.3 This argument has several difficulties, but the only one I shall consider here arises from the notion that reasons are logically related to actions. The rationale behind this assertion is that actions are described in terms of the purposes for which they are done. The question /What are you doing?" is usually answered by citing some purpose, which purpose is a reason for