2.1. Reasons Why

Skow follows accounts that tie why questions to reasons why (Reference Skow2016, 26–27; examples: Achinstein Reference Achinstein and Körner1975, 29–30; Brogaard Reference Brogaard2009, 461; Stanley Reference Stanley2011, 209). The basic form of answers to why questions is “One reason why p is that q.”

Reasons why are particular facts (Skow Reference Skow2016, 35). For instance, that her diaphragm was stimulated is a reason why Juliana has the hiccups. Skow distinguishes between different levels of reasons why (Reference Skow2016, chap. 4.2; Reference Skow2017, 907):

Citing second-level reasons answers the ‘follow-up’ question “What does F ₁ have to do with E?” or “Why is F ₁ a reason why E occurred?” (Skow Reference Skow2016, 75, 80). Causal background conditions are examples of second-level reasons. Take the question “Why did the match light?” (Reference Skow2016, chap. 4.2; Reference Skow2017, 907): That someone struck the match is a first-level reason why the match lit. That oxygen was present is a second-level reason why; it is a reason why that someone struck the match is a reason why the match lit. Other examples include nonaccidental regularities, such as laws (Reference Skow2016, chap. 4.2; Reference Skow2017, 908): Skow illustrates this with the question “Why did the rock hit the ground at a speed of 4.4 meters/second?” A first-level reason is that the rock was dropped from a height of 1 meter. A second-level reason is the law $s=\sqrt{2dg}$ (s = impact speed, d = drop height, g = gravitational acceleration near the earth’s surface ≈ 9.8, $4.4\approx \sqrt{2\times 1\times 9.8}$).

Second-level reasons why can be first-level reasons why. Take causal background conditions: That oxygen was present is also a reason why the match lit. However, according to Skow, nonaccidental regularities are not first-level reasons why:

For instance, that $s=\sqrt{2dg}$ is not a reason why the impact speed was 4.4 meters/second (Reference Skow2017, 908). Skow does not argue for Nonaccidental Regularities. He likes “to put the burden on the other side: why think [laws] are [first-level reasons why]?” (Reference Skow2017, 909). Skow further claims that only causes and grounds are first-level reasons why (Reference Skow2016, chap. 3; Reference Skow2017, 907–9):

His argumentative strategy is to take Causes and Grounds as initially plausible and to defend it against putative counterexamples. I do not discuss Nonaccidental Regularities and Causes and Grounds, but take them for granted (for some discussion, see, e.g., Baumgartner [Reference Baumgartner2017]; Pincock [Reference Pincock2017]; Lange [Reference Lange2018, 36]). Instead, in what follows, I challenge Skow’s claims about second-level reasons why and answers to why questions.

2.2. The Accusation of Confusion Revisited

Let us get back to the accusation of confusion. Skow accuses Hempel of “inaugurat[ing] a long tradition of confusing the two levels of reasons” (Reference Skow2016, 81). The alleged confusion underlying the citing of nonaccidental regularities in answers to why questions is to take nonaccidental regularities to be first-level reasons why. According to Skow, this confusion is due to particular pragmatic effects (Reference Skow2017, 909): We think that laws are first-level reasons because they are often cited in good responses to an asked why question. Skow illustrates his point as follows: “she asks me why [the rock] hit the ground at 4.4 meters/second. I respond, ‘Well, I dropped it from 1 meter up, and impact speed s is related to drop height d by the law $s=\sqrt{2dg}$ (and of course $\sqrt{2\times 1\times 9.8}\approx 4.4$)’” (909). This is a fine response. However, this does not mean that the law is a first-level reason why:

So Skow’s stance is that citing neither the law nor its application is part of the answer to the question “Why did the rock hit the ground at 4.4 meters/second?” They are just part of a good response to it. The law citation is an answer to an anticipated follow-up question. The confusion of different levels of reasons why is a confusion of good responses and proper answers. The same holds true in the case of the Königsberg bridges example. Skow suggests that Lange mistakenly takes a second-level reason (the necessity of not being able to cross all of the bridge exactly once) to be part of the answer to the relevant why question (Reference Skow2016, chap. 5.3; Reference Skow2017, 913–14).

2.3. Why There Is Probably No Confusion of Levels of Reasons Why

The accusation that so many of Skow’s rival accounts make such an elementary confusion is puzzling. In fact, none of those accounts is committed to the claim that nonaccidental regularities are first-level reasons why.Footnote ³ Here is why: Taking citations of second-level reasons to be parts of answers why p does not mean that one classifies second-level reasons as first-level reasons. How one classifies reasons is one thing and what one counts as part of an answer is another. These issues are independent of each other. Claiming that correct answers to why questions (could) cite nonaccidental regularities is compatible with agreeing that such regularities are not first-level reasons why.

Skow’s accusation becomes less puzzling when one realizes that he makes the following assumption (Reference Skow2017, 907):

Skow endorses Why Questions at the outset of his account. According to Skow, complete answers as to why p are conjunctions of elements of the form “One reason why p is that q” (Reference Skow2016, 42, 51); that is, they are conjunctions of citations of first-level reasons why.

Skow is so convinced of Why Questions that he interprets his opponents’ accounts as sharing it. This leads to descriptions of their accounts as classifying all facts that are cited in answers to why questions as first-level reasons. For instance, he claims that the D-N account “take[s] certain second-level reasons, laws of nature, to also be first-level reasons” (Reference Skow2017, 908) and that “Salmon’s view … is that all the other facts … are really part of the answer to the question (in my preferred terms, they really are [first-level] reasons why)” (Reference Skow2016, 93). However, these descriptions are likely to be false. The defenders of rival accounts are not committed to accepting Why Questions. Skow neglects the vivid possibility that his opponents simply reject Why Questions.

Skow’s accusation of confusion as well as his claim that correct answers to why questions cite only causes or grounds essentially depend on Why Questions. If second-level reasons why could be cited in answers to why questions, there would be no basis for accusing others of conflating different levels of reasons why, and the claim that answers to why questions cite only causes or grounds would be refuted as well. So let us turn to examining the plausibility of Why Questions.

3.1. Arguments for Excluding Second-Level Reasons Why

According to Skow, citations of second-level reasons are only parts of a good response to an asked why question, but not proper parts of the answer to it. His reasoning reveals two arguments for excluding second-level reasons: (i) Citing second-level reasons answers the closely related follow-up question “What does F ₁ have to do with E?” (Reference Skow2017, 907). (ii) Citations of second-level reasons why, taken by themselves, do not answer the question “Why did E occur?” For instance, $s=\sqrt{2dg}$, taken by itself, does not answer why the impact speed was 4.4 meters/second.

Yet both arguments can be rebutted. The first argument is not compelling because an answer to a question can clearly have parts that are also answers to closely related questions. Take the question “Where did you park your car?” and the reply “I parked it next to the building which is Juliana’s house and the only building in the street with a blue roof.” The second part of the which clause also expresses an answer to “How could one identify Juliana’s house?” But this does not exclude it from being part of the answer to the initial question. The answer simply specifies the location where the car is parked in two complementary ways.

The second argument looks more promising. If we accept that nonaccidental regularities are not first-level reasons why p, it seems difficult to argue that a citation of them, taken by itself, answers the why question. However, even if so, the second argument can be rebutted. That a proposition, taken by itself, is not an answer to a question does not mean that it could not be a part of an answer. Take the question “How did you rescue her?” and as a reply “I jumped into the water, swam 5 meters, grabbed her, and brought her ashore.” “I swam 5 meters,” taken by itself, is not an answer to the question. But it is nonetheless a part of the conjunction, and the latter is an answer to the question.

A third argument Skow might want to offer is that including citations of second-level reasons why would amount to giving up his simple account of answers to why questions. Arguably, the answer “The drop height is 1 meter and $s=\sqrt{2dg}$” could not be stated in Skow’s preferred form “One reason why p is that q.” A simple account of answers might have some intrinsic value. But the alternative ‘because’ form works fine when one cites both first-level and second-level reasons why, for example, “The impact speed was 4.4 meters/second because the drop height is 1 meter and $s=\sqrt{2dg}$.” As Skow himself notes, “‘reasons why’ answers and corresponding ‘because’ answers are often equivalent, in some sense” (Reference Skow2016, 23). If so, there is room for an alternative simple account that features “p because …” propositions as the basic unit of answers to why questions.

3.2. Arguments against Excluding Second-Level Reasons Why

In order to argue against Why Questions, one might argue that all answers to why questions need to cite nonaccidental regularities, as Hempel would argue (Reference Hempel1965, 349). One has to answer the follow-up question “What does F ₁ have to do with E?” in order to have an answer to the why question. However, it suffices to argue for the weaker claim that some answers to a why question are a conjunction of a citation of a first-level reason why and a citation of its second-level reason why. So let us turn to arguments for such conjunctions.

My first argument is concerned with the nature of complete answers to why questions. Questions are not understood as speech acts here, but as the content that is expressed by interrogative sentences (Skow Reference Skow2016, 26–27; see also, e.g., van Fraassen Reference van Fraassen1980, 137–38). Answers are understood as propositions. An important issue discussed is whether answers have to be determined relative to some subject. Are answers always answers for some subject? If they were, one could rebut Why Questions as follows: In at least some cases, what Skow considers to be the complete answer is not a complete answer for every subject who lacks additional knowledge. Take the following example by Lange (Reference Lange2013): A mother has three children and 23 strawberries. According to Lange, the facts that jointly explain why she failed to distribute the strawberries equally among them are that she has three children and 23 strawberries and that three does not divide into 23. According to Skow, the only facts that explain are the first two (Reference Skow2016, 112–13; Reference Skow2018, 15). So the complete answer to the question “Why did Jane fail to distribute the strawberries equally?” is “There are exactly two reasons why she failed: She has three children and she has 23 strawberries.” As Skow notes himself, “including only the reasons why Jane failed is apt to leave one’s audience unsatisfied” (Reference Skow2016, 114). This is understated: Arguably, the putative complete answer is unsatisfying for everyone who does not know (or recognize the relevance of the fact) that three does not divide into 23. But if knowledge or recognition of the latter is necessary for considering an answer to the question satisfying, it seems plausible that the fact that three does not divide into 23 is cited in the complete answer as to why Jane failed to distribute the strawberries equally. Something similar could be true in the impact speed example. Just stating that the drop height was 1 meter is not a complete answer for everyone who does not know how drop height and impact speed are related. A complete answer to this question cites the law or some other relevant nonaccidental regularity. (Again, this does not mean that the law is a first-level reason why.) This argument is not a pragmatic argument; it is based on an assumption about the semantics of answers.

What if answers were not determined relative to some subject? In this case, one could rebut Why Questions as follows: Every question has a subject matter, that is, a queried property or relation. For instance, the subject matter of “Who robbed the bank?” is the property of being someone who robbed the bank in question. A complete answer to this question specifies all entities who fulfill this property. What is the subject matter of a why question? One proposal that is general enough to capture the variety of why questions is that the subject matter of a why question is the property of being something the event in question (explanatorily) depends on (adopted from Kim [Reference Kim1994]). First-level reasons why fulfill this property. However, this also holds true for second-level reasons why. That Jane failed to distribute the strawberries equally among her children also depends on the fact that three does not divide into 23 (irrespective of whether the latter is a necessary or a contingent fact).Footnote ⁴ That the impact speed was 4.4 meters/second also depends on the fact that $s=\sqrt{2dg}$, and so on. That is why complete answers can cite nonaccidental regularities in addition to citing first-level reasons why.

My second argument is concerned with the relation between the answer to the follow-up question and the answer to the why question. Skow argues only that the answer to the follow-up question, taken by itself, does not answer the why question. However, one could argue that the answer to a follow-up question such as “Why does F ₁ have to do with E?” complements an answer as to why p. The subject matter of follow-up questions is the property of being a link between the event occurrence in question and the cited fact. This link can be a further fact or a regularity, such as the gravitational law that connects drop height and impact speed. Importantly, the same could not be said regarding the cases that motivate Skow’s pragmatic good-response argument. Take his example “Is Connor coming to the party?” (Reference Skow2016, 72) and as a response “No, he is sick.” Clearly, “He is sick” is not part of an answer to the yes-or-no question. Instead, it is an answer to the expected follow-up question “Why isn’t he coming?” In this case, despite its relatedness, the answer to the follow-up question does not complement an answer to the first question. The first question is just a matter of yes or no. Follow-up questions that are concerned with reasons why are different. Their answers can complement answers as to why p. (This may not hold for all why questions.)

Altogether, it seems plausible that in some cases (at least complete) answers to why questions cite second-level reasons why.