In the past I’ve written down a few thoughts on the terms “why” and “why not” as they’re used in regular conversation. When I really examined these terms, I arrived at what I thought were some good insights which I’ve decided to present them in a 2-part series here. In this post, I’m going to explore “Why ___?” questions and address the fact that they can be answered in two fundamentally different (yet both acceptable) ways. If you enjoy studying or thinking about language, I think you’ll find these posts interesting. If not, I can’t make any promises!

• “Why is the sky blue?”
• “Why did that tree fall down?”
• “Why did you take that art class?”

What does it actually mean when someone asks “Why ___?”? Let’s answer the first two examples and see if we can work backward from there. “Why is the sky blue?” The sky is blue because the particles of our atmosphere reflect more blue light than other colors of light. “Why did that tree fall down?” The tree fell down because its trunk was too weak to support its weight. Both of these answers give a cause that necessitates the events being asked about.

It looks like we could say that when someone asks “Why ___?”, they are requesting a cause for something to be the case. So, the question “Why ___?” would just be another way of asking “What caused ___ to be the case?” Let’s assume this for the moment.

Now let’s look at the third example question. “Why did you take that art class?” It could be answered just like the other two: by naming a cause. What is the cause that necessitated you taking the art class? If we’re being technical, the answer, “Because I willed to do it and was able to do it,” seems to cover it. After all, if you really will to do something, and you are able to do it, that necessitates that you do it.

But, this question can also be answered without naming any causes. And even though we said that asking “Why ___?” means requesting a cause for something to be the case, the asker of this question won’t raise any objections to receiving an answer that gives no causes at all. So let’s have it: “Why did you take that art class?” “So I could get better at painting.” And here’s another, for the sake of variety: “Why do police cars have flashing lights?” “So that drivers can see them more easily.” These answers aren’t causes at all, but the intended effects of the things asked about (we might use this term interchangeably with “purpose”). Getting better at art is the intended effect of taking the class. People see police cars more easily (the effect) because they have flashing lights (the cause). However, we can’t answer the previous questions in this way (“Why did the tree fall?”) because there is no intent behind those events.

So, it seems that some “Why ___?” questions can only be answered by naming causes, but others can be answered by naming causes or by doing the opposite and naming effects. The fact that such a simple question in our everyday speech can be answered in one form or in the exact opposite form (without being noticed as such) intrigued me and motivated me to write these things down in the first place.

After thinking about it some more, I’ve realized that both forms of answers actually are related to the necessary causes of the events being asked about. When you name an intended effect as your answer (“So drivers see police cars more easily”), you’re implying that some acting agent caused it to be the case because they desired the effect and thought that the given action (“Police cars have flashing lights”) would be the best way to make it so. If we make all these implications explicit in our original answer, we get: “Police cars have flashing lights so that drivers can see them more easily, AND somebody desired police cars to be seen more easily, and that person thought flashing lights was the most desirable way to do it, and that person had the ability to design police cars that had flashing lights.” This answer gives a desired effect but then actually lists the necessary causes which were at first only implied. So, all acceptable answers to the question of “Why ___?” do at least hint at the necessary cause for something to be the case, but some answers are direct in giving a cause and others only give a desired effect and leave the cause to be inferred.

To avoid confusion later on, I’ll use labels to differentiate this scenario from the first. We’ll call the first the descriptive scenario, in which a question is asked to get a better description of deterministic events. There are no acting agents involved, so these questions can only be answered by naming causes. The second case is the prescriptive scenario, where the thing being asked about is the result of some free agent’s action. The asker is questioning why the acting agent prescribed (to itself) the given course of action. Again, this can be answered by naming the agent’s intended effects and implying the necessary causes, or by naming these causes explicitly. Most importantly, answers to both the descriptive and prescriptive “Why ___?” questions revolve around a necessary cause.

In my next post, I’ll address an issue that I flew right past in this post and hoped you wouldn’t notice: If there are just two fundamental ways to answer the question “Why ___?”, and in fact they both point to the necessary cause of the event, how do we explain the fact that there are many different reasonable answers to any given “Why ___?” question?

–pdf