What does the question why mean?

Elizabeth Anscombe, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

Elizabeth Anscombe answers

The question "Why?" — asked of a person about what he is doing — is not one question but several, and the differences between them are philosophically decisive. Consider the sense I am most interested in: the sense in which an answer, if positive, gives a reason for acting.1 That sounds like progress, but it immediately threatens circularity, because the question "what is the relevant sense of 'Why?'" and the question "what is meant by 'reason for acting'?" turn out to be one and the same question.2

To say that intentional actions are those to which this sense of "Why?" applies, and then to explain the sense by saying it is the one that elicits reasons for acting, is to go round in circles. We need to break out of the circle by finding what distinguishes the two kinds of answer — the reason and the cause — without simply presupposing the concept of action we are trying to illuminate.

One way to see the problem: ask a man why he knocked a cup off a table and he says "I thought I saw a face at the window and it made me jump." The answer mentions something prior to the action, just as the answer "he killed my father" mentions something prior when given as a reason for killing. But we do not treat the sudden start as an action in the relevant sense, while we do treat the killing as one.3

What is the difference? It cannot be settled by pointing to the grammatical form of the answer, nor by saying one answer gives a cause and the other a reason, since we use both words loosely across both cases. The question is also refused application in a quite different way: by the answer "I was not aware I was doing that." Such an answer is a claim — not a proof, since it may be a lie — that the "Why?" in the relevant sense simply has no grip.4

If you ask a man why he is standing on a hose-pipe and he says he did not know he was, the question drops away entirely.4 No reason is in play because no intentional action is in play. There is a third thing worth noticing. Even where the question does apply, the answer need not invoke a felt desire or an antecedent mental event.5 Suppose I hear a knock and go downstairs to open the door — I need not have experienced any surge of desire; I simply went.

Or suppose I tear up a message out of spite: what actually happened may have been only a thought, a feeling of hatred, the tearing, and a laugh — and if someone asks what led to the action in the sense of what mental cause issued in it, I might shrug and say I do not know that there was any definite history of that kind.5 The "Why?" that elicits a reason is not the same as the "Why?" that demands a causal-psychological narrative of inner events.

So the concept of an intention or voluntary action depends on the existence of answers to "Why?" that are neither mere causal reports of inner episodes nor simple refusals.6 Where no such answers could ever be given — in a world stripped of purposes and reasons — the question itself would lose the sense we are interested in, and with it the concepts of the voluntary and the intentional would vanish too.6

Sources

  1. The answer that suggests itself is that they are the actions to which a certain sense of the question 'Why?' is given application; the sense is defined as that in which the answer, if positive, gives a reason for acting.
    VOLUME TWO, p. 91
  2. 'What is the relevant sense of the question 'Why?'?' and 'What is meant by 'reason for acting'?' are one and the same.
    VOLUME TWO, p. 91
  3. consider the question 'Why did you knock the cup off the table?' answered by 'I thought I saw a face at the window and it made me jump.' Now we cannot say that since the answer mentions something previous to the action, this will be a cause as opposed to a reason; for if you ask 'Why did you kill him?' the answer 'he killed my father' is surely a reason rather than a cause, but what it mentions is previous to the action.
    VOLUME TWO, p. 91
  4. This question is refused application by the answer: 'I was not aware I was doing that'... if you ask someone why he is standing on a hose-pipe and he says 'I didn't know I was'.
    Intention, p. 23
  5. I may, e.g. simply hear a knock on the door and go downstairs to open it without experiencing any such desire... One might shrug or say 'I don't know that there was any definite history of the kind you mean.'
    VOLUME TWO, pp. 92–93
  6. Thus the occurrence of other answers to the question 'Why?' besides ones like 'I just did', is essential to the existence of the concept of an intention or voluntary action.
    Intention, pp. 45–46