The Case for Pluralism About Teleological Explanation

Abstract Teleological explanations are those that explain a phenomenon in virtue of a consequence it brings about. This has long been challenged on the grounds that it invokes backward causation. The classic resolution to this is to show that these consequences explain as causes which occurred in the past. An alternative characterizes teleology as a form of non-causal explanation. Against the widespread assumption that teleological explanations are univocal, I argue that causal and non-causal variants are compatible insofar as they explain different aspects of the same purposive phenomena. I conclude that we ought to be pluralists about teleological explanation.