Jon Elster reply to G A Cohen

8
FUNCTIONAL EXPLANATION: REPLY TO ELSTER* G. A, COHEN University College, London I THANK Jon Elster for his generous review, and for his criticisms, not all of which I accept, I shall not respond here to every criticism with which 1 disagree, but I do want to comment on what I think are misconceived objections to my chapters on functional explanation. Having done so, I shall offer reservations on the extent to which my 'sometimes uncertain grasp of economic theory' (p, 122E') led me into error, I grant that my defence of a functionally construed historical materialism is only partly successful, but I reject the methodological criticisms Elster directs against it, I believe, moreover, that there is no viable alternative construal of the central claims of historical materialism, so that if my defence fails, historical materiahsm fails. Hence the cost incurred by Marxism, ifi am wrong, is considerable. That is no reason for thinking that historical materialism, in the version I favour, is true, but I should like the cost of its falsehood—;/ it is false—to be acknowledged, something which, as I shall explain, Elster is reluctant to do, 1, In Marx's theory, as I present it, history is the growth of human productive power, and economic structures (sets of production relations) rise and fall according as they enable or impede that growth. Alongside a society's economic structure there exists a superstructure, of non-production relations, notably legal and pohtical ones. The superstructure typically consolidates and maintains the existing economic structure, and has the character it does because of the functions it fulfils. Historical materialism's central claims are that (1) the level of development of the productive forces in a society explains the nature of its economic structure, and (2) its economic structure explains the nature of its superstructure, I take (1) and (2) to be functional explanations, because I cannot otherwise reconcile them with two further Marxian theses, namely that (3) the economic structure of a society is responsible for the development of its productive forces, and (4) the superstructure of a society is responsible for the stability of its economic structure, (3) and (4) entail that the economic structure has the function of developing the productive forces, and the superstructure the function of stabilizing the economic structure. These claims do not (as Elster rightly insists, and as he sometimes recognizes I realize) by themselves entail that economic structures and superstructures are explained by the stated functions: .v may be functional for y even though it is false that x exists because it is functional for y. But (3) and (4), in conjunction with (1) and (2), do force us to treat historical materialist explanation as functional. No other treatment preserves * 1 am indebted to Annette Barnes, Grahame Lock and Arnold Zuboff, for pointing out infelicities in an earlier version of this paper, ' "E' indicates a reference to Elster's review, and ' C indicates a reference to my book. Political Studies, Voi, XXVIII, No, i (129-135)

Transcript of Jon Elster reply to G A Cohen

Page 1: Jon Elster reply to G A Cohen

FUNCTIONAL EXPLANATION: REPLYTO ELSTER*

G. A, COHENUniversity College, London

I THANK Jon Elster for his generous review, and for his criticisms, not all of which Iaccept, I shall not respond here to every criticism with which 1 disagree, but I do wantto comment on what I think are misconceived objections to my chapters on functionalexplanation. Having done so, I shall offer reservations on the extent to which my'sometimes uncertain grasp of economic theory' (p, 122E') led me into error,

I grant that my defence of a functionally construed historical materialism is onlypartly successful, but I reject the methodological criticisms Elster directs against it, Ibelieve, moreover, that there is no viable alternative construal of the central claims ofhistorical materialism, so that if my defence fails, historical materiahsm fails. Hence thecost incurred by Marxism, ifi am wrong, is considerable. That is no reason for thinkingthat historical materialism, in the version I favour, is true, but I should like the cost ofits falsehood—;/ it is false—to be acknowledged, something which, as I shall explain,Elster is reluctant to do,

1, In Marx's theory, as I present it, history is the growth of human productivepower, and economic structures (sets of production relations) rise and fall according asthey enable or impede that growth. Alongside a society's economic structure there existsa superstructure, of non-production relations, notably legal and pohtical ones. Thesuperstructure typically consolidates and maintains the existing economic structure, andhas the character it does because of the functions it fulfils.

Historical materialism's central claims are that

(1) the level of development of the productive forces in a society explains the natureof its economic structure, and

(2) its economic structure explains the nature of its superstructure,

I take (1) and (2) to be functional explanations, because I cannot otherwise reconcilethem with two further Marxian theses, namely that

(3) the economic structure of a society is responsible for the development of itsproductive forces, and

(4) the superstructure of a society is responsible for the stability of its economicstructure,

(3) and (4) entail that the economic structure has the function of developing theproductive forces, and the superstructure the function of stabilizing the economicstructure. These claims do not (as Elster rightly insists, and as he sometimes recognizesI realize) by themselves entail that economic structures and superstructures are explainedby the stated functions: .v may be functional for y even though it is false that x existsbecause it is functional for y. But (3) and (4), in conjunction with (1) and (2), do force usto treat historical materialist explanation as functional. No other treatment preserves

* 1 am indebted to Annette Barnes, Grahame Lock and Arnold Zuboff, for pointing outinfelicities in an earlier version of this paper,

' "E' indicates a reference to Elster's review, and ' C indicates a reference to my book.

Political Studies, Voi, XXVIII, No, i (129-135)

Page 2: Jon Elster reply to G A Cohen

130 REVIEW A R T I C L E S

consistency between the explanatory primacy of the productive forces over theeconomic structure and the massive control of the latter over the former, or between theexplanatory primacy of the economic structure over the superstructure and the latter'sregulation of the former,

2, In a number of works^ Elster has criticized undisciplined uses of functionalexplanation by Marxist and other social theorists, on grounds almost all of which arealso (independently) developed in my book. He is impressed by how thoughtlessly thedevice of functional explanation is invoked, without adequate evidence, in the apparentbelief that if an item has a function, then, ipso facto, it also has a functionalexplanation, I am impressed by how essential it is to vindicate the functional-explanatory device, as opposed to its misuses, if historical materialism is to be defended.These contrasting motivations should not generate a confrontation, and I complain thatElster is wrong to mount one, I accept that I have failed to substantiate the truth ofsome of my functional-explanatory claims, but since, as I shall show, I am not guilty ofmethodological or conceptual error, the principal part of Elster's critique is a failure,

3, Sometimes Elster more or less correctly reports my intentions, as in the 'morecharitable' interpretation of them on pp, 127-8E, But his reports—not, as he claims, myintentions—are inconsistent, and some of them are quite unfounded.

He begins by assigning to me a 'general methodological position, an attempt tovindicate functional explanation in the social sciences as sui generis, i,e, reducibleneither to causal nor to intentional explanation' (p, 121E), This description is misleadingin one respect and false in another.

The description is misleading because one would never gather from it that I hold, asdoes Elster, that there is successful functional explanation in biological science: much ofour dispute is over the extent to which social science can emulate biological science inthis regard. My strategy is to vindicate functional explanation as a device by arguing,controversially, that universally accepted biological explanations are functional expla-nations, I then argue that explanations of similar pattern apply in social and historicalstudies. So it is an important constituent of my position that functional explanation isnot peculiar to social science.

There is also, more seriously, an outright falsehood in Elster's description. For 1 donot hold, to put it as he does later on (p, 125E), that 'functional explanation [is] aseparate explanatory category on a par with causal explanation'. This attribution fiatlyignores, and contradicts, my explicit statement (p, 250C, etc) that functional expla-nation is a variety of causal explanation. It is, in my view, causal explanation of aspecial type, which is why it deserves a special name, but it is not explanation of somenon-causal type, Elster should at least acknowledge that this is my declared position,even if he wrongly thinks that I am untrue to my own declaration.

Still, it might seem that there is an irreducibiiity claim, needing more careful statementthan Elster himself has provided, to which I am indeed committed. The reader candecide that for himself when, after 1 have given a brief statement of the sort of causalexplanation I think functional explanation is, the character of the irreducibiiity claimwill be more clear.

Every causal explanation mentions one or more causally relevant features, whichcontribute to the explanation of what is explained. In my account a functionalexplanation is a causal explanation in which a certain sort of dispositional fact is acausally relevant feature. Where what is to be explained is an event of type E, thedispositional fact is that if E occurs, it brings about some consequence F. When Eoccurs (partly) because if E occurs it brings about F, we have a functional explanation

^ For example, J, Elster, Logic and Society (New York, Wiley, 1978); Ulysses and the Sirens(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1979) and 'Marxism, Functionalism and Game Theory',in Marxist Perspectives, forthcoming.

Page 3: Jon Elster reply to G A Cohen

REVIEW ARTICLES 131

of E^. 'Birds developed hollow bones because hollow bones facilitate flight' is anexplanation of the functional type, with E being possession of hollow bones by birdsand F being the facilitation of flight, which is a consequence of E.

An example of functional explanation in social science is that scale of production islarge in a certain industry because large scale reduces costs in that kind of industry. Ifone now asks, how does the putatively explanatory functional fact, that large scalereduces costs, explain large scale, then the answer will be different in different cases.Sometimes it will be that the functional fact selects in favour of firms which foraccidental reasons expand their scale, sometimes that wise planners recognize thefunctional fact and act accordingly, and sometimes both elements will figure in what Icall the elaboration. But the differently elaborated explanations all depart from the samefunctional fact, and that is why I consider them all functional explanations.

Whether one should now say that functional explanation is in one case reducible tosomething like natural selection and in another to a story about human intentions is ofno official interest to me, and depends entirely on what is intended by the highlyambiguous term 'reducible', which should not be used without explication. If Fido'sbeing a dog is reducible to his being a collie (or whatever kind of dog he is), thenfunctional explanation is reducible in the stated fashion; and if not, then it is not.Whether something's being a member of a genus reduces to its being whatever speciesof that genus it is is an issue on which I have no obhgation or desire to pronounce,*

4, I say, then, that a functional explanation is one in which a functional fact figures.It may be offered with or without an elaboration, that is, an account of how thefunctional fact contributes to explaining what it does,

I also say that whenever a functional explanation is true, there is some trueelaboration of it (p, 27IC), or, in the language preferred by Elster and others,^ there issome relevant mechanism at work, 1 then claim (p, 272C) that it is sometimes rationalto have confidence in a functional explanation in advance of having a good idea of whatthe mechanism may be, Elster rejects this epistemic claim (p, 127E), and he charges thatit contradicts my insistence elsewhere (pp, 255 ff,, 283C) that one may not infer fromthe fact that x is functional that the existence or nature of x is explained by itsfunction(s). He thinks that in developing this point I 'make out a good case againstfunctional explanation', whereas I was simply indicating widely ignored constraintswhich functional explanations must meet. With analogous logic one could say of a criticof the fallacy 'post hoc ergo propter hoc' that he had 'made out a good case against'causal explanation.

The asserted inconsistency is between my critique of slipshod functional-explanatorypractice and my willingness to hypothesize functional explanations in the absence ofknowledge of mechanisms. To show why the inconsistency charge fails, and to displaythe oversight which led Elster to make it, let us take the social mobility example heintroduces on p, 126E, Four claims need to be distinguished here:

(5) The mobility occurring in society s at time t has favourable consequences forclass domination,

•* Or, more strictly, a consequence explanation of E, but the distinction between functionalexplanation and consequence explanation, on whieh see pp, 263-4C, is of no polemical relevance,and I shall speak of functional explanation throughout this paper,

" I mischievously report that in Ulysses and the Sirens Elster says that 'there are basically threemodes of explanation in science: the causal, the functional and the intentional' (p, viii). Thissuggests that he holds an irreducibiiity thesis mueh stronger than any which attracts me. But thisfootnote is mischievous, since the quoted statement, though prominently placed, misdescribesElster's considered position, which emerges on p, 128E, and on which I shall comment in section 4below,

* For reasons too complex to display here, I think the familiar 'mechanism' terminology isunfortunate, but it is well entrenched, and I shall sometimes myself use it here.

Page 4: Jon Elster reply to G A Cohen

132 REVIEW ARTICLES

(6) Mobility occurs in society s at time t because it has favourable consequences forclass domination,

(7) Whenever mobility would have favourable consequences for class domination,mobility occurs,

(8) It is in virtue of mechanism m that the favourable consequences of mobility insociety s at time / explain that case of mobility,

Elster and I agree that (5) is an insufficient reason for asserting (6), and that a largeamount of social theory is therefore founded on a fallacy. But he thinks I fall into thefallacy myself when I license assertion of (6) when nothing like (8) can (yet) bedefended. He thinks that one may move from (5) to (6) through (8) alone. But he hasignored an alternative route from (5) to (6), expounded in the section on 'Confirmation'in my Chapter IX, on which he does not comment. The alternative route is via (7), For //it were shown that, quite generally, the 'best brains' (p, 126E) are sucked into the upperclass fust when that would have a stabilizing effect, and not otherwise, then, I claim, weshould be justified in asserting (6) even if we could not (yet) specify a mechanism. Wedefend a functional explanation of a particular functional item by showing thatwhenever an item would have that function it appears,* Such supporting evidence maybe hard to find, and it may therefore be hard to confirm the functional explanation. Butthat does not touch the point of principle, which is that a confirming general patternmight be discernible, while we remain in the dark regarding mechanisms. The generalprinciple, here applied to functional explanation, is that we may be confident that acaused 6 in a given context because of appropriately parallel cases in other contexts,even if we do not know how a caused b.'' We do not have to know the mechanism to beconfident of a functional explanation because we do not have to know the mechanismto be confident of a causal explanation.

What Elster says I 'presumably' mean (p, 126E) by the passage he quotes is therefore amisdescription of my position, I am true to our shared view that merely to identify afunction is not to provide a functional explanation, I confess to no methodologicalerror in my account of functional explanation in general, nor, consequently, in mypresentation of a functionally construed historical materialism, I regret that I did notmotivate the thesis that economic structures are functionally explained as well as Ishould have liked to,^ but my affirmation of it was not a product of fallacious thinking,

5, I say that functional explanations are sometimes elaborated with reference tohuman purposes, and sometimes with reference to processes of selection which lackintentionality, Elster complains that representing functional explanation as a genus ofwhich intentional and other elaborations are species 'obscures the vital distinctionbetween short-term and long-term [functional] explanations' (p, 128E), But why should Ireject that important distinction, of which Elster rightly makes so much in Ulysses andthe Sirens? There is no reason for me not to welcome a treatment of elaborationimproved by Elster's work, which clarifies those differences between kinds of mechan-ism which make them more or less probable candidates in elaboration of functionalexplanations with different temporal references.

But Elster would say that, in offering this response, I persist in classifyingexplanations in a way which is not optimal. My contrast was between functional andnon-functional causal explanations,^ whereas Elster thinks 'causal vs, intentionalexplanations is a more fruitful dichotomy' (p, 128E),

* For the sake of clarity I oversimplify here. For the complexities see pp, 265C, 272-7C,' For a non-functional-explanatory example, see p, 286C," Elster is rightly more generous to the other central claim, which explains the superstructure in

terms of the base (p, 125E), though I think he exaggerates the extent to which, in fact and in mypresentation, the fit of superstructure to base is intentionally wrought,

" Not, as Elster says (p, 128E), between functional and causal explanations, but I am hereignoring that misrepresentation, which was dealt with in section 2 above.

Page 5: Jon Elster reply to G A Cohen

REVIEW ARTICLES 133

Since causal explanations are explanations by reference to causes, one mightreasonably suppose that intentional explanations are explanations by reference tointentions. If so, Elster's classification is inherently questionable, for explanations ofactions and other phenomena by reference to intentions arguably are, as Elster mightagree, themselves causal, with intentions in the role of causes, I think, however, thatElster means by 'intentional explanations' explanations of the formation of intentions,or explanations in which the formation of intention is a component, and theseconceivably are not causal.

Now since I never discuss explanations of the formation of intentions, it is hard to seehow our classifications can compete. And Elster's claim that his is superior is furthervitiated by his failure to specify the interest relative to which the superiority is asserted.Internally coherent classifications are assessable only relative to the interests they aremeant to serve. If the interest is the general metaphysical one in what distinguisheshuman behaviour, then my classification, which was not directed at that interest, isinapt. My narrower aim was to reconstruct historical materialism. In that exercise Ifound it f̂ ruitful to emphasize the shared functional character of explanations which inother respects may be contrasted with one another, I would not deny that the contrastsare of paramount importance within the more general perspective from which Elsterinappropriately criticizes me,

6, My contention that the condition of Marxism may be such that its adherents arejustified in putting forward large unelaborated functional-explanatory claims will bemore credible if scientists in other domains have, at a certain stage, been in a similarintellectual position. And I think natural historians were in that position before Darwinadvanced the subject. He showed how functional facts about the equipment of speciescontribute to explaining why they have that equipment. Now I claim, and Elster mustand does deny, that, before Darwin discovered the chance variation/natural selectionmechanism, the belief that species had the useful characters they did because they wereuseful was already justified. The behef was certainly widely held,'" by men who had noidea how to elaborate it, and by others, like Lamarck, who had what proved to be anunworkable idea of how to elaborate it. But was pre-Darwinian functional-explanatoryhd'ie{ justified"}

Elster's answer to this question will be found on p, 126E, I reply:

(1) There are two pre-Darwinian functional explanatory beliefs to be considered,first, that species have the features they do because they are ecologically adaptive, andsecond, an entailment of the first, that species have the features they do because they arein some way adaptive or life-enhancing,

(2) The first, more specific belief, was, as Elster says, refuted by Darwin, He also saysit was shown to be unjustified: 'the leap from the analysis of consequences to aconsequence explanation was quite arbitrary'. But that is an unpersuasive diagnosis ofwhere the pre-Darwinian error lay. It surely lay not in the inference Elster deplores, butin an insufficiently discriminating analysis of consequences to begin with, and so in thepremise of that inference. Had perceptive pre-Darwinians distinguished between theecological and reproductive maximands they might have found evidence, while still inthe dark about mechanisms, that the reproductive maximand was the controllingfactor. To be sure, it might be unreasonable to expect them to have made the neededdistinction ahead of discovery of the mechanism conferring relevance on it. But if it isunreasonable, then the specific false belief was justified: they had all the evidence they

"> I am here going beyond the claim made by Frankfurt and Poole, and by Boorse, and rightlyemphasized by them against analyses of the concept of function whieh draw upon Darwin, thatbefore Darwin it was already thought that species' equipment had functions, I maintain that it wasalready thought that the equipment was there because of its functions. See H, Frankfurt and B,Poole, 'Functional Explanation in Biology', British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (1966);and C, Boorse, 'Wright on Functions', Philosophical Review (1976),

Page 6: Jon Elster reply to G A Cohen

134 REVIEW ARTICLES

could and can reasonably be expected to have gathered. But I need not rest my casethere,

(3) For I would add that the more general pre-Darwinian belief, that the features ofspecies are explained as in some way life-enhancing, was vindicated by Darwin, and Ido not see how one could deny that it was justified.

It is a truism that scientific progress often enjoins revisions in hypotheses which makethem true under more or less modest restatement, and the advances have no tendency toimpugn, retrospectively, the justification with which the original beliefs were held.Hence Elster overplays the distinction between ecological and reproductive adaptation,

I need claim only that Lamarck and others were justified in believing the less specificfunctional explanations they formulated. But I would in fact go beyond that, I do notthink an innocent reader of Lamarck can avoid the conclusion that he knew that theutility of features explained their presence. It is implausible to deny that he knew that,and not implausible to suggest that historical materialism may be in its Lamarckianstage.

For centuries men knew the functional facts of natural history, and they rejoiced ordespaired at the apparent impossibility of accounting for them in a fully scientific way:hence the prestige of the argument from design for the existence of God, It took timeand genius to solve the riddle of natural history. Something similar might be true ofsociety. It is a fallacy to think that because natural history found its deliverance,Marxism will too, and I am amazed at the more than 'somewhat unfair' suggestion (p.127E) that I am guilty of such an argument by analogy. But the biologicalcase, inhistorical perspective, counsels greater caution than Elster is disposed to exercise.

As for 'intentional explanations' in physics (p, 126E), I do not accept that, on myaccount, they would have been justified. To say why not would be to tell a very longstory, and here I must content myself with the dogmatic assertion that principles likethat of least-time and least-effort are not, despite appearances, amenable to restatementin the canonically functional-explanatory form exhibited at pp, 260-lC,

7, Commenting on my construal of the 1859 Preface (p, 125E), Elster says that for meits crucial thesis is that production relations variously further and fetter productivedevelopment, and he agrees that the Preface says so. He also says that I 'add', 'whatwith some plausibility can also be imputed to Marx, that this furthering or fetteringexplains the emergence or disappearance of the production relations',

I find this characterization doubly unsatisfactory. First, I do not say, or think, thatthe first, nearly truistic thesis, is crucial. Who would deny that some kinds of economicstructure are good and some bad for productive growth, at a given stage of productivedevelopment? The crucial thesis is the one Elster says I 'add', and my second objectionis that to describe it as having 'some [exegetical] plausibility' is a serious understate-ment. After describing an historical phase in which relations become fetters on forces,Marx says, 'Then begins an epoch of social revolution'. The only possible reading ofthis is that the revolution begins then because the relations have become fetters. And Isupply ample further textual and other argument on pp, 136-50C which proves thatMarx held what Elster officially allows may be attributed (only) 'with someplausibility',

Elster is reluctant to concede that the Marxist theory of society is functionalexplanatory because he thinks that, if so, it is untenable, and he wants himself to sustaina kind of Marxism, In a forthcoming article on 'Marxism, Functionalism and GameTheory' he criticizes the functional tendency in the Marxism of Marx and others, andhe urges that game theory replace functional explanation as Marxism's methodolcigicalhelpmeet.

But Elster's recommendation is unacceptable. Game theory cannot pretend to dowhat functional explanation proposes to do for historical materialism, because it has nobearing on its central theses (claims (1) and (2) on p, 129 above),

Elster puts game theory to deft use in a discussion of the dialectics of class struggle

Page 7: Jon Elster reply to G A Cohen

REVIEW ARTICLES 135

for which I have great admiration. But no one would say—and certainly I did not—thathow individuals and classes conduct themselves in class struggle may be functionallyexplained. Functional explanation applies to the long-term outcomes of class struggle,which must conform to the central theses of historical materialism. Historicalmaterialism must say, I argued on p, 149C, that 'the class which rules through a period,or emerges triumphant after epochal conflict, is the class best suited, most able anddisposed, to preside over the development of the productive forces at the given time'.Game theory can illuminate the vicissitudes of confiict, and the strategies pursued in it,but it cannot give a Marxist answer to the question why epochal confiict is settled oneway rather than another, Marxism's answer to that may be false, but I cannot envisagea non-functional answer to it which is Marxist,

8, Finally, some remarks on the extent to which my comparative ignorance ofeconomics weakened my book (p, 122E),

Certainly I should have paid attention to the literature on economic analogies tonatural selection, of which Elster provides a brilliant overview in Ulysses and the Sirens,Ch, 111,5,

As for my treatment of the concept of increase in productivity, I am intrigued byElster's assertion that it is either too formalized, or not formalized enough. Perhaps theassertion is correct, but it would be good to know what its grounds are.

Finally, Elster is certainly right that, contrary to what is said in the last sentence ofthe book. Chapter V, and also Appendix I, do presuppose the labour theory of value.That last sentence does not, however, refiect 'uncertain grasp of economic theory', butan absentmindedness which is corrected in a forthcoming second impression. Chapter Vand Appendix I differ from the rest of the book in being largely just expository ofMarx, rather than also defensive, I should have said so, and I should have qualified thelast sentence accordingly, I have long thought the labour theory of value false,'' and Iwas not wishing to commit myself to it in expounding Marx's theory of fetishism, whichdoes, indeed, presuppose it.

My own view is that the doctrine of commodity fetishism is largely false, but thatthere is deep truth in the idea of the fetishism of capital. Elements for a theory of capitalfetishism free of commitment to the labour theory of value will be found on pp, 105-7Cand 122-3C, and in section VIII of the article mentioned in footnote 11 here,

" Partly for conventional reasons, and partly for the more eccentric ones given in my 'LabourTheory of Value and the Concept of Exploitation', Philosophy and Public Affairs (1979),

Page 8: Jon Elster reply to G A Cohen