Biological Explanations as Cursory Covering Law Explanations

Abstract

There have been two main sorts of response to difficulties in applying the covering law model of explanation to biology. The first sort, which I call modified law accounts, more or less maintain the logical structure of covering law explanations, but weaken or alter the criteria of lawhood, so that inference from biological generalizations failing in one way or another to satisfy stricter criteria are still deemed explanatory. The second sort, which I call lawless accounts, involve a more wholesale rejection of the covering law model. According to these views, biological explanations are not inferences from natural laws at all. The new mechanist account is a promising example. I have been developing a third sort of account, which I call the cursory covering law model. According to this model, biological explanations can be accommodated within the covering law model without the weakening of the law constraint envisaged in the modified law accounts, provided it is permissible to employ approximating statements about laws as premises in the explanation. I argue that the cursory covering law model subsumes and explains the insights of both the modified law and lawless accounts. It can accommodate the apparent lack of strict biological laws while nevertheless explaining how less-strict biological generalizations can be the basis for cursory covering law explanations. It can also explain why biology significantly involves the discovery of biological mechanisms. Furthermore, since both the modified law and lawless accounts are consistent with the cursory covering law model, any difficulties in understanding biological explanation addressed by the newer approaches will be difficulties that can be addressed equally well within the covering law model.