Interest-Explanations

When political scientists explain behavior with reference to "interests," what kind of explanation do they give? It is often argued-or more often simply assumed-that interests stand in a contingent causal relation to behavior and, therefore, that interest-explanations are causal explanations. In different ways and for different reasons this assumption is made by both older behaviorists and the newer behaviorlists. In this article Terence Ball examines their respective defenses and concludes that interests cannot figure on either account as contingent (Humean) causes of behavior. Pointing as they do to grounds or reasons for action, interest-explanations, he maintains, are a species of moral explanation.