Scott Partington

Folk explanatory judgements seem to conform to the principle of sufficient reason (PSR), according to which if x is a fact, x must have an explanation. That is, children and adults judge that facts across a wide variety of descriptive domains must have an explanation. We test whether PSR‐conforming judgements extend to the realm of value. Across four studies, we find that adults are less willing to judge that claims about moral and aesthetic value must have an explanation, compared to descriptive claims. Moreover, explanatory judgements about moral and aesthetic claims diverge from judgements about claims concerning affective responses.

The Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), according to which if x is a fact, x must have an explanation, has been a venerable idea in metaphysics since the presocratic era. Recent research indicates that there is a PSR correlate in ordinary thought. Children and adults judge that facts across a wide variety of domains must have an explanation, independently of whether that explanation can be attainable or whether it would be valuable to attain it. Here, we develop a chained paradigm of explanation-giving to explore whether PSR-conforming judgments—i.e., judgments concerning whether facts must have an explanation—extend to the realm of value. Do people judge, for instance, that value claims (e.g., “murder is wrong” or “snowcapped mountains are magnificent”) must have an explanation to the same degree as paradigmatically descriptive claims (e.g., “most parks have roads”)? Across four studies, we find that adults are indeed less willing to judge that moral and aesthetic claims must have an explanation, compared to plainly descriptive, prudential, and tautological claims. Moreover, we find that explanatory judgments about moral and aesthetic value diverge from explanatory judgments about affective responses concerning the same objects.