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This chapter provides the necessary philosophical background by defining teleological thinking and why it is a problem, and distinguishes conditional teleological explanations, which are acceptable, from purposive and deterministic teleological explanations, which are not. It discusses Georges Cuvier's principle of the conditions for existence, arguing that this principle is a conditional teleological principle, and concludes by noting certain parallels between the principle of the conditions for existence and the weak anthropic principle.

Plato offers the first metaphysical exploration of the nature of causation and explanation, and the relationship between these and other metaphysical concepts, such as forms, properties, and the soul. Hankinson focuses on two dialogues, the Phaedo and the Timaeus; in the first of these, Plato rejects the materialism of natural science, in favour of the good as the ground of teleological explanations, and he invokes forms as invariable causal properties. Plato explores the notion of an archê, or ultimate principle, in his argument for the immortality of the soul; this notion comes together with the concept of hypothetical investigation and the casual account of knowledge in the Timaeus. Here, Plato offers a cosmogony invoking a divine artificer who fashions the universe from a receptacle, a material substratum that can receive all forms. In Plato's philosophy, there is the emergence of a concern with the correct form that an explanation ought to take, and also an emphasis on teleological explanation.

This chapter develops a positive argument for theism, claiming it is capable (in a way secular accounts are not) of bridging the explanatory gap described in Chapter 2. It begins by defending agent explanation as the a form of teleological explanation. Having argued that theism would be able to explain the reliability of human moral cognition, the chapter goes on to objections to such an explanation by Hugh Rice (who argues against a personal deity, but in favour of teleology) and Stephen Law (who argues an evil God would explain phenomena as well as a benevolent deity, and offers this as a reductio ad absurdum of theism). The chapter defends a personal conception of God, outlines how this might plausibly relate to objective goodness, and argues that Law's ‘evil God hypothesis’ offers a less adequate explanation of human moral cognition.

This chapter considers the axiarchic account advanced by John Leslie and Hugh Rice. Against axiarchism, it argues that the goodness of a state of affairs is something that cries out for an explanation, rather than being something which can be invoked as the explanation. The chapter then evaluates non-axiarchic Neoplatonism — in which a non-personal power is postulated as the cause of good states of affairs. It argues that such a view would close the ‘explanatory gap’ described in Chapter 2, but not in as satisfying a way as theism.

Chapter 2 addresses the deterministic horn. Whether determinism threatens obligation turns partly but pivotally on whether the alternatives obligation requires are of the sort that one can have even if determinism is true (weak alternatives) or of the sort determinism precludes one from having (strong alternatives). A line of reasoning for the view that obligation presupposes only that that agents have weak alternatives is evaluated. The chapter concludes with the argument that even if a teleological account of reasons explanation, according to which actions are to be explained in terms of the goals of agents and not in terms of whether they are caused by appropriate mental items (or their neural realizers), is true, determinism still threatens obligation if obligation requires strong alternatives.

This chapter uses a comparison and contrast of Swinburne’s dualism and medieval hylomorphisms to expose some strategic theoretical choices that Swinburne has made. Among other things, he forwards a thin view of substance, a reduction of natural kinds to res cogitans and res extensa, and an isolation of teleological explanation to the plans and choices of Divine and human rational agents. Where Nagel wants to make a theory of everything the goal of human inquiry, Swinburne’s dualism forfeits any attempt to find a natural explanation of mind–body interactions. For Swinburne, what explains everything is Divine providence. The chapter closes with the suggestion that alternative choices—such as those embraced by medieval hylomorphisms—might make it easier to avoid marginalizing the biological, explain the unity of human being, and solve the problem of evil.

Nick Kroll’s Teleological Approach to Dispositions (TAD) promises to explain the sense in which dispositions are directed at manifesting. However, Kroll’s explanation of directedness is problematic for a number of reasons. First, TAD depends on a distinction between a disposition being stimulated and it being “activated,” but Kroll’s obscure notion of activation seems incapable of solving the problems for which it was introduced. Second, TAD does not attribute directedness to the disposition itself, but to a distinct state of the disposed object. Third, TAD either implies the implausible view that a disposed object is in a state directed at having its disposition stimulated, or it does not account for a disposition’s directedness when it is not in stimulating circumstances. Finally, if TAD does give us directedness, it is liable to give too much, for it is likely to entail that everything is constantly directed in innumerably many different directions.