At what point do we say that we understand human behaviour in general, or even a single human action?
If we see a man swig water from a bottle, we tell ourselves, without thinking, that he did so because he was thirsty, and we seek no further explanation. We have all experienced thirst, know what it is to be thirsty, and we have all reacted in the same, or similar, fashion.
And yet, of course, our explanation may be wrong, or at least incomplete or partial. Perhaps the man was not thirsty but drank under strict orders to drink a certain amount; perhaps he was thirsty because he suffered from diabetes mellitus or diabetes insipidus, or even compulsive water drinking, a peculiar pattern of behaviour in which a person, not diabetic, drinks all the water he can find, such that he must be restrained from doing so if he is not to drink himself to death. On most occasions, though, a man swigs from a bottle of water simply because he is thirsty. We are not puzzled.
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Theodore Dalrymple is a contributing editor of City Journal and a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
This piece originally appeared in Law & Liberty