Changing the Mission of Theories of Teleology 23
acteristics that diminish their abilities to hunt. Pugs and bulldogs, with their pushed-in
shouts and loud breathing, could never sneak up on prey, so they are totally dependent on
their human owners for food. Some long-haired dogs (and cats) have so much fur that
they often cannot keep it groomed themselves—requiring special grooming. Left alone
their fur would be hopelessly tangled and knotted and catch on branches. They depend on
human grooming, and can’t live healthily without it. These results of breeding are evolu-
tionarily disadvantageous, except that as pets these animals get to live cushy comfortable
lives. Many breeds are designed, among other things, to be friendly and good pets. Given
that their lovability is what gets them fed by their owners, it may turn out that being cute,
friendly, and lovable is what these organisms are for (on an etiological model going back
hundreds of years). Their human-instilled teleofunction may well be to look pleasing and
be cute. This sounds odd against a background of biological stories of natural selection,
but doesn’t sound odd if we focus on the artifi cial selection that has shaped these diverse
breeds. The etiologists may want to object and restrict the historical forces to those in the
distant (predomestication) past so as to retain the functions that natural selection yielded.
But this would be begging the question. Selection can be done by accident in nature or
according to human purposes.
Domesticated plants and animals, as well as human-designed environments, might then
be thought to create a special problem for theories of teleological function, crossing the
line between natural objects and artifacts. But I would argue that once we focus on specifi c
structures to be explained, there is no special puzzle. If breeders breed dogs that have
smooshed-up faces (like bulldogs and pugs), then the prevalence of smooshed-up faces is
explained by selection. If people breed smooshed-faced dogs because smooshed-up faces
are actually pleasing to some people, then smooshed-up faces are for pleasing people. This
is a straightforward answer to the question of function, and in the end the fact that humans
had a part in the selection doesn’t make the domestic animal case any different in kind
than the wild animal case. So here the artifactual function of domesticated animals is
determined in the same way as the natural proper function was. Why do dogs have hearts?
Evolution will tell us. Why are there so many pug dogs around? The answer rests with
people’s desire for these animals, with their peculiar physical traits. So despite the urge
to see artifact function as vastly different from natural function, this class of artifacts—
living, biological human-designed artifacts—requires nothing special from a theory of the
functions.
Furthermore, the blurring of the line between “natural” and “artifact” has occurred at
an environmental scale. Phoenix, Arizona, is in the middle of the desert in the American
Southwest, yet it has more than two million residents. This is possible only because of the
damning of rivers and providing air-conditioning in every building. But the entire city has
become even hotter due to the large amount of concrete and asphalt, and that famous “dry
heat” has become increasingly humid due to swimming pools and lawn sprinklers. The
once clear desert air is often thick and brown with dust and car exhaust. For another