An Internalist Dilemma—and an Externalist Solution
Journal of Moral Philosophy 10 (1):25-51 (2013)
| Abstract | In this paper, I argue that internalism about moral judgments and motivation faces a dilemma. On the one hand, a strong version of internalism is able to explain our conception of the connection between moral language and motivation, but fails to account for the notion that people who suffer from certain mental conditions need not be accordingly motivated. On the other hand, a weaker form of internalism avoids this difficulty, but fails to explain the mentioned conception concerning moral language and motivation. Moreover, I argue that externalism in conjunction with a pragmatic claim which employs Grice’s concept of generalized conversational implicature is able to account for both these conceptions and that it consequently avoids the internalist dilemma. Thus, there is reason to think that this view is preferable to internalism. | |||||||||
| Keywords | moral internalism moral externalism moral rationalism moral rationality normativity generalized conversational implicature | |||||||||
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Caj Strandberg (2013). An Internalist Dilemma—and an Externalist Solution. Journal of Moral Philosophy 10 (1):25-51.
Caj Strandberg (2011). The Pragmatics of Moral Motivation. Journal of Ethics 15 (4):341-369.
Robert Lockie (1998). What's Wrong with Moral Internalism. Ratio 11 (1):14–36.
Caj Strandberg & Fredrik Björklund (forthcoming). Is Moral Internalism Supported by Folk Intuitions? Philosophical Psychology:1-17.
Ragnar Francén (2010). Moral Motivation Pluralism. Journal of Ethics 14 (2):117-148.
Matthew S. Bedke (2009). Moral Judgment Purposivism: Saving Internalism From Amoralism. Philosophical Studies 144 (2):189 - 209.
Antti Kauppinen (forthcoming). Intuition and Belief in Moral Motivation. In Gunnar Björnsson (ed.), Moral Internalism.
Caj Strandberg (2012). Expressivism and Dispositional Desires. American Philosophical Quarterly 49 (1):81-91.
James Dreier (2000). Dispositions and Fetishes: Externalist Models of Moral Motivation. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 61 (3):619-638.
Caj Strandberg (2007). Externalism and the Content of Moral Motivation. Philosophia 35 (2):249-260.
Caj Strandberg (2012). A Dual Aspect Account of Moral Language. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 84 (1):87-122.
Aristophanes Koutoungos (2005). Moral Coherence, Moral Worth and Explanations of Moral Motivation. Acta Analytica 20 (3):59-79.
Prakash Mondal (2011). Can Internalism and Externalism Be Reconciled in a Biological Epistemology of Language? Biosemiotics.
Nick Zangwill (2003). Externalist Moral Motivation. American Philosophical Quarterly 40 (2):143-154.
Sergio Tenenbaum (2000). Ethical Internalism and Glaucon's Question. Noûs 34 (1):108–130.
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