1 Copp, DavidMorality, Normativity, and Society (New York: Oxford University Press 1995)Google Scholar

2 Smith, MichaelThe Moral Problem (Oxford: Blackwell 1994)Google Scholar

3 Brink, David O.Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1989) 40CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Brink speaks of “appraiser internalism,“ which appears to be the same as the view I call “belief internalism.” Frankena, W.K. recognized the distinctions in his classic essay, “Obligation and Motivation in Recent Moral Philosophy,” in Goodpaster, Kenneth E. ed., Perspectives on Morality: Essays of William K. Frankena (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press 1976) 60Google Scholar. The doctrines Frankena labels (1), (7), and (8) are, respectively, agent, belief, and hybrid forms of internalism.

4 That is, according to belief internalism, it is a necessary truth that if a person believes she has a moral obligation to do something, then she has some motivation to do it (or would have some motivation under relevant conditions). According to hybrid internalism, it is a necessary truth that if a person believes truly that she has a moral obligation to do something, then she has some motivation to do it (or would have some motivation under relevant conditions).

5 For example, Michael Smith defends a version of belief internalism according to which, if a person is not actually motivated to do what she believes would be right, then she is “practically irrational.” That is, her motivations are subject to a “distorting influence” of some form of “practical unreason,” such as weakness of will. Smith, The Moral Problem, 61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Such a view seems to be held by Smith, as we will see. Smith, The Moral Problem, 62Google Scholar. In this connection, Smith cites Korsgaard, Christine “Skepticism about Practical Reason,” journal of Philosophy 83 (1986) 5–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Such a view is defended by Williams, Bernard in “Internal and External Reasons,“ in his Moral Luck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Smith, The Moral Problem, 66–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Smith is replying to an argument by David Brink.

9 Disagreements of this kind between externalists and internalists led W.D. Falk to conclude in effect that externalists and internalists have different concepts of moral obligation. But if this were so, then externalists and internalists would not really be disagreeing; they would be making claims about different kinds of obligation. I think on the contrary that they have a genuine disagreement. See Falk, W.D. ‘“Ought’ and Motivation,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society N.S. 48 (1947-48) 137, 124-5.Google Scholar

10 Smith says that “our concept of rightness” supports a “conceptual connection between moral judgment and the will” and a “conceptual connection between … the moral facts … and our reasons for action.” Smith, The Moral Problem, 61, 65, 37-8Google Scholar. Brink views the versions of internalism as doctrines about the concept of moral obligation. Brink, Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics, 40.Google Scholar

11 Frankena, “Obligation and Motivation in Recent Moral Philosophy,” 73Google Scholar

12 Ibid., 69

13 R.M. Hare and Allan Gibbard are internalists who reject (or appear to reject) cognitivism. See Hare, R.M.The Language of Morals (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1952)Google Scholar; Gibbard, AllanWise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1990).Google Scholar

14 I have not worried about formulating internalism to be compatible with noncognitivism because I am going to be assuming a cognitivist view.

15 Mackie, J.L.Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin 1977) 38–42Google Scholar

16 Frankena, “Obligation and Motivation in Recent Moral Philosophy,” 69Google Scholar

17 Ibid., 49

18 In the following two sections, I present ideas that are developed more fully in my Morality, Normativity, and Society (New York: Oxford University Press 1995).

19 Frankena, “Obligation and Motivation in Recent Moral Philosophy,” 71Google Scholar

20 See Salmon, Nathan and Soames, Scott “Introduction,” in Salmon, Nathan and Soames, Scott eds., Propositions and Attitudes (New York: Oxford University Press 1988) 1.Google Scholar

21 Gibbard, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment, 46Google Scholar

22 Frege, Gottlob “Thoughts,” trans. Geach, P. and Stoothoff, R.H. in Salmon, Nathan and Soames, Scott eds., Propositions and Attitudes (New York: Oxford University Press 1988) 37Google Scholar

23 See my Morality, Normativity, and Society.

24 Kant, ImmanuelGrounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, Ellington, James W. trans. (Indianapolis: Hackett 1981) Ak 421Google Scholar

25 Ibid., Ak 449

26 This is at least vaguely Aristotelian, I hope.

27 Gautheir, DavidMorals by Agreement (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1986). see cahp. 6.Google Scholar

28 It is actually a schema for an account since it needs to be completed by a theory of justification for moral standards. I provide a full account in Morality, Normativity, and Society.

29 Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, 32, 40Google Scholar, respectively.

30 Dancy, JonathanMoral Reasons (Oxford: Blackwell 1993) 4Google Scholar. Dancy adds that “moral considerations are ones whose practical relevance cannot be escaped by saying ‘I don't care about that sort of thing.“’ But if moral claims are categorical in the sense I explained before, then something stronger is true, namely, the 'practical relevance’ of a proposition of moral obligation cannot be escaped by saying “I am not at all motivated by that sort of thing.” This undermines internalism rather than supporting it.

31 Gauthier, Morals by Agreement, 1Google Scholar

32 Both Earl Conee and Michael Smith urged this objection.

33 Of course, some standards are concerned with things other than actions, such as states of character or the structure of institutions.

34 Gibbard, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings. Hare, The Language of Morals. Gibbard calls standards ‘norms,’ and Hare calls them ‘imperatives.’ Hare uses the term 'standards’ in a different way, to speak of the moral imperatives that have currency in a society or that are subscribed to by a person (Hare, The Language of Morals, 7).

35 Gibbard, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment, 33CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 Hare, The Language of Morals, 19–20Google Scholar

37 Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, 16Google Scholar

38 Smith, The Moral Problem, 184Google Scholar

39 Ibid., 62. Smith formulates both doctrines as claims about moral rightness rather than as claims about moral obligation. But I have been including judgments of right action under the rubric, ‘judgments of moral obligation.’ Nothing of substance will be lost if I express his doctrines as claims about moral obligation.

40 Ibid., 61. See 62.

41 Ibid., 61, 120

42 Ibid., 86. At 87-90, Smith offers a second argument for rationalism that appears not to depend on the practicality requirement. I discuss it below. Smith also thinks that rationalism entails the practicality requirement (62).

43 Smith replies to Brink's argument that internalism cannot take the challenge of the ‘amoralist’ seriously enough. See Brink, Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics, 45-50, 57–62Google Scholar. Smith argues that the amoralist does not really make moral judgments, but his argument relies on the practicality requirement. Smith, The Moral Problem, 68–71Google Scholar. Smith also replies to Foot's argument that moral requirements are analogous to the requirements of etiquette, and, like the latter, they are not requirements of reason. Smith argues against the analogy, but his argument relies on the practicality requirement. Smith, The Moral Problem, 80-4Google Scholar

44 Ibid., 71. In this and the following paragraphs, I summarize and reconstruct Smith's argument in The Moral Problem, 71-6.

45 If my assumption is incorrect, and being ‘strong-willed’ is compatible with some forms of practical irrationality, then the practicality requirement does not explain the reliable connection. A strong-willed and good person might fail to experience a change of motivation consequent on a change of moral belief, for he might be depressed or be suffering from some other form of ‘irrationality.'

46 Ibid., 75

47 Otherwise, weakness of will would not be a form of practical irrationality that could ‘break the connection’ between the judgment that one has an obligation and motivation to act accordingly. Ibid., 120

48 Note that “this is read de re and not de dicta.” Ibid., 76

49 Smith suggested this reply in correspondence.

50 Ibid., 75

51 Smith would view Alice as weak-willed, and he regards weakness of will as a form of irrationality (61). But if a person who fails to be motivated to do what he thinks is obligatory is held to be irrational on that basis alone, then the practicality requirement is tautological. I submit that despite the fact that Alice is what Smith would call ‘weak-willed,’ she may be rational in every respect.

52 Ibid., 62. Here Smith cites Korsgaard, “Skepticism about Practical Reason.“

53 Ibid., 85-6. In the following, I summarize and reconstruct Smith's argument.

54 Ibid., 89, 85-6

55 Ibid., 85

56 For this argument, see Smith, The Moral Problem, 86-7.

57 Ibid., 87-91

58 Ibid., 89. As Smith notes, “to say we expect someone to do something can mean either that we believe that they will, or that we believe that they should.” Smith says that he intends the former interpretation throughout. (Ibid., 85-6. Smith emphasized this in personal correspondence as well.) The former is the relevant interpretation, for the proposition he is trying to support is that we believe rational agents will do what they are morally required to do.

59 Ibid., 89. See 85.

60 Ibid., 90

61 Ibid., 90

62 Korsgaard, “Skepticism about Practical Reason.” In some places she speaks of “reason-claims” or of “rational considerations,” rather than of reasons, and she speaks of their “success” in motivating us rather than of their being capable of motivating us. See pp. 11, 15, 23. For a superficially similar view, see Williams, “Internal and External Reasons.“