Cognitivist motivational internalism is the thesis that, if one believes that 'It is right to ϕ', then one will be motivated to ϕ. This thesis—which captures the practical nature of morality—is in tension with a Humean constraint on belief: belief cannot motivate action without the assistance of a conceptually independent desire. When defending cognitivist motivational internalism it is tempting to either argue that the Humean constraint only applies to non-moral beliefs or that moral beliefs (...) only motivate ceteris paribus . But succumbing to the first temptation places one under a burden to justify what is motivationally exceptional about moral beliefs and succumbing to the second temptation saddles one with a thesis that fails to do justice to the practicality intuition that cognitivist motivational internalism is suppose to capture. In this paper, I offer a way of defending cognitivist motivational internalism, which does not require accepting that there is anything motivationally unusual about moral beliefs. I argue that no belief satisfies the Humean constraint: all beliefs are capable of motivating without the assistance of a conceptually independent desire. (shrink)

Motivational internalism—the idea that moral judgments are intrinsically or necessarily connected to motivation—has played a central role in metaethical debates. In conjunction with a Humean picture of motivation, internalism has provided a challenge for theories that take moral judgments to concern objective aspects of reality, and versions of internalism have been seen as having implications for moral absolutism, realism, and rationalism. But internalism is a controversial thesis, and the apparent possibility of amoralists and the rejection (...) of strong forms of internalism have also been seen as a problem for non-cognitivists. The last decades have seen a number of developments of internalist positions and arguments for and against internalism. This chapter provides a structured overview of the more important themes, including the development of new forms of conditional internalism, deferred internalism, and non-constitutional internalism, as well as the emergence of empirically-based arguments and new forms of a posteriori internalism. (shrink)

Motivational internalism—the idea that there is an intrinsic or necessary connection between moral judgment and moral motivation—is a central thesis in a number of metaethical debates. In conjunction with a Humean picture of motivation, it provides a challenge for cognitivist theories that take moral judgments to concern objective aspects of reality. Versions of internalism have potential implications for moral absolutism, realism, non-naturalism, and rationalism. Being a constraint on more detailed conceptoins of moral motivation and moral judgment, (...) it is also directly relevant to wider issues in moral psychology. But internalism is a controversial thesis, and the apparent possibility of amoralists and the rejection of strong forms of internalism have also been seen as problems for non-cognitivists. -/- This volume’s thirteen new essays and introduction are meant to help readers appreciate state-of-the-art of research on internalism, to identify connections between various aspects of the debate, and to deepen discussion of a number of central aspects of metaethics. The introductory chapter provides a structured overview of the debate with a focus on the last two decades, while the book’s three main sections focus on what evidence there is for or against various versions of internalism, the relevance of versions of internalism for wider metaethical issues, and different ways of accommodating both internalist and externalist aspects of moral practice, respectively. (shrink)

I argue that there is a continuum of judgments ranging from those that are affectively rich, what might be called passionate judgments, to those that are purely cognitive and nonaffective, what might be called dispassionate judgments. The former are akin to desires and other affective states and so are necessarily motivating. Applying this schema to moral judgments, I maintain that the motivational internalist is wrong in claiming that all moral judgments are necessarily motivating, but right in regard to the (...) subset of passionate moral judgments. This picture of moral judgments has implications for related debates in metaethics between cognitivists and non-cognitivists and between Humeans and anti-Humeans. (shrink)

As a metaethicist, I am interested in whether expressivism is true, and thus interested in whether the argument that people think they find in Hume is a sound one. Not being a Hume scholar (but merely a devoted fan), I am less interested in whether Hume really was an expressivist or whether he really did present an argument in its favor. Hume’s metaethical views are very difficult to nail down, and by a careful selection of quotes one can present him (...) as advocating expressivism, or cognitivist subjectivism, or moral skepticism, or a dispositional theory, or an ideal observer theory, or even utilitarianism. It is entirely possible that Hume’s position is indeterminate when considered against these terms of modern moral philosophy; it is also entirely possible that he was hopelessly confused (much as it pains me to admit it). However, I doubt very much that Hume should be interpreted as an expressivist in any straightforward manner, and therefore I am doubtful that he should be interpreted as arguing in its favor. Most of this paper does not discuss Hume directly at all: I critically discuss the motivation argument and I advocate a certain positive metaethical view—one that mixes elements of traditional expressivism with elements of cognitivism. This position is neutral between moral realism and radical moral skepticism. I close by wondering—very briefly— whether Hume might have held such a view. Given my reservations about the determinacy of Hume’s metaethical outlook, the case is not pressed with any vigor, but because it is an interpretation of Hume that has not, so far as I know, been articulated before, it may be of interest to note that it seems to be consistent with much of what he says—at least as much as any other precise interpretation. (shrink)

Much in contemporary metaethics revolves around the two positions known as ‘motivational internalism’ and the ‘Humean theory of motivation’. The importance of these positions is mostly due to their role in what is considered to be the most powerful argument for metaethical non-cognitivism: the so-called ‘motivation argument’. In my paper, I want to argue that widely accepted renditions of the MA, such as the rendition recently forwarded by Russ Shafer-Landau, are flawed in two senses. First, they fail to (...) sufficiently distinguish between conceptual claims and empirical psychological claims, thereby somewhat obscuring the status of the argument and its conclusion. Secondly, they start from definitions of motivational internalism that are, in crucial respects, too strong. Motivational internalism is usually formulated as the claim that moral judgements necessarily motivate; as I want to argue, however, the claim that moral judgements potentially motivate is all the motivational internalism a noncognitivist defender of the MA is ever going to need. (shrink)

According to judgment internalism, there is a conceptual connection between moral judgment and motivation. This paper offers an argument against that kind of internalism that does not involve counterexamples of the amoralist sort. Instead, it is argued that these forms of judgment internalism fall prey to a Frege-Geach type argument.

Motivational internalism and externalism – that is, theories about moral motivation – have played central roles in meta‐ethical debate mainly because they have been thought to have implications for the constitutive nature of moral judgements. Thus, internalism and externalism have been adduced in favour of and against various versions of cognitivism and non‐cognitivism. This article aims to question a fundamental presupposition behind such arguments. It has standardly been assumed (i) that if motivational internalism is true (...) then moral judgements must consist of attitudes that cannot be had without the relevant motivation, and (ii) that if motivational externalism is true, then moral judgements must consist of attitudes that one can have without being motivated. Against the background of a recent argument to the effect that the first of these assumptions is false, this article develops a parallel argument against the second. If this argument is correct, then motivational externalism is consistent with moral judgements being attitudes that one cannot have without being motivated. Together with the parallel argument concerning internalism, this means that the meta‐ethical significance of internalism and externalism must be reconsidered. (shrink)

Most naturalists think that the belief/desire model from Hume is the best framework for making sense of motivation. As Smith has argued, given that the cognitive state (belief) and the conative state (desire) are separate on this model, if a moral judgment is cognitive, it could not also be motivating by itself. So, it looks as though Hume and Humeans cannot hold that moral judgments are states of belief (moral cognitivism) and internally motivating (moral internalism). My chief claim is (...) that the details of Hume’s naturalistic philosophy of mind actually allow for a conjunction of these allegedly incompatible views. This thesis is significant, since readers typically have thought that Hume’s view that motivation is not produced by representations, coupled with his view that moral judgments motivate on their own, imply that moral judgments could never take the form of beliefs about, or representations of, the moral (virtue and vice). (shrink)

In his 1982 book Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Saul Kripke develops a famous argument that purports to show that there are no facts about what we mean by the expressions of our language: ascriptions of meaning, such as “Jones means addition by ‘+’” or Smith means green by ‘green’”, are according to Kripke’s Wittgenstein neither true nor false. Kripke’s Wittgenstein thus argues for a form of non-factualism about ascriptions of meaning: ascriptions of meaning do not purport to state (...) facts. Define semantic realism to be the view that ascriptions of meaning are apt to be assessed in terms of truth and falsity, and are, at least in some instances, true. Semantic realism, thus defined, is a form of cognitivism about semantic judgement, according to which judgements ascribing meaning express beliefs, states apt for assessment in terms of truth and falsity. Kripke’s Wittgenstein thus argues against semantic realism, and in favour of a form of semantic non-cognitivism.1 En route to semantic non-cognitivism, Kripke’s Wittgenstein argues against dispositionalist theories of meaning, which hold something roughly along the lines of the following: Jones means magpie by “magpie” if and only if Jones is disposed to apply “magpie” to magpies in ideal conditions (where the ideal conditions can be specified in terms that don’t presuppose the notion of meaning, and are such that in those conditions Jones applies “magpie” to a thing if and only if that thing is a magpie). (shrink)

This paper criticizes the conjunction of two theses: 1) cognitivism about first-person moral ought-beliefs, the thesis (roughly) that such beliefs are attitudes with truth-valued contents; 2) robust internalism about these beliefs, the thesis that, necessarily, agents' beliefs that they ought, morally, to A constitute motivation to A. It is argued that the conjunction of these two theses places our moral agency at serious risk. The argument, which centrally involves attention to clinical depression, is extended to a less demanding, recent (...) brand of internalist moral cognitivism. Philosophers discussed include Dancy, McDowell, McNaughton, and Nagel. (shrink)

According to the established understanding of the Frege-Geach problem, it is a challenge exclusively for metaethical expressivism. In this paper, I argue that it is much wider in scope: The problem applies generally to views according to which moral sentences express moral judgments entailing that one is for or against something, irrespective of what mental states the judgments consist in. In particular, it applies to motivational internalism about moral judgments. Most noteworthy, it applies to cognitivist internalism (...) according to which moral judgments consist in motivating beliefs. Hence, in order for a metaethical view to evade the Frege-Geach problem, it should avoid stating that moral judgments are motivating. (shrink)

Deferred internalists accept that sometimes, agents can form genuine normative judgments without any accompanying motivation. However, they propose that these judgments can only exist when they are embedded within psychologies or communities in which judgment and motivation typically align. In this paper, I sketch a version of externalism that challenges the interpretation of key evidence claimed by deferred internalists. According to this account, there is a robust but contingent connection between judgment and motivation that is explained by the structure of (...) the neurocognitive apparatus we happen to employ in evaluative thought. This proposal allows that all of our judgments lacking accompanying motivation are contingently parasitic on judgments that are accompanied by motivation. It also suggests that it is not possible to create communities of _beings like us_ whose judgments and motivation radically come apart. These results undermine current strategies for supporting deferred internalism. Proponents will need to find support elsewhere. (shrink)

Motivational externalists and internalists of various sorts disagree about the circumstances under which it is conceptually possible to have moral opinions but lack moral motivation. Typically, the evidence referred to are intuitions about whether people in certain scenarios who lack moral motivation count as having moral opinions. People’s intuitions about such scenarios diverge, however. I argue that the nature of this diversity is such that, for each of the internalist and externalist theses, there is a strong prima facie reason (...) to reject it. That much might not be very controversial. But I argue further, that it also gives us a strong prima facie reason to reject all of these theses. This is possible since there is an overlooked alternative option to accepting any of them: moral motivation pluralism , the view that different internalist and externalist theses correctly accounts for different people’s concepts of moral opinions, respectively. I end the paper with a discussion of methodological issues relevant to the argument for moral motivation pluralism and of the consequences of this view for theories about the nature of moral opinions, such as cognitivism and non-cognitivism. (shrink)

One of the most discussed views in metaethics is Moral Internalism, according to which there is a conceptually necessary connection between moral judgments and motivation to act. Moral Internalism is regarded to yield the prime argument against Moral Cognitivism and for Moral Non-Cognitivism. In this paper, I investigate the significance of the corresponding claim in metaaesthetics. I pursue two lines of argument. First, I argue that Aesthetic Internalism – the view that there is a conceptually necessary connection (...) between aesthetic value judgments and motivation to act – is mistaken. It follows, I maintain, that the most important argument against Aesthetic Cognitivism, and for Aesthetic Non-Cognitivism, is flawed, and that the latter view presumably is incorrect. Second, I argue that considerations with regard to Aesthetic Internalism give rise to two normative puzzles with relevance for the normative domain in general. The most plausible solution to these puzzles entails, I maintain, that we need to revise the established view about normative judgments. Moreover, I propose a novel externalist account of aesthetic value judgments. (shrink)

Consider orthodox motivational judgment internalism: necessarily, A’s sincere moral judgment that he or she ought to φ motivates A to φ. Such principles fail because they cannot accommodate the amoralist, or one who renders moral judgments without any corresponding motivation. The orthodox alternative, externalism, posits only contingent relations between moral judgment and motivation. In response I first revive conceptual internalism by offering some modifications on the amoralist case to show that certain community-wide motivational failures are not (...) conceptually possible. Second, I introduce a theory of moral motivation that supplements the intuitive responses to different amoralist cases. According to moral judgment purposivism (MJP), in rough approximation, a purpose of moral judgments is to motivate corresponding behaviors such that a mental state without this purpose is not a moral judgment. MJP is consistent with conceptual desiderata, provides an illuminating analysis of amoralist cases, and offers a step forward in the internalist-externalist debates. (shrink)

Aesthetic internalism claims a link between judgement and motivation: aesthetic judgements bring with them motivations to act in characteristic ways. Critics object that there is a difference between merely liking something and judging it to be aesthetically good, and that it is our likings, not our aesthetic judgements, that motivate us. This paper develops a version of aesthetic internalism that can respond to this criticism. Wholehearted aesthetic judgements are characterized by stability, attention, and motivation. Making such judgements is (...) an important part of a good life, and so at least some aesthetic judgements are motivating. So we have reason to think that this version of aesthetic internalism is true. This paper defends wholehearted aesthetic internalism against objections, and assesses an argument from aesthetic internalism to aesthetic non-cognitivism. While wholehearted aesthetic internalism can only offer qualified support to non-cognitivism, it nonetheless offers a number of fruitful avenues for further work. (shrink)

It is commonly assumed that the non-cognitivists of the first half of the twentieth century - the emotivists – were internalists about moral motivation. It is also commonly assumed that they were prompted to choose emotivism over other cognitivist positions in ethics because of their commitment to internalism. Finally, it is also commonly assumed that they used an internalist argument to argue for emotivism. -/- In this article I argue that the connection between emotivism and internalism is (...) far more tenuous than is commonly assumed. I focus on two of the most important and influential emotivists: A. J. Ayer and Charles L. Stevenson. While it is true that Stevenson was an internalist, Ayer refused to endorse internalism. Neither of them was originally prompted to choose emotivism over cognitivist positions in ethics by internalist considerations. Finally, Ayer never used an internalist argument to argue for emotivism; Stevenson did once borrow an internalist argument from another philosopher in order to argue for emotivism, but he later abandoned it. (shrink)

Taking my cue from Michael Smith, I try to extract a decent argument for non-cognitivism from the text of the Treatise. I argue that the premises are false and that the whole thing rests on a petitio principi. I then re-jig the argument so as to support that conclusion that Hume actually believed (namely that an action is virtuous if it would excite the approbation of a suitably qualified spectator). This argument too rests on false premises and a begged question. (...) Thus the Motivation Argument fails BOTH as an argument for noncognitivism AND as an argument for what Hume actually believed, that moral distinctions are not derived from reason and that moral properties are akin to secondary qualities. So far as the Motivation Argument is concerned, both cognitivists and rationalists can rest easy. Themes: 1) Hume’s Slavery of Reason thesis is only defensible if passions are not only desires but sometimes dispositions to acquire desires (DTADs). 2) A desire for our good on the whole, which Humeans need to posit to fend off apparent counterexamples to the Slavery of Reason Thesis, does not sit well with the Humean theory of how novel desires arise (an objection due originally to Reid). 3) Hume is wrong to suppose that ‘abstract or demonstrative reasoning never influences any of our actions, but only as it directs our judgment concerning causes and effects’ as the examples of Russell and Hobbes convincingly demonstrate. This ironic as both Russell and Hobbes subscribed to the Slavery of Reason Thesis. 4) I critique Michael Smith’s critique of motivational externalism. (shrink)

In a series of publications, Tamar Gendler has argued for a distinction between belief and what she calls ?alief?. Gendler's argument for the distinction is a serviceability argument: the distinction is indispensable for explaining a whole slew of phenomena, typically involving ?belief-behaviour mismatch?. After embedding Gendler's distinction in a dual-process model of moral cognition, I argue here that the distinction also suggests a possible (dis)solution of what is perhaps the organizing problem of contemporary moral psychology: the apparent tension between the (...) inherently motivational role of moral judgments and their manifestly objectivistic phenomenology. I argue that moral judgments come in two varieties, moral aliefs and moral beliefs, and it is only the former that are inherently motivating and only the latter that have an objectivistic phenomenology. This serves to both bolster the case for the alief/belief distinction and shed new light on otherwise well-trodden territory in metaethics. I start with an exposition of the moral-psychological problem (?1) and a discussion of Gendler's alief/belief distinction (?2). I then apply the latter to moral judgments in an attempt to dissolve the former (?3). I close with discussion of the upshot for our understanding of moral thought, moral motivation, and moral phenomenology (?4). (shrink)

One of the most prevalent and influential assumptions in metaethics is that our conception of the relation between moral language and motivation provides strong support to internalism about moral judgments. In the present paper, I argue that this supposition is unfounded. Our responses to the type of thought experiments that internalists employ do not lend confirmation to this view to the extent they are assumed to do. In particular, they are as readily explained by an externalist view according to (...) which there is a pragmatic and standardized connection between moral utterances and motivation. The pragmatic account I propose states that a person’s utterance of a sentence according to which she ought to ϕ conveys two things: the sentence expresses, in virtue of its conventional meaning, the belief that she ought to ϕ, and her utterance carries a generalized conversational implicature to the effect that she is motivated to ϕ. This view also makes it possible to defend cognitivism against a well-known internalist argument. (shrink)

It is clear that Kant's theory of motivation plays a central role in his ethical theory as a whole. Nevertheless, it has been subjected to many interpretations: (i) the 'orthodox' interpretation, (ii) the 'Aristotelian' or 'Humean' interpretation and (iii) the 'rationalist' interpretation. The first part of the thesis aims to provide an interpretation of Kant's theory of rational agency and motivation. I argue that the 'orthodox' and 'Aristotelian' interpretations should be rejected because they are incompatible with Kant's conception of freedom, (...) defending an account of Kant's position that goes along the lines of the rationalist interpretation. I show that Kant's theory of motivation is committed to a form of cognitivism, that is, the cognitive aspects of a motive are always the active factors in motivation. In Kant's terminology, the motives are provided by the agent's maxims, which express the reasons from which the agent acts. This part of the thesis examines Kant's theory of imperatives and his theory of motivation for cases of permissible, moral and immoral action. I conclude that in Kant's system, three levels of moral assessment can be distinguished: (i) rightness, (ii) moral worth, and (iii) virtue. However, my interest in Kant's theory is not merely exegetical; thus, the second aim of the thesis is to place Kant's position within the context of the following contemporary debates in metaethics: (i) debates about the relation between moral judgement and motivation, and (ii) debates about the nature of reasons for action, arguing that the Kantian position still represents an attractive philosophical view today. In relation to (i), I argue that Kant is committed to a form of motivational internalism, reconstruct Kant's argument for this view and reply to some possible externalist objections. In relation to (ii), I claim that since Kant's conception of reasons, based on the concept of maxims, differs from an internal conception of reasons (i.e., a conception that identifies reasons with the agent's desires), and from an external conception of reasons (i.e., a conception of reasons that identifies reasons with facts of the agent's situation), the term volitionism should be reserved to describe Kant's position. (shrink)

Moral Internalism is the claim that it is a priori that moral beliefs are reasons for action. At least three conceptions of 'reason' may be disambiguated: psychological, epistemological, and purely ethical. The first two conceptions of Internalism are false on conceptual, and indeed empirical, grounds. On a purely ethical conception of 'reasons', the claim is true but is an Externalist claim. Positive arguments for Internalism — from phenomenology, connection and oddness — are found wanting. Three possible responses (...) to the stock Externalist objections are uncovered and overturned. In so doing a close relation between Internalism and Behaviourism is revealed, and some stock anti-behaviouristic arguments are co-opted for Externalism. The likely dependence of Internalism on an Atomistic Associationism is uncovered and criticised. Internalism is seen as being ultimately a type of Ethical Determinism. Finally, a sketch of an Anti-Associative Externalism is given whereby the notion of self determination of action is put forward as an account of moral motivation fit to resist both the internalist and the belief-desire psychology premises of the stock non-cognitivist argument. (shrink)

This paper considers and argues against old and recent readings of Hume according to which his account of moral judgement is non-cognitivist. In previous discussions of this topic, crucial metaethical distinctions-between sentimentalism and non-cognitivism and between psychological and semantic non-cognitivism-are often blurred. The paper aims to remedy this and argues that making the appropriate metaethical distinctions undermines alleged support for non-cognitivist interpretations of Hume. The paper focuses in particular on Hume's so-called 'motivation argument' and argues that it is (...) a poor basis for non-cognitivist interpretations. While there is textual support for attributing to Hume what may be called 'modally weak' motivational internalism, there is no solid textual support for attributing to him either psychological or semantic non-cognitivism. The paper also challenges briefly some further alleged support for non-cognitivist interpretations. It concludes by offering some positive evidence against such interpretations, namely that Hume appears to hold that there are moral beliefs and moral knowledge. (shrink)

In this paper we defend a version of moral internalism and a cognitivist account of motivation against recent criticisms. The internalist thesis we espouse claims that, if an agent believes she has reason to A, then she is motivated to A. Discussion of counter-examples has been clouded by the absence of a clear account of the nature of motivation. While we can only begin to provide such an account in this paper, we do enough to show that our (...) version of internalism can be defended against putative counter-examples. All theories of motivation which take what motivates to be a psychological state run foul of the following plausible constraint: the reason why you ought to do an action and the reason why you do it can be the same. In our view, however, while what motivates is a reason (which is a fact) the state of being motivated is a cognitive stage, viz. the belief that one has reason to act. In cases where the agent's relevant beliefs are false, then she has no reason to act, but nontheless her action can be explained in other ways. (shrink)

Are aesthetic judgements cognitive, belief-like states or non-cognitive, desire-like states? There have been a number of attempts in recent years to evaluate the plausibility of a non-cognitivist theory of aesthetic judgements. These attempts borrow heavily from non-cognitivism in metaethics. One argument that is used to support metaethical non-cognitivism is the argument from Motivational Judgement Internalism. It is claimed that accepting this view, together with a plausible theory of motivation, pushes us towards accepting non-cognitivism. A tempting option, then, (...) for those wishing to defend aesthetic non-cognitivism, would be to appeal to a similar argument. However, both Caj Strandberg and Walter Sinnott-Armstong have argued that Internalism is a less plausible claim to make about aesthetic judgements than about moral judgements by raising objections against aesthetic internalism. In this paper, I will argue that both of these objections can be raised against internalism about moral judgements as well. As a result, internalism is no less plausible a claim to make about aesthetic judgements than about moral judgements. I will then show how a theory of internalism about normative judgements in general is capable of avoiding both of these objections. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to critically assess some of Jonathan Dancy's views on reasons and motivation in Moral Reasons. It is argued, first, that his ‘gap’ theory of desire is untenable and that he would do better to adopt what he calls ‘pure ascriptionism’ which also denies that desires are motivational states distinct from beliefs. Second, the cognitivist theory of motivation is, however, less plausible than a conativist theory of motivation that takes desires to be distinct (...) motivational states. Third, despite contrary announcements, Dancy does not espouse an internalist view of reasons. This is fortunate since it would be a belief internalism which is an incoherent position. His position is rather that of belief externalism coupled with a cognitivist theory of motivation. Fourth, this externalism is compatible with positions that are usually referred to as internalist, which, to distinguish them, might be called factually internalist. (shrink)

Both motivational internalism and externalism need to explain why sometimes moral judgments tend to motivate us. In this paper, I argue that Dreier’ second-order desire model cannot be a plausible externalist alternative to explain the connection between moral judgments and motivation. I explain that the relevant second-order desire is merely a constitutive requirement of rationality because that desire makes a set of desires more unified and coherent. As a rational agent with the relevant second-order desire is disposed towards (...) coherence, she will have some motivation to act in accordance with her moral judgments. Dreier’s second-order desire model thus collapses into a form of internalism and cannot be a plausible externalist option to explain the connection between moral judgments and motivation. (shrink)

Motivational internalism is the thesis that captures the commonplace thought that moral judgements are necessarily motivationally efficacious. But this thesis appears to be in tension with another aspect of our ordinary moral experience. Proponents of the contrast thesis, motivational externalism, cite everyday examples of amoralism to demonstrate that it is conceptually possible to be completely unmoved by what seem to be sincere first-person moral judgements. This paper argues that the challenge of amoralism gives us no reason to (...) reject or modify motivational internalism. Instead of attempting to diagnose the motivational failure of the amoral agent or restrict the internalist thesis in the face of these examples, I argue that we should critically examine the assumptions that underlie the challenge. Such an examination reveals that the examples smuggle in substantive assumptions that the internalist has no reason to accept. This argument has two important implications for the debate in moral motivation: first, it reveals that the motivational externalist needs a new argumentative strategy; and second, it shows that there is nothing especially problematic about a formulation of the thesis that captures the core internalist intuition that first-person moral judgements are necessarily accompanied by motivation. (shrink)

Internalism – here the view that moral judgments entail motivation – is often taken to support non-cognitivism about morality. However, Michael Smith has defended a variety of it in combination with a cognitivist account of morality. Despite the eminence of Smith’s contribution, his case in favour of internalism is flawed. I distinguish several internalist positions and argue that Smith’s version, unlike standard ones, expresses a view about, not the nature of the state one is in when one (...) makes a moral judgment, but the norms of practical rationality. I then defend the externalist appeal to the possibility of amoralism. Such an appeal need not beg the question against internalism and can in any case be backed up by independent considerations. Moreover, neither of Smith’s two main arguments in favour of internalism – the reliable connection argument and the appeal to rationalism about moral requirements – are sound. Having shored up the case for externalism and dismissed Smith’s case against it, I end the essay with a suggestion as to why many philosophers have been attracted to internalism even though the theory turns out to be ill-founded. (shrink)

Cases involving amoralists who no longer care about the institution of morality, together with cases of depression, listlessness, and exhaustion, have posed trouble in recent years for standard formulations of motivational internalism. In response, though, internalists have been willing to adopt narrower versions of the thesis which restrict it just to the motivational lives of those agents who are said to be in some way normal, practically rational, or virtuous. My goal in this paper is to offer (...) a new set of counterexamples to motivational internalism, examples which are effective both against traditional formulations of the thesis as well as against many of these more recent restricted proposals. (shrink)

Motivational internalism postulates a necessary connection between moral judgments and motivation. In arguing for and against internalism, metaethicists traditionally appeal to intuitions about cases, but crucial cases often yield conflicting intuitions. One way to try to make progress, possibly uncovering theoretical bias and revealing whether people have conceptions of moral judgments required for noncognitivist accounts of moral disagreement, is to investigate non-philosophers' willingness to attribute moral judgments. A pioneering study by Shaun Nichols seemed to undermine internalism, (...) as a large majority of subjects were willing to attribute moral understanding to an agent lacking moral motivation. However, our attempts to replicate this study yielded quite different results, and we identified a number of problems with Nichols' experimental paradigm. The results from a series of surveys designed to rule out these problems show that people are more willing to attribute moral understanding than mor.. (shrink)

Our puzzle about moral motivation can be seen as a tension that we encounter when we try to reconcile intellectual and practical aspects of morality. Cognitivists interpret moral judgments as expressing cognitive attitudes, such as belief. Moral judgments ascribe properties – axiological, deontic, and aretaic – to persons, actions, institutions, and policies. Internalists believe that moral judgments necessarily engage the will and motivate. We expect people to be motivated to act in accord with their moral judgments and would find it (...) odd for people to be systematically indifferent to what they judge morally significant. It is also a common view that motivation involves pro-attitudes, such as desires. We explain intentional action as the product of informational states, such as beliefs, and practical states, such as desires. But beliefs and desires are logically independent states; no belief entails any particular desire. These assumptions are in tension. (shrink)

What my suggestion rules out – if it is right – is the project of using some thesis about the conative or cognitive nature of motivation to argue for some thesis in meta-ethics. [...] facts about human motivation can be captured equally well with conativist or cognitivist language. And if that is true, then nothing about motivation either implies or rules out internalist moral realism.

According to the most important objection to the existence of moral beauty, true judgements of moral beauty are not possible as moral judgements require being motivated to act in line with the moral judgement made, and judgements of beauty require not being motivated to act in any way. Here, I clarify the argument underlying the objection, and show that it does not show that moral beauty does not exist. I present two responses: namely, that the beauty of moral beauty does (...) not lie in the moral goodness per se (the “adjacent properties” response); and that only a dispositional motivation to act is required for the moral judgements that are typically made as part of judgements of moral beauty, whereas aesthetic judgements only rule out state motivations to act (the “equivocation of motivation required” response). In addressing the objection, I show how moral beauty is consistent with disinterestedness, and so should be accepted more widely; and also clarify where the beauty in moral beauty resides, and how the moral-aesthetic distinction should be drawn. (shrink)

Williams's classic 1980 article ‘Internal and External Reasons’ has attracted much criticism, but, in my view, has never been properly refuted. I wish to describe and defend Williams's account against three powerful criticisms by Michael Smith, John McDowell and Tim Scanlon. In addition, I draw certain implications from Williams's account – implications with which Williams would not necessarily agree – about the nature and the role of the personal in ethics. Williams's insight, that a reason (including a moral reason) must (...) find purchase in an agent's ‘subjective motivational set’ if it is to function as a reason at all, undermines a central assumption of many moral philosophers, realists and non‐cognitivists alike: that there exists a singular objective realm of moral facts and moral reasons supervening on the situation before the agent. According to this assumption, if two people facing that situation disagree about whether one of them has reason to Φ, then at least one of them must be mistaken. I reject this assumption and defend Williams's account, while pointing at ways in which the account might be developed. While the internalism‐externalism debate itself is well‐worn, there is still something new and important that can be gleaned from it. (shrink)

Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Internalism and externalism: some terminology 1.1 Introduction 5 1.2 Falk and Frankena 5 1.3 The internalist position modified 9 1.4 The externalist position elaborated 12 1.5 Judgment internalism/externalism versus existence internalism/externalism 15 1.6 Other kinds of internalism and externalism 17 1.7 Varieties of existence internalism and externalism 19 1.8 Conclusion 26 Chapter 2 Bernard Williams on practical reasons 2.1 Introduction 27 2.2 The internal reason theory 27 2.3 Refining the sub-Humean (...) model 29 2.4 Objections against external reasons 40 2.4.1 The no-explanatory-force objection 41 2.4.2 The no-motivational-fuel objection 44 2.4.3 The obscurity objection 55 2.5 Conclusion 59 Chapter 3 Michael Smith on practical reasons 3.1 Introduction 60 3.2 The moral problem 60 3.3 Cognitivism, internalism, and Humean motivation 65 3.3.1 The objectivity of moral obligations 65 3.3.2 The practicality of moral judgments 67 3.3.3 The Humean theory of motivation 70 3.4 The conceptual analysis of normative reasons 73 3.4.1 Platitudes about normative reasons 73 3.4.2 The advice model 76 3.4.3 ‘If fully rational’-condition: Smith versus Williams 79 3.4.4 The analysis captures the platitudes 84 3.5 Moral rationalism: the solution to the moral problem 88 3.6 Smith’s analysis of normative reasons evaluated 91 3.6.1 The analysis trivializes convergence 92 3.6.2 Why do reasons have to be objective? 94 3.6.3 The analysis does not guarantee practicality 96 3.6.4 The analysis rests on a false platitude 98 3.6.5 Normative reasons and what I would desire if I were fully rational 100 3.6.6 The advice model is inconsistent with the convergence thesis 102 3.7 Conclusion 106 Appendix 1: Michael Smith between moral realism and moral nihilism 107 Appendix 2: Michael Smith’s fetishism objection against judgment externalism 111 Chapter 4 Derek Parfit on practical reasons 4.1 Introduction 132 4.2 Parfit’s externalism 132 4.2.1 The obscurity objection rejected 133 4.2.2 The no-explanatory-force objection rejected 135 4.2.3 The no-motivation-fuel objection rejected 136 4.3 Parfit’s value-based reason theory 139 4.3.1 Internalism and the desire-based reason theory 139 4.3.2 Parfit’s argument against reductive desire-based reason views 143 4.3.3 Parfit’s argument against non-reductive desire-based reason views 148 4.3.4 Arguments in favour of the value-based reason theory 154 4.4 Parfit’s normative non-naturalism 161 4.4.1 Korsgaard’s criticism of realism 163 4.4.2 Korsgaard’s constructivism 166 4.4.3 Parfit’s criticism of constructivism 168 4.4.4 The non-naturalist account of normativity evaluated 174 4.5 Conclusion 179 Appendix: Varieties of moral realism 180 Chapter 5 Harry Frankfurt on practical reasons 5.1 Introduction 194 5.2 Frankfurt’s theory of care and love 194 5.2.1 The hierarchical model 195 5.2.2 Care 200 5.2.3 Love 211 5.3 The love-based reason theory 215 5.4 The love-based reason theory evaluated 225 5.4.1 Love and desire: both motivating, both natural 225 5.4.2 The groundlessness objection 227 5.4.3 The authority of love 239 5.4.4 The objection of normative triviality 244 5.4.5 The love-based reason theory and morality 248 5.5. Conclusion 254 Bibliography 256. (shrink)

A central source of support for expressivist accounts of normative discourse is the intimate relationship between normative judgment and motivation. Expressivists argue that normative judgments must be noncognitive, desire-like states in order to be so tightly linked with motivation. Normative statements are then construed as expressions of these noncognitive states. In this paper, I draw on dual-process models in cognitive psychology to respond to this argument. According to my proposal, normative judgments are ordinary beliefs that are typically produced by two (...) kinds of process: intuitive-affective processes and domain-general reasoning. When produced by the first kind of process, motivation and judgment tend to align. When produced by the second kind, motivation and judgment might not align. Since the first kind of process is the most common pathway of normative belief formation, normative judgments are typically accompanied by aligning motivation. This proposal enables cognitivists to explain the intimate link between normative judgment and motivation, thereby removing the major obstacle to interpreting normative statements truth-conditionally. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to articulate and defend a version of motivational internalism. The simplest version is a crude instrumentalism according to which reasoning can generate motivation in us only by identifying means to ends that we already desire. The view advanced here is much less restrictive.

Contemporary internalists typically idealize the conditions for motivation, claiming for example that motivation must be present in rational persons under certain conditions. Robert Johnson, in The Philosophical Quarterly, 49, convincingly argues that these versions of internalism overlook ways in which the conditions in the antecedent of the conditional expressing the analysis are incompatible with the claim under analysis. However, avoiding the fallacy decouples internalism from its use to explain and justify moral action. I use Johnson’s argument as the (...) basis of a new proposal for defining central internalist claims, modifying the conditions in which motivation must be manifest so that it is less idealized. We can specify conditions which are ideal enough to ensure motivation, but which are not so ideal as to be incompatible with the grounds of an agent’s reasons. (shrink)

Motivational internalism is a view about the connection between motivation and moral judgment. The debate over internalism has long focused on establishing the nature of the connection between moral judgment and motivation. In this paper I argue that recent studies regarding personality disorders such as psychopathy and VM damage, which have been traditionally seen as providing a counter argument to internalism, indicate that motivational deficiencies in the moral sphere are linked to motivational deficiencies in (...) other normative spheres such as prudence. This observation suggests that internalism focus of internalism should not be moral judgments simpliciter but rather the nature of the connection between motivation and the general normative sphere. If this is correct then psychopathy and VM damage should not be treated as disproving internalism, but rather as emphasizing a problem with the traditional ways it has been phrased. (shrink)

If it is true that an agent who has a moral reason for acting has a reason for acting independently of whether or not she has a desire to so act , then it cannot also be true both that moral reasons are necessarily motivating and that an agent who is motivated to act is motivated in virtue of a desire to so act . This dissertation argues that the arguments given against Motivational Internalism about Moral Reasons are (...) stronger than the arguments given against either Moral Reasons Authoritativeness or Desire Motivationalism. ;Chapter 1 outlines two types of motivational internalism: Motivational Internalism about Moral Judgments , and Motivational Internalism about Moral Reasons . It also outlines six other sub-positions on the nature of moral reasons, moral judgments and moral obligations, and on the nature of the connection between desires and motivation. Two of these sub-positions are Moral Reasons Authoritativeness and Desire Motivationalism . ;Chapter 2 argues that deontological intuitionists, such as H. A. Prichard, rejected MIMR in order to defend both MRA and DM. Here I defend Prichard's motivational externalist account of moral motivation, in terms of a desire to do one's duty, from a selection of criticisms. ;Chapter 3 argues that W. D. Falk, who coined the terms "internalism" and "externalism", rejected DM in order to defend both MIMR and MRA. Here I argue that Falk's motivational internalist account of moral motivation, in terms of an impulse to act that is not a desire and that has a sui generis sense of necessity attached to it, fails. Since Falk has not refuted DM, he cannot successfully defend MRA. ;Chapter 4 argues that moral noncognitivists, such as A. J. Ayer, rejected MRA in order to defend both MIMR and DM. Here I argue that Ayer's account of moral reasons, according to which some fact about a situation is moral reason for acting if and only if awareness of this fact evokes a moral feeling in an agent, fails. Since Ayer has not refuted MRA, he cannot successfully defend MIMR. (shrink)

Strong motivational internalists claim that the relation between moral judgment and motivation is necessary. It is widely accepted that strong motivational internalism is false because it cannot accommodate various phenomena from common experience. In order to make room for these phenomena, motivational internalists usually propose the weak formulation of their thesis. In the first part of the paper I differentiate between several versions of both strong and weak motivational internalism. In the second part I (...) argue that the reasons for endorsing weak motivational internalism of any form are not compelling. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that I argue that motivational internalism should not be driving metaethics. I first show that many arguments for motivational internalism beg the question by resting on an illicit appeal to internalist assumptions about the nature of reasons. Then I make a distinction between weak internalism and the weakest form of internalism. Weak internalism allows that agents fail to act according to their normative judgments when they are practically irrational. (...) I show that when we clarify the notion of practical irrationality it does not support motivational internalism. Weakest internalism only claims that agents are irrational if they entirely lack motiv- ation to do what they judge they ought to. I do not argue against weakest internalism, but I argue that it is not an important view. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: References.

Reviews work on moral judgment motivational internalism from the last two decades.

Internalists and externalists disagree over how intimately normative judgment and motivation are linked. Proponents on both sides typically try to settle the issue by descriptively interpreting our concept of a normative judgment. Unfortunately, this approach has resulted in deep and apparently intractable disagreement. It is time to consider alternative strategies. In this paper, I argue that the internalist/externalist debate is particularly ripe for revisionary arguments that evaluate conceptions of normative judgment in light of the costs and benefits of their adoption. (...) I then develop a revisionary case for externalism by identifying three practical hazards that come with internalist conceptions of normative judgment. Along the way, I show how these internalist hazards are mirrored by externalist benefits. I also argue that two potential benefits of internalism are not very beneficial. Together, these considerations give us strong practical reasons to adopt externalist conceptions of normative judgment, regardless of which account is descriptively accurate. (shrink)

The task of this paper is to argue that expressivism [the thesis that moral judgements function to express desires, emotions, or pro/con attitudes] neither implies, nor is implied by, [motivational internalism].

Motivational Internalism is a collection of thirteen new essays on exactly the topic you expect it to be, given the title. It also contains an introductory chapter, in which the editors attach an excellent overview of the current state of play to an intimidating bibliography. The essays in the volume are divided into three sections, each with its own, shorter, introduction by the editors. The first section concerns evidence for and against motivational internalism; the second concerns (...) the relevance of internalism for metaethics; the final section considers ways of bridging the gap between internalist and externalist accounts of moral motivation. In what follows I'll comment briefly on each of the essays in these sections before remarking on who, besides libraries, should buy this book. (shrink)