An Internalist Dilemma—and an Externalist Solution
Caj Strandberg
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 linguistic intuitions as regards the connection between moral language and motivation, but fails to account for the fact that people who suffer from certain mental conditions need not be accordingly motivated. On the other hand, the most plausible version of a weaker form of internalism, rationalist internalism, avoids this difficulty, but fails to explain our linguistic intuitions. Moreover, I argue that externalism can account for the first notion by employing Grice’s concept of generalized conversational implicature and that this view is able to account for the second notion as well. Consequently, there is reason to think that externalism is preferable to internalism.
1. Introduction
There is broad agreement in metaethics that there is a strong connection between moral language and motivation, but significant disagreement as to how it should be understood. According to internalism, there is a necessary relation between moral judgments and motivation whereas externalism denies this. It is widely taken for granted that internalism has initial credibility since it seems able to explain our conception of this connection whereas it is less clear whether externalism is able to do so. At the same time, there is disagreement within the internalist camp about how strong the necessary relation between moral judgments and motivation should be understood to be. On strong internalism, it holds for all persons whereas it on weak internalism only holds for those who satisfy a certain condition.
In Sections 2 through 6, I argue that internalism faces a dilemma: Strong internalism can explain our linguistic intuitions as regards the connection between moral language and motivation, but fails to account for the fact that some persons need not be motivated in accordance with their moral judgments. The most plausible version of weak internalism, rationalist internalism, can account for the latter notion, but not the first. In Sections 7 and 8, I suggest that externalism can explain the first notion in terms of Paul Grice’s concept of generalized conversational implicature and that it can account for the second notion as well. As internalism faces the dilemma whereas externalism avoids it, there is reason to prefer the latter view to the former.
2. Strong Internalism
The following formulation of internalism about moral judgments and motivation is standard in metaethics: It is necessary that if a person judges that it is morally right that she fs, then she is motivated to f. However, there are different views that are labelled ‘internalism’ in the literature and I will not be concerned with all of them.[1] The kind of internalist claims I am interested in have four basic claims in common. First, I understand internalism as a conceptual claim. It can be understood to state that a sentence to the effect that it is right to f expresses, in virtue of its conventional meaning, a judgment such that if a person holds it, she is motivated to f. As I use ‘judgment’, it is neutral between cognitivism and non-cognitivism: it might consist in a belief or a non-cognitive state.[2] Second, as a natural corollary, motivation is internal to such moral judgments. More precisely, such a judgment is sufficient for motivation by consisting in, entailing (without consisting in), or by causing a motivational state.[3] Third, a person’s moral judgment suffices for her to be motivated to some extent to f; fing need not be what she is most motivated to do. Fourth, it is noticeable that a mental state can be understood as a dispositional state which might be activated in the form of corresponding occurrent state or as such an occurrent state.[4] This means that internalism entails that it is conceptually necessary that if a person judges that it is right that she fs—where the moral judgment can be understood as a dispositional state or an occurrent state—she is motivated to f in the sense of being disposed to f; it does not entail that she has an occurrent motivation to f. Corresponding claims hold for what I call ‘normative internalism’ below. Lastly, internalist claims vary in strength depending on whether they apply to all persons or merely persons who fulfil a certain condition.
Externalism entails the denial of internalism. On this view, there is no necessary connection of this kind between a person’s moral judgment and her motivation to act.
Consider:
Strong internalism: It is conceptually necessary that, for any action f and person S, if S judges that it is morally right that she fs, then she is motivated to f.[5]
One of the main arguments for internalism is that it is able to explain our linguistic intuitions as regards the connection between moral language and motivation. In fact, virtually all authors who are attracted by internalism appeal explicitly or implicitly to this consideration and it might be regarded as the prime basis for internalism. Importantly, this fundamental argument for internalism is employed by strong as well as weak internalists, in spite of the fact that their claims differ considerably in strength, thereby suggesting that it provides support to internalism in general. In the typical argument, we are asked to imagine a person who utters a sentence to the effect that it is right to f but who has no motivation whatsoever to f.[6] Thus, try to imagine a person who says ‘Actually, it’s right to give some money to those who need it more than I do’, but who is not motivated at all to actually give any money to the needy. We doubtless respond to such thought experiments by finding them puzzling. After all, in case a person utters such a sentence, we strongly presume that she is motivated in accordance with it, and in case she is not, we want an explanation as to why she makes the utterance. Strong internalism has a ready explanation of our response. On this view, a sentence saying that it is right to f expresses, in virtue of its meaning, a motivating moral judgment. Moreover, this holds for all persons. The explanation of why we find the mentioned cases puzzling is thus that we know, in so far as we are competent language users and know the meaning of the sentence, that any person who holds such a judgment is motivated to act in accordance with it.
3. Rationalist Internalism
Most internalists have come however to the conclusion that strong internalism is mistaken because there might be cases where a person thinks that it is right that she fs, but is not motivated to f, because she suffers from some mental condition, such as apathy, depression, emotional disturbance, addiction, or compulsion.[7] This has made them suggest a weaker type of internalism:
Weak internalism: It is conceptually necessary that, for any action f and person S who satisfies condition C, if S judges that it is morally right that she fs, then she is motivated to f.
Weak internalism constitutes a type of internalism where condition C can be specified in different ways. The resulting claims have in common the idea that what explains that a person is not motivated f is that she does not satisfy C.[8]
In order for weak internalism to be a proper version of internalism C has to be understood in a way which does not trivialize the internalist claim. Weak internalism should be understood to maintain that the content of a person’s moral judgment is such that it provides a genuine explanation as to why a person who satisfies C is motivated in accordance it. I take this restriction to mean that C cannot be understood in such a way that it becomes trivially true that a person who satisfies C is motivated in accordance with her moral judgment. Thus, C cannot be understood to simply state that a person who satisfies it is motivated in accordance with her moral judgments. Similarly, it cannot be understood as a mere ad hoc condition, such as a negation of a disjunction of mental conditions which is thought to result in the fact that a person is not accordingly motivated.
It has been shown extremely difficult for internalists to spell out C in a way which is compatible with this restriction. According to one suggestion, C is understood as ‘normal conditions’. According to another, C consists in the absence of certain general motivational disorders.[9] It is difficult to see that these understandings of C can be elucidated in a way which is not susceptible to the indicated difficulty.
The version of weak internalism which seems most likely to avoid this difficulty is one which specifies C in terms of rationality:
Rationalist internalism: It is conceptually necessary that, for any action f and rational person S, if S judges that it is morally right that she fs, then she is motivated to f.
On rationalist internalism, it has to be something about a moral judgment which explains that it is only if a person is rational that she needs to be motivated in accordance with it. The most plausible explanation is that moral judgments consist in judgments about what there are normative reasons to do. It seems evident that there is a connection between a person’s normative judgments, her rationality, and her motivation to act. In case a person’s motivation to act are not in accordance with her own views about what she has reason to do, this is grounds to think that she is irrational.
This is the intuitive line of thought which leads up to rationalist internalism, but we need to formulate it more exactly:[10]
(1) Rationalism: It is conceptually necessary that, for any action f and person S, if S judges that it is morally right that she fs, then she judges that she has a normative reason to f.
Rationalism captures the notion that moral judgments consist in normative judgments.
(2) Normative internalism: It is conceptually necessary that, for any action f and rational person S, if S judges that she has a normative reason to f, then she is motivated to f.
Normative internalism captures the notion that a person is irrational unless she is motivated in accordance with her normative judgments. In order to function as a premise in this line of thought, it should be understood as a conceptual claim and motivation should be internal to the normative judgment.[11]
We may now infer:
(3) Rationalist internalism: It is conceptually necessary that, for any action f and rational person S, if S judges that it is morally right that she fs, then she is motivated to f.
What I said above implies that rationality has to be understood in such a way that it does not trivialize rationalist internalism and it might be argued that it is difficult to find a characterization of rationality which satisfies this constraint.[12] However, having identified condition C in terms of rationality is a significant improvement and I will not be concerned with this problem in what follows.
We saw earlier that strong internalism seems able to explain our linguistic intuitions as regards moral language and motivation, but that it is too strong since it cannot account for cases where there connection between moral judgments and motivation is defeated. Now, it might be suspected that weak internalism faces the reverse problem. Weak internalism seems able to explain the latter fact. However, it might be suspected that in case a person utters that an action is right, but is not accordingly motivated, we would find this puzzling even if we do not have any view as to whether she satisfies C and even if we know that she does not satisfy C. As a consequence, weak internalism would be too weak to explain our conception of the connection between moral language and motivation. In the two subsequent sections I argue that the most promising version of weak internalism—rationalist internalism—is vulnerable to this difficulty. Rationalism in (1) has been questioned by a number of metaethicists, but I will argue by focusing on normative internalism in (2).[13]
4. The Problem Child: Normative Internalism
In metaethical discussions about the connection between normative judgments, rationality, and motivation, a person’s various normative judgments are often considered in isolation from each other. Normative internalism as formulated in (2) might then seem plausible. However, when we consider a person’s various normative judgments we can see that this view is much less appealing.
One type of cases which provide difficulties for (2) are the following. Assume that a person thinks that what she has absolutely strongest reason to do in a certain situation is to perform an action f, but that she also thinks that she has an extremely much weaker reason to perform another action ψ. Assume further that she thinks that f and ψ are practically incompatible in the sense that she cannot do both. In such a case it seems reasonable to maintain that she has to be motivated to f in so far as she is rational.[14] Accordingly, the following claim seems plausible:
It is conceptually necessary that, for any action f and rational person S, if S judges that she has strongest normative reason to f, then she is motivated to f.
However, normative internalism in (2) is a much stronger claim. It entails that it conceptually necessary that for each of the countless actions she thinks she has a reason to perform, she is motivated to do that particular action however weak she thinks that reason is. According to (2), it is conceptually necessary that the person above is motivated to ψ as well in so far as she is rational. It follows that she has to be motivated to ψ in order to be entirely rational and that she is irrational to the extent she is not motivated to ψ. However, it appears that she might be completely rational even if she is not motivated to ψ.[15]