Recent Work on Motivational Internalism

Extract

1. Background

It is generally agreed that there is an intimate connection between moral judgements and motivation. For instance, if an agent judges that it would be morally wrong to eat meat, we expect her to shun meat-eating. Indeed, we are likely to doubt the sincerity of someone who verbally affirms such a judgement yet displays no corresponding motivation. Similarly, when we are engaged in deliberation, the conclusion that some act would be morally wrong is typically taken to exclude that act from further consideration, whereas the conclusion that it is what morally ought to be done typically ensues in a decision to do it.

These practical aspects of moral thought and talk, many metaethicists think, strongly suggest that moral motivation is somehow internal to or necessitated by the presence of moral judgements. A simple version of this view – motivational internalism or just ‘internalism’ – can be formulated thus:

Simple internalism: necessarily, if a person judges that she morally ought to ϕ, then she is (at least somewhat) motivated to ϕ.¹

Similar internalist claims concern judgements about what is morally good, morally wrong, etc.²