-
Stanford Encyclopedia ofPhilosophy
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. ExternalFirst published Thu Sep
4, 2008; substantive revision Wed Nov 28, 2012
Often, when there is a reason for you to do something, it is the
kind of thing to motivate you to doit. For example, if Max and
Caroline are deciding whether to go to the Alcove for dinner,
Carolinemight mention as a reason in favor, the fact that the
Alcove serves onion rings the size ofdoughnuts, and Max might
mention as a reason against, the fact that it is so difficult to
get parkingthere this time of day. It is some signperhaps not a
perfect sign, but some signthat each ofthese really is a reason,
that Max and Caroline feel the tug in each direction. Mention of
theAlcove's onion rings makes them feel to at least some degree
inclined to go, and mention of theparking arrangements makes them
feel to at least some degree inclined not to. According to
somephilosophers, reasons for action always bear some relation like
this to motivation. This idea isvariously known as reasons
internalism, internalism about reasons, or the internal
reasonstheory. According to other philosophers, not all reasons are
related to motivation in any of theways internalists say. This idea
is known as reasons externalism or externalism about reasons.
1. Preliminaries1.1 Varieties of Internalism
1.1.1 Varying M1.1.2 Varying R
1.2 The Philosophical Significance of Reasons Internalism1.2.1
The Humean Theory of Reasons1.2.2 The Central Problem1.2.3
Generalizing
1.3 Explanatory Direction2. Indirect, Theoretical Arguments
2.1 Motivational Arguments2.1.1 The Classical Argument2.1.2 An
Argument from Explanation2.1.3 Other Motivational Arguments
2.2 The Analogy to Theoretical Reason2.3 Arguments from Reactive
Attitudes2.4 The Conditional Fallacy
3. Direct, Extensional Arguments3.1 For Externalism
3.1.1 Undergeneration Arguments3.1.2 Defenses Against
Undergeneration Arguments3.1.3 Overgeneration Arguments
3.2 For Internalism3.2.1 The Significance of Apparent Internal
Reasons3.2.2 Three Objections
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
1 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
3.3 Relative Explanatory Power4. The Debate
TodayBibliographyAcademic ToolsOther Internet ResourcesRelated
Entries
1. Preliminaries1.1 Varieties of InternalismIt is important to
clarify that reasons internalism is a thesis about normative (or
justifying) reasons,not about motivating (or explanatory) reasons.
A normative reason is a consideration that counts infavor of or
against doing something, whereas a motivating reason is an answer
to the question,why did she do it?. Clearly, motivating reasons are
connected to motivation; reasons internalismmaintains the more
interesting claim that normative reasons are also closely connected
tomotivation. For the remainder of this article, by reason we will
always mean normative reason.
Reasons internalism as we've so far presented it is not yet a
thesis. To get a thesis from this vagueidea we must fill in a
detailed answer to the question: what sort of relation must reasons
bear tomotivation, and in what sense of motivation? So the idea
sketched thus far is really a family oftheses, each corresponding
to a different way of filling in the following schema:
Schematic Internalism: Every reason for action must bear
relation R to motivationalfact M.
Different ways of spelling out relation R and motivational fact
M correspond to different ways oftrying to cash out the intuitive
thought about Max and Caroline's reasons. Each way of filling in
acandidate for R and a candidate for M results in a different
thesisa version of reasons internalism(henceforth for this article,
a version of internalism). Importantly, since not all versions
ofinternalism say the same thing, there is no single question about
whether internalism is correct.Rather, there is a family of
questions which raise very similar philosophical issues.
Unfortunately, the labels internalism and even reasons
internalism are often used for differentkinds of views than the
ones that are our topic here. For example, reasons internalism
issometimes used as a name for the view that if something is
morally wrong then there must be areason not to do it. This view
will be important to our discussion; to avoid confusion we
willfollow the rival convention of calling it Moral
Rationalism.
In the terminology of Darwall (1983), reasons internalism is an
existence form of internalism,contrasting with judgment forms of
internalism. According to existence internalism, aconsideration is
a reason for an agent only if some motivational fact about that
agent obtains.According to judgment internalism, an agent is
genuinely judging that he has a reason only ifsome motivational
fact about that agent obtains; see the entry on moral motivation.
Judgmentforms of internalism play an important role in traditional
arguments for noncognitivist metaethicaltheories (see the entry on
moral cognitivism vs. noncognitivism) but are a quite different
issuefrom that discussed here.
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
2 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
A reasons externalist is someone who rejects reasons
internalism, maintaining that at least somereasons for action are
not connected to motivation in the way reasons internalism
claims.However, since there are many different internalist theses
about the way in which reasons andmotivation are related, there is
no clear and unambiguous question of whether reasons externalismis
correct. Philosophers generally describe their views as externalist
if they reject any thesis theyconsider to involve an interesting
and controversial dependence of reasons on facts aboutmotivation;
it is most likely not fruitful to try here to adjudicate which
theses these are.Externalists need not deny that reasons are
commonly connected to facts about motivation, butthey can attribute
these connections to desires or dispositions that some agents have
while otherslack.
1.1.1 Varying M
An important division among versions of reasons internalism is
between what we will here callMotivation views and State views.
According to Motivation views, the kind of motivational factthat
reasons require is a fact about what the agent is or can be
motivated (i.e. moved through hisown volition) to do. According to
State views, in contrast, the kind of motivational fact thatreasons
require is not actually a fact about motivation at all, but rather,
that the agent has a certainkind of motivational attitudea certain
kind of psychological state which plays a role inmotivation. These
states are often taken to be desires, but can include other
attitudes such asemotions, intentions, and aversions. Motivation
and State views are often run together, but weshall see that they
have importantly different implications. Motivation views do not,
bythemselves, require the presence of any particular kind of
psychological state which does themotivating, and State views do
not, by themselves, require that the motivating state which
ispresent actually does any motivating.
1.1.2 Varying R
Another very important distinction among versions of Internalism
is between Actual andCounterfactual versions. The former claim that
if someone has a reason to do A, then it follows bynecessity that
she actually is somewhat motivated to do A (on the Motivation
version), or actuallyhas a desire that would be served by doing A
(on the State version). Counterfactual versions makeweaker claims:
that if someone has a reason to do A, then it follows by necessity
that she would bemotivated to some degree, or would desire to do A,
in circumstances of a particular kind.
Different Counterfactual theories disagree over the nature of
this particular kind ofcircumstances: prominent proposals include
(i) that the agent be in possession of full information,or at least
not have any relevant false beliefs (Smith 1994; Joyce 2001); (ii)
that she havecompleted cognitive psychotherapy or that her
attitudes have reached a state of reflectiveequilibrium (Brandt
1979); (iii) that she have a vivid awareness of all relevant
contingencies(Darwall 1983); (iv) that she deliberates faultlessly
from her existing motivations (Williams 1979);(v) that she be
practically rational (Korsgaard 1986)a suggestion to which we shall
return; and(vi) that she be ideally virtuousa phronimos (McDowell
1995).
Some views which count by our classification as Counterfactual
forms of internalism are too weakto be interesting. For example,
consider the thesis that if someone has a reason to do A, then
itfollows by necessity that were she to be motivated to do
everything that she actually has a reasonto do, she would be
motivated to do A. This thesis is in some sense a variety of
internalismafterall, it posits a necessary connection between
reasons and a certain kind of counterfactual about
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
3 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
motivation. But given the way that the counterfactual is
specified, it is trivially true. Similaraccusations can be and have
been made about versions of this kind of thesis which invoke
virtue,and perhaps also about those invoking rationalitydepending
on how rationality is to beunderstood. It should be noted that some
philosophers (e.g. McDowell) who accept one or anotherof these weak
theses are commonly considered to be externalists by themselves or
others,because of their rejection of any stronger, more
interesting, internalist thesis.
Because it is uncontroversial that an agent can have reasons to
do things that she is not actuallymotivated to do (particularly if
she is unaware of those reasons), we will assume that
interestingMotivation versions of internalism take Counterfactual
forms. State versions of internalism, bycontrast, can be
interesting in both Counterfactual and Actual forms.
1.2 The Philosophical Significance of Reasons InternalismThe
different versions of reasons internalism are philosophically
interesting for a variety ofreasons. But it is impossible to
understand why these different theses have received so
muchattention as a group without appreciating one problem in
particular that is encountered by somekinds of reasons internalism.
We call this the Central Problem. We'll first introduce this
problem inits most familiar form for one famous version of reasons
internalism; we then generalize.
1.2.1 The Humean Theory of Reasons
One of the historically most important versions of reasons
internalism is an Actual State viewaccording to which the actual
states connected to reasons are desires. Due to its rough affinity
toDavid Hume's view of the dependence of morality on the passions,
this view is often called theHumean Theory of Reasons, despite
controversy over whether Hume himself held any suchview.
The Humean Theory of Reasons (HTR): If there is a reason for
someone to dosomething, then she must have some desire that would
be served by her doing it.
Although both are often called reasons internalism, there are
significant differences betweenHTR and Counterfactual Motivation
versions of internalism. One can accept a CounterfactualMotivation
view without accepting HTR (e.g. Korsgaard 1986), and one can
accept HTR withoutaccepting any (nontrivial) Counterfactual
Motivation view (e.g. Schroeder 2007b). However, thesetwo
internalist theses are often linked. Consider the following popular
view about motivation,which, following Smith (1987), we call the
Humean Theory of Motivation (again despitecontroversy over whether
Hume himself held it):
The Humean Theory of Motivation (HTM): Desires are necessary and
beliefs arenot sufficient for motivation.
If (as Counterfactual Motivation versions of internalism claim)
an agent has no reason to do A ifthere is no possibility of her
being motivated to do A, and if (as HTM claims) there is
nopossibility of an agent's being motivated to do A if she has no
desire that could motivate her to doA, then it seems to follow that
an agent has no reason to do A if she has no desire that
couldmotivate her to do A. This is the classical argument for HTR,
which we will evaluate in section2.1.1.
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
4 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
1.2.2 The Central Problem
The Humean Theory of Reasons, along with other Actual State
versions of internalism, isphilosophically important because of a
Central Problem motivating much ethical theorizing sincethe 1940s,
which derives from a tension between HTR, Moral Rationalism (see
section 1.1), andMoral Absolutism:
Moral Absolutism: Some actions are morally wrong for any agent
no matter whatmotivations and desires they have.
For example, presumably it was morally wrong for Hitler to order
a program of genocide, even ifit served some of his desires and
wasn't detrimental to any of them. (The characteristic of
moralitythat Moral Absolutism expresses is sometimes described,
following Immanuel Kant, as itsconsisting of categorical rather
than hypothetical imperatives; see the entry on Kant's
moralphilosophy.) If (as Moral Rationalism claims) an action (like
ordering genocide) is morally wrongfor an agent (like Hitler) only
if there is a reason for him not to do it, and if (as HTR claims)
thereis a reason for him not to do it only if he has some desire
that would be served by his not doing it,then it follows that
whether an action is morally wrong for an agent depends upon what
he desires.But that seems incompatible with Moral Absolutism. So it
seems we must reject at least one ofHTR, Moral Rationalism, and
Moral Absolutism.
In response to this dilemma one could reject Moral
Absolutismeither by embracing a form ofmoral relativism, according
to which all moral duties vary according to agents'
contingentcharacteristics (e.g. Harman 1975), or by embracing a
moral error theory, accepting that moralclaims are systematically
false because they presuppose the existence of external reasons
while inactuality there are none (e.g. Mackie 1977; Joyce 2001). On
this view, we might think that it wasmorally wrong for Hitler to
order genocide, and hence that he had reasons not to do so, but
wewould be mistaken. Alternatively, one could reject Moral
Rationalism and deny that the moralwrongness of an act entails that
there is a reason not to do it (e.g. Foot 1972). On this view, it
ispossible that Hitler's deeds were morally wrong yet he had no
reason not to perform them. Manyphilosophers, however, prefer to
preserve these commonsense theses about moralityand ourability to
say that Hitler had reasons not to act as he didby rejecting HTR,
along with otherActual State versions of internalism. The tension
among these views is a big part of whatmotivates philosophical
interest in whether all reasons are related to motivation in the
way thatsome internalist thesis claims.
1.2.3 Generalizing
Philosophers concerned with the Central Problem have mainly
directed their criticisms at theHumean Theory of Reasons, but in
fact any Actual State version of reasons internalism will leadto a
structurally similar problem. Any Actual State version of reasons
internalism says that to havea reason, an agent must have some
corresponding actual motivational state. But this is preciselywhat
makes reasons hostage to an agent's actual psychology, creating the
tension with MoralRationalism and Moral Absolutism.
Does the Central Problem similarly arise for Counterfactual
versions of reason internalism? Theanswer is: it depends upon the
nature of the counterfactual condition a particular version
ofinternalism requires. There is no such tension if this is a
condition under which any agent wouldbe motivated, no matter what
motivations and desires she actually has. For example,
Christine
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
5 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
Korsgaard (1986) advocates a Counterfactual Motivation
internalism, and Michael Smith (1994)advocates a Counterfactual
State internalism, on which it is necessarily the case that any
agentwhatsoever would act in the same way as every other, if they
satisfied those counterfactualconditions. Smith grounds his claim
in optimism that no matter what desires they started with, ifevery
agent was to resolve conflicts between their own desires under the
condition of fullinformation, they would converge on the same set
of desires. Consequently, what an agent woulddesire under those
conditions does not depend on what he is actually like. So what is
wrong for anagent can depend on what he has a reason to do (as
Moral Rationalism claims), without dependingon what he is like
(which would put it in tension with what Moral Absolutism claims).
Smith callshis view an Anti-Humean theory of reasons in order to
contrast it with Counterfactual Statetheories which do give rise to
the problem that confronts HTR.
On the other hand, many Counterfactual versions of reasons
internalism do hold that whether theircounterfactuals are true of
some agent must be grounded in some actual feature of that
agent.These views encounter the Central Problem, because they hold
that what an agent has reason to dodepends on whether some
counterfactual is true of her, and that whether that counterfactual
is trueof her depends on what she is actually like. So, for
example, Richard Joyce (2001) accepts Smith'sAnti-Humean theory of
reasons, but rejects Smith's claim that under conditions of full
informationand the resolution of conflicting desires all agents
would converge on the same desires, on thegrounds that the desires
an agent would have at the end of this process depend upon the
desires hestarted with. (Notice that all Counterfactual versions of
internalism of this kind can bere-formulated as Actual State
versions of internalismwhere the actual state is being such
thatcertain counterfactuals are true of you.)
1.3 Explanatory DirectionA final preliminary distinction between
internalist views concerns their direction of explanation.As
characterized thus far, the various internalist theses merely posit
a necessary connectionbetween the existence of reasons, on the one
hand, and facts about motivation or motivationalstates, on the
other, and do not distinguish between competing ways of explaining
this necessaryconnection. Do we have reasons because we have
(counterfactual or actual) motivation or desire,or do we have
motivation or desire because we have reasons? (Or is there some
third possibility?)The Humean Theory of Reasons is standardly
understood to claim not only that we have reasonsonly if we have
certain desires, but further that we have those reasons because we
have thosedesires. We interpret it accordingly in the rest of this
article.
HTR (revised): If there is a reason for someone to do something,
then she must havesome desire that would be served by her doing it,
which is the source of her reason.
It is natural to understand any Actual State internalist view as
claiming this direction ofexplanation. Since there surely can be
normative reasons for an agent to act of which she isunaware, it is
implausible that a consideration could be a reason for her to act
only if she has anactual motivating state because of it.
Counterfactual Motivation views, however, can adopt either
direction of explanation, and a varietyof philosophers insist that
the existence of reasons explains the relevant facts about
motivationrather than vice versa. Consider the popular thesis that
if there is a reason for someone to dosomething, then necessarily
if she is fully rational she will be motivated to do it. The most
trivialaccount of this kind suggests that fully rational simply
means motivated by all one's reasons. Ifthis is the truth in
internalism, however, it places no constraints whatsoever on what
can and
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
6 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
cannot be an agent's practical reason; for this reason it is
often called an externalist thesis. But theexplanatory priority of
reasons over motivation can also yield a nontrivial version of
internalism.Consider again the thesis appealing to a condition of
full rationality. If by rationality we mean asubstantive
psychological capacity involving particular desires or dispositions
that enable us torespond to reasons, then we have a form of
internalism that places substantive constraints on whatcan and
cannot be a reason. For example, Christine Korsgaard (1986)
advocates such a nontrivialversion of internalism, taking the
counterfactual about motivation under the condition ofrationality
to be explained by a substantive (non-trivial) account of practical
rationality. Accordingto Korsgaard, an agent is only rational if
she is consistently motivated in accordance with somegeneral
principles that provide her conception of her practical identity.
Given this account ofrationality, the internalist thesis above
tells us that only those considerations that would motivatesuch a
principle-governed agent can be reasons for her to act.
2. Indirect, Theoretical ArgumentsIn evaluating whether any
particular variety of internalism about reasons is true
philosophers havebrought many different kinds of resources to bear.
In sections 2.12.3 we look at indirect,theoretical arguments which
bear one way or another. Then in part 3 we consider more
directarguments, based on intuitive judgments about what reasons
there are.
2.1 Motivational ArgumentsA central consideration adduced in
support of internalist theses is the conceptual link betweenreasons
and explanation. In an influential early discussion of reasons for
action, Donald Davidson(1963) observed that a common form of
explanation of why an agent acted as she did involvesciting the
reasons she had to act that way. He argued that because actions are
always to beexplained in terms of psychological states, we can
identify reasons for actions with the desire-belief pairs that
cause them. Since Davidson's concern was with what explains actual
action,rather than with what justifies prospective action, his
discussion might seem to concern motivatingreasons rather than
normative reasons. But Davidson took his reasons to rationalize or
justify aswell as to explain action, and many philosophers
subsequently concluded that the two kinds ofreasons had to be
closely, conceptually, connected.
A common and plausible view is that to be an agent's motivating
reason for acting, a considerationhas to be something which that
agent takes to be a normative reason for acting (Dancy 2000;
seeSetiya 2007 for objections). At the very least, it seems that it
must be possible for an agent to bemotivated by her normative
reasons (Nagel 1970). This possibility is in tension with
thecommonly drawn distinction between motivating reasons as
psychological states and normativereasons as facts or propositions
(Smith 1994), which places these types of reasons in
differentontological categories.
This view, which understands motivating or explanatory reasons
in terms of normative reasons,offers no obvious support to any
version of internalism. It holds that if an agent has a
motivatingreason for acting, then she is motivated by something she
takes to be a normative reason. But itdoes not follow from this
(and is often denied by proponents of this view) that she has or
thinksshe has a normative reason only if she is relevantly
motivated, as internalism requires. Views thatrather understand
normative reasons in terms of explanatory reasons, however, yield a
distinctkind of argument for some form of internalism. Bernard
Williams advances just this kind ofargument in his classic but
commonly misunderstood article Internal and External Reasons.
We
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
7 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
first (section 2.1.1) sketch the Classical Argument, attributed
to Williams on the standard readingof his article, and then
(section 2.1.2) sketch an alternative argument that Williams may
haveintended instead.
2.1.1 The Classical Argument
Williams claims that normative reasons have an explanatory
dimension. On a standard readingwhat he means by this is that a
consideration can be a normative reason for some agent only if it
ispossible (i.e. would under certain conditions be the case) that
the agent be motivated to act for thatreason, and for it thereby to
be explanatory of his acting. This first premise of the
classicalargument is, of course, just a statement of some version
of Counterfactual Motivation internalism.Here a Counterfactual
Motivation form of internalism is assumed as a conceptual truth in
order toargue for an Actual State internalism; any argument
proceeding from such a premise naturally hasno force for those
externalists who deny even the Counterfactual Motivation
internalist thesis. Thesecond premise of the argument is HTM, the
Humean Theory of Motivation. If the existence ofreasons entails the
possibility of motivation, and the possibility of motivation
entails the existenceof desire, then the existence of reasons
entails the existence of desireas the Humean Theory ofReasons
maintains.
This argument, however, has many widely observed weaknesses.
First, it depends on HTM, so itdismisses an idea that many
philosophers have accepted; namely, that beliefs (either in general
orof a specific kind, such as beliefs about reasons) can motivate
action by themselves andindependently of desire (e.g. Nagel 1970;
Darwall 1983; Dancy 2000).
A second problem arises about how to understand the relevant
sense of possibility of motivation,which links the two premises. To
say that motivation is possible is equivalent to saying that
undercertain conditions it would be actual. To understand the
relevant sense of possibility, we thereforeneed to identify the
relevant conditions under which, according to the argument, there
would bemotivation. The problem is that the two premises seem to
require for their plausibility differentconditions, and therefore
different senses of possibility. In the case of the first
premise,connecting the existence of reasons with the possibility of
motivation, the existence of reasonsplausibly entails the
possibility of motivation in only a very weak sense: perhaps
nothingstronger than that the agent would be motivated if he were
rational, or perhaps virtuous. In thecase of the second premise,
linking the possibility of motivation with the existence of desire,
amuch stronger sense of possibility is arguably needed: something
like there being someconditions under which the agent with his
actual psychological state would be motivated.
If we were to read the former, weaker sense of the possibility
of motivation into this secondpremise, we get the claim that a
rational, or perhaps virtuous, version of the agent would only
bemotivated to act in some way if the actual agent has some actual
desire that could produce thatmotivation. This premise would be
false if agents could be irrational or vicious precisely
becausethey lack certain desires, a common view we discussed in
section 1.3. Suppose we try instead tounderstand the first premise
in terms of the stronger sense of possibility suggested for the
secondpremise. This yields the claim that an agent can have a
reason to act in some way only if there aresome possible conditions
under which he would be motivated to act in that way due
topsychological attitudes that he actually has. Interpreted in this
way the first premise begs thequestion against Williams'
externalist opponent, because it seems already to be a statement of
anActual State version of internalism.
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
8 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
It seems that there is no interpretation of possibility of
motivation for which it is plausible thatboth premises are true and
avoid begging the question against externalism. The
ClassicalArgument therefore seems to have either implausibly strong
premises, a problematic inference, orboth.
2.1.2 An Argument from Explanation
But Williams may not have intended to offer this argument. On a
rival and unorthodoxinterpretation (Finlay 2009), Williams' claim
that practical reasons have an explanatorydimension is to be
understood not simply as placing a constraint on what can be a
reason, but asproviding the essential meaning of our thoughts and
claims about practical reasons. On thisanalysis the concept of a
reason for action just is the concept of an explanation of
action,following Davidson. To think that the fact that the Alcove
serves onion rings the size of doughnutsis a reason for Caroline to
go there, is to think that the fact that the Alcove serves such
onion ringsis an explanation of Caroline's going there.
As Williams observes, any view of this Davidsonian kind has to
overcome an obvious problem.We can have reasons which do not
motivate us to act (e.g. if we are unaware of them), and we canact
in ways for which we lack any actual practical reasons (e.g. if we
are mistaken about what ourreasons are). Identifying an agent's
practical reasons, it seems, neither entails nor is entailed
bygiving an explanation of her actions. On this reading, Williams
suggests that this problem arisessimply due to agents' error and
ignorance, and he offers a way to fix the Davidsonian approach.
Tothink that a fact is a reason for an agent to act is not to think
it is an explanation of an action thatshe actually performs, but
rather it is to think it an explanation of an action that she would
haveperformed (or would have been somewhat motivated towards
performing) if not for her error orignorance. The concept of a
practical reason must be the concept of an explanation
ofcounterfactual (motivation towards) action: action under the
condition of full and valid reasoningand exercise of imagination
from a belief-set purged of error and ignorance (sound
deliberation).He claims that the idealization contained in this
counterfactual condition is enough to make thesereasons normative
and not merely explanatory.
From this understanding of the concept of a practical reason,
Williams (on this interpretation)believes he can prove that all
external reasons statements are false by considering the
specialcase of first personal reasons beliefs: an agent's beliefs
about what considerations are reasons forhimself. This argument
requires a further assumption: that R is a reason for an agent to
do A onlyif he could, through sound deliberation, come to recognize
it as a reason for his doing A. Thisassumption seems reasonable
given the conceptual premise, that the notion of a reason for
actionis just some notion of an explanation of action. A reason for
an agent would then plausibly be anexplanation for that agent, and
it is plausible that what can be an explanation for an agent
isrestricted to what the agent is able to come to recognize as an
explanation.
Williams is concerned with what the agent comes to believe when
he comes to believe that someconsideration R is a reason for him to
do A. Granted the conceptual premise, an internal reasonsstatement
is a claim that some consideration is an explanation of why by
virtue of the contents ofthe agent's actual motivational set he
would be motivated to do A under the conditions of
sounddeliberation, while an external reasons statement is a claim
that some consideration is anexplanation of why independently of
the contents of the agent's actual motivational set he wouldbe
motivated to do A under those conditions.
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
9 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
While Williams is commonly interpreted as challenging the
possibility of an agent beingmotivated to do A by the belief that
he has an external reason R to do A, on this reading heexplicitly
accepts that such motivation is possible; a disposition to be
motivated by the belief thatyou have an external reason could be an
element of your motivational set, making the fact that youhave an
external reason itself an internal reason for you to act. (It is an
advantage of thisinterpretation that this is what Williams actually
says.)
Unfortunately, the fact that an agent's belief that R is an
external reason to do A can motivate her todo A does not suffice to
show that R is a reason to do A. It only shows that the fact that R
is areason to do A is a reason to do A. That is because it does not
show that R can explain the agent'smotivation to herself; it only
shows that the fact that R is a reason for her to do A can explain
hermotivation to herself. So what Williams wants to know is, how
could it be true that R is a reasonto do A? If it were true,
realizing that it was could motivatebut what could make it
true?
According to this reading, the problem Williams sees for
external reasons is the following. Forthere genuinely to be
external reasons, he observes, it must be possible that some such
externalreasons beliefs are true. This requires that the
consideration R which an agent accepts as his reasonmust actually
be a genuine explanation of his acting under the condition of sound
deliberation,independently of any facts about his motivational set.
But this condition cannot be met, becausenothing could be
explanatory of an agent's action independently of the contents of
his motivationalset: his desires and dispositions. From this it
follows (given the conceptual premise) that nomotivationally
external considerations could genuinely be practical reasons for an
agent.
Hence, while many writers have come to the defense of external
reasons by appealing to adisposition to be motivated by beliefs
about reasons, if this interpretation is correct then
Williams'argument is directly aimed against this kind of solution.
A disposition of this kind could explainwhy a consideration R could
motivate an agent once he believed that it was a reason to act, but
itcould not make it the case that R itself was a genuine
explanation of his acting, and therefore areason for him to act. To
use Williams' own example, if Owen Wingrave comes to believe that
thefact that military service is a family tradition is a reason for
him to enlist, that belief may indeedmotivate him to enlist, and
explain his doing so. But if he has no desires or dispositions that
wouldcause the belief that military service is a family tradition
itself to motivate him to enlist, then thefact that military
service is a family tradition cannot itself be a genuine
explanation of hisenlisting, and therefore his belief that it is a
reason for him to enlist is false.
Although Williams' article is commonly seen as the classic
defense of HTR, on this reading it onlyrestricts agents' reasons to
their dispositions to be motivated, and not more narrowly to their
actualdesires. This is because dispositions are sufficient, and
actual desires not necessary, in order toexplain why somebody would
be motivated under counterfactual conditions. This argument
istherefore stronger than the Classical Argument because of its
independence from HTM, whichcontroversially claims that motivation
requires desire. But the view supported by this argument isnot a
weak, Counterfactual Motivation version of internalism; rather it
is a more general kind ofActual State view, claiming a connection
between reasons and all psychological states relevant tothe
explanation of action. Indeed, Williams' skepticism about external
reasons would then bedirected not against those who reject
Counterfactual Motivation accountshe just assumes thathis opponent
agrees with him that reasons must be able to motivatebut against
manyphilosophers who have championed some Counterfactual Motivation
version of internalism, likeNagel (1970) and Darwall (1983). These
philosophers argue that the order of explanation runs inthe other
direction: that the possibility of being motivated to do A can be
explained by theexistence of a reason to do A, while Williams' view
is that the existence of a reason to do A must
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
10 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
be explained by the possibility of being motivated to do A.
The weakest point in this version of Williams' argument is
probably its fundamental, conceptualpremise: that the concept of a
practical reason is the concept of an explanation of action
undercertain conditions. Even if we grant the controversial claim
that the concept of a practical reason isthe concept of an
explanation we can still resist this analysis. Suppose, for
example, that theconcept of a reason to do A is the concept of an
explanation of why to do A, or of why doing A is agood thing to do.
To say that R was the reason for which the agent did A would then
be to say thatR was the explanation of why to do A which motivated
the agent to do A. This rival accountrespects the conceptual
relation between reason and explanation on which Williams
andDavidson insist, but doesn't analyze practical reasons as any
kind of explanation of action. If thisis what our concept of
practical reasons is, then a different argument will be needed if
we are torule out the possibility of external reasons.
2.1.3 Other Motivational Arguments
A different kind of argument specifically for the Humean Theory
of Reasons tries to reason fromsome kind of Counterfactual
Motivation internalism by raising questions about the concepts
ofaction and motivation in play (Finlay 2007). Necessarily, a
rational agent is motivated byrecognition of her reasons. But this
motivated behavior is not merely caused by her reasons; it is
avoluntary response to them. A rational agent responds voluntarily
to her reasons.
A connection is then forged between voluntary behavior and
desire. Arguably, a behavior is onlyvoluntary if it is caused by
being aimed at. On one theory of desire, aiming at p entails
desiringsomething (either p itself, or something to which p is
taken to be a means). It follows that arational agent's recognition
of a reason entails the presence of a relevant desire. This does
not yetrule out externalism, which is compatible with this result
if any of a number of different claims aretrue. The internalist can
try to close off these escapes, however. (i) One possible
externalistsolution is that being rational involves having certain
desires; the internalist can argue in responsethat rationality is
rather a procedural virtue which doesn't necessarily involve having
any particulardesires. (ii) Another solution is to suggest that a
rational agent's ability to recognize reasons islimited by her
desires; the internalist can plausibly respond that being (ideally)
rational is, bydefinition, to be able to recognize all one's
reasons. (iii) Perhaps most promisingly, an externalistcan suggest
that a rational agent can respond voluntarily to her reasons by
virtue of their causingher to have a new desire (Darwall 1983). The
internalist may counter by arguing that because wecannot desire at
will, the causation of such a desire would be a nonvoluntary
response to therecognition of a reason, and therefore any behavior
motivated by that desireeven if voluntarywould not qualify as a
voluntary response to the reason.
This line of argument has not yet received much attention;
opponents may reasonably questionwhether motivation by reasons must
always be voluntary (this seems implausible in the case
oftheoretical reasons, or reasons for belief, for examplesee
section 2.2 below for this analogy),and also whether voluntary
behavior must be caused by desire. For yet a different
promisingargument for internalism on the basis of the connection
between reasons and motivationalcapacities, see section 4 of
(Markovitz 2011).
2.2 The Analogy to Theoretical ReasonExternalists often appeal
to the parallels between practical reasons (reasons for action)
and
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
11 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
epistemic or theoretical reasons (or reasons for belief) to make
their case against certain forms ofinternalism, particularly the
Humean Theory of Reasons (Millgram 1996). They seem to bedifferent
species of the same genus: while practical reasons are facts that
support or justify certainactions, theoretical reasons are facts
that support or justify certain beliefs. Both sorts of reasons
aresubsumable under the class of normative reasons, or facts that
support certain behaviors.
But externalists object that it is implausible that reasons for
belief entail or depend upon factsabout desire or motivation.
Rational belief is responsive only to evidence, and beliefs formed
onthe basis of desires (like a husband's wishful beliefin the face
of all the evidencethat his wifeis not cheating on him) are
irrational. So not all normative reasons are internal
reasons.Internalism about practical reasons might therefore seem
arbitrary and unmotivated. Once we'veallowed external reasons that
count in favor of believing certain things, why not allow
externalreasons that count in favor of doing certain things? Elijah
Millgram (1996) suggests that just asnew experiences can reveal to
us hitherto unknown reasons for belief, so too new
experiences(involving unexpected pleasures) can reveal to us
reasons for action independent of our antecedentdesires and
dispositions.
Internalists have two options here. They can deny that genuine
reasons for belief can be external,extending their internalism to
theoretical reasons, or they can seek to motivate
differentialtreatment of the practical and the theoretical cases.
To pursue the former course, internalists mightargue that we
ascribe reasons for belief on the assumption of a desire for
knowledge or truth (seeKelly 2003 for discussion). They can further
argue that a person is simply not in the business offorming beliefs
if he does not have something resembling a desire for truth
(Velleman 2000).Alternatively, internalists might argue that we
ascribe reasons for belief on the assumption thatwhatever the
contents of a person's desire-set, it will include some item that
would be served bybelieving that for which there is evidence.
The second strategy would involve identifying a relevant
difference between practical andtheoretical reasons to explain why
internalism is true of reasons for action, but not of reasons
forbelief. For example, Markovits (2011) argues that the practical
case is different because there is noanalogue to the plausible case
of foundational beliefs in the epistemic case. A different
strategymight focus on differences in the nature or aims of action
and belief. Suppose for example thatwhile believing by its nature
aims at tracking the truth, acting by its nature aims at satisfying
somedesire of the agent. We could then reasonably maintain that
practical but not theoretical reasonscan only be internal.
2.3 Arguments from Reactive AttitudesAn important part of the
debate about internal and external reasons has centered on
reactiveattitudes, or attitudes that we have towards agents in
response to their behavior, of which blame isthe paradigm. Some
have observed in defense of Moral Rationalism, for example, that if
an agentdoes something we consider morally wrong, then we blame (or
resent) him. But blame, thesephilosophers claim, involves the
judgment that the agent had reasons not to do what he
did.Consequently blame is unwarranted when such judgments are
unwarranted (Nagel 1970, Smith1994). Therefore, since moral
wrongdoing is sufficient to warrant blame, moral obligations
mustentail reasons. Furthermore, Moral Absolutism tells us that the
moral wrongness of certain actionsis independent of agents' desires
and dispositions. Since wrongness entails the appropriateness
ofblame, which in turn entails existence of reasons, we can
conclude that there must be reasons thatare independent of agents'
desires and dispositions: i.e. external reasons.
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
12 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
A difficulty for this argument comes from the fact that outside
of morality we do not, in general,blame or resent people for
failing to comply with their practical reasons. If an agent
doessomething foolish or imprudent, for example, we might react
with pity or scorn, but not withanything as strong as blame. It
seems that the appropriateness of blame requires some
conditionother than noncompliance with reasons. This does not show
that noncompliance with reasons isnot one of the necessary
conditions for blame, of course, but it opens the possibility that
once weidentify the further necessary conditions we might find that
they are also, by themselves, sufficientconditions for appropriate
blame. The internalist might suggest, for example, that the
missingcondition is partly that the judge have desires or concerns
that are harmed by the resentedbehavior. Proponents of the argument
from blame may respond that it is inappropriate to blameharmful
non-agents (like trees and tigers) and agents whose harms are
unintentional. However itmay be possible to excuse these from blame
without accepting that noncompliance with reasons isa necessary
condition for blameworthiness; for example, with the weaker
condition that ablameworthy act stems from having a character from
which certain concerns or motivations areabsent (Arpaly 2003).
Trees and tigers don't have a character in the relevant sense, and
harmsthat an agent causes unintentionally do not stem from his
character. If something like this is asufficient condition for
blameworthiness, then this argument from reactive attitudes
fails.
Bernard Williams does not resist the claim that the
appropriateness of blame entails reasons,however, and offers a way
of explaining the appropriateness of blame when an agent appears
tohave no relevant internal reasons to act otherwise than she did.
Blaming in these cases functions asa proleptic mechanism: it itself
changes the situation for the agent so that she now has an
internalreason that she otherwise would have lacked (1989). This is
a reason she has in virtue ofsomething like a disposition to have
the respect of other people. By blaming or being disposed toblame
an agent for unethical behavior, we give her a reason to act
ethically. Note that this accountunderstands the appropriateness of
blame as at least partly instrumental. Blaming is appropriate ifit
has some motivational grip on the agent. This view is resisted by
many who see the question ofthe appropriateness of a reactive
attitude as primarily an issue of desert. Arguably, blame
isappropriate only if it is deserved, and not if it is merely
effective in influencing people's behavior.
It is also possible to appeal to reactive attitudes in arguing
against external reasons. Williamsargues that externalism cannot
accommodate the obscurity and indeterminacy in the practice
ofblame: that is, the pattern predicted by his internalist account
that blame sometimes responds toreasons and at other times tries to
create them, and that its appropriateness turns on whether theagent
can be influenced psychologically in either of these ways.
Russ Shafer-Landau finds in Williams' article the suggestion of
a further argument, turning on thefairness constraint on
appropriate blame (2003: 1812). Blame is only appropriate if it is
fair, andit is only fair to blame someone for their behavior if
they had the capacity to act otherwise thanthey did. But an agent's
capacity to act is limited by her desires and dispositions, and
thereforeblame is only appropriate if an agent's desires and
dispositions gave her the capacity to actotherwise. This is a
challenge for externalism because of the suggested connection
between blameand reasons we discussed above: an agent is
blameworthy for her action only if in so acting shefailed to obey
her reasons.[1] It follows that an agent's reasons must be limited
by her desires anddispositions; some form of internalism is
true.
This argument can succeed only if supported by a plausible
version of the ought implies canprinciple. But in basing an agent's
capacity to act on her desires and dispositions, the version of
theprinciple that the argument seems to presuppose treats ought, or
the fairness of blame, as
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
13 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
depending on the psychological capacity to act rather than on
the mere physical capacity to act.Externalists would reject as
implausible the psychological version of the principle, and
therefore toassume it for purposes of an internalist argument would
be question-begging against theexternalist.
2.4 The Conditional Fallacy(Nontrivial) Counterfactual
Motivation versions of internalism are sometimes accused
ofcommitting a conditional fallacy. To commit this fallacy is to
claim that it is necessary for anagent's having a reason to do A
that he would be motivated under certain conditions to do A,
whenthere are some reasons that the agent can have only if
precisely those conditions do not obtain. Forexample, some versions
of internalism appeal to counterfactuals involving full
rationality, butsometimes agents have certain reasons precisely
because they are not fully rational. Smith (1994)offers the case,
due to Gary Watson, of a defeated squash player who, because he is
prone toirrational anger that could cause him to smash his
opponent's face with his racquet, has a reasonnot to cross the
court to shake the winner's hand. When the conditions specified by
the relevantinternalist thesis do obtain, the reason is then not
present to motivate the agent, falsifying thecounterfactual. For
example, were Watson's squash player to be fully rational, then it
would nolonger be true that if he crossed the court he might hit
his opponent, and therefore he wouldn't bemotivated accordingly not
to cross the court. The relevant internalist thesis then yields the
falseresult that the irrational squash player has no reason not to
cross the court.
In defense of his own internalist thesis, involving
counterfactual motivation under the condition ofsound deliberation
from full information, Williams (1995) raises an objection of this
kind againstMcDowell's rival claim involving the condition of full
virtue. He observes that being less thanfully virtuous gives agents
reasons to act that they otherwise wouldn't have had and that
thereforewould not motivate a fully virtuous agent. Others object
to Williams' own counterfactualsinvolving sound deliberation that
there are reasons that agents have precisely because they are
notcapable of deliberating soundly, which his version of
internalism therefore fails to accommodate.
It is plausible that objections of this kind will be effective
against any nontrivial CounterfactualMotivation version of
internalism. This problem has prompted some to switch from
aCounterfactual Motivation model to a Counterfactual State model,
and others to be more carefulabout specifying just what state they
have in mind. The idea is that an agent S has a reason to do Aonly
if, were she in certain counterfactual circumstances, she would
desire S in her actualcircumstances to do A (Smith 1994). Michael
Smith calls this the advice model (in contrast to theexample
model), and it plausibly avoids the problems connected with the
conditional fallacybecause it builds in sensitivity to the relevant
conditions in the actual cases that generate thereasons. For
example, if a fully rational version of Watson's squash player were
to contemplate thesituation of his actual, less than fully-rational
self, he would be aware of his actual self'sdisposition to
irrational anger, and would therefore want his actual self not to
cross the court toshake the winner's hand. The advice model may
therefore yield the correct result that the actualplayer has a
reason not cross the court. However, as Bedke (2010) emphasizes,
this leaves animportant puzzle about why each agent's
counterfactual, more fully rational self, would havedesires about
what her actual self does.
3. Direct, Extensional ArgumentsFortunately we do not ordinarily
need to turn to a metaethical theory to tell us what reasons we
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
14 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
have. People have a robust set of intuitions about what is and
what is not a reason for a givenagent to perform a given action.
All nontrivial versions of reasons internalism and externalismhave
substantive implications concerning the extension of agents'
reasons, and for the most parttheory here is answerable to common
sense and aims at accommodating it. Some of the mostsignificant and
compelling arguments for and against versions of internalism are
thereforeextensional, that is to say, based on what reasons agents
actually have. An internalist account'spredictions about what is
and what is not a reason for a particular agent can be tested
against ourprior judgments about what reasons there are.
3.1 For Externalism
3.1.1 Undergeneration Arguments
We have already encountered one of the most powerful sources of
extensional opposition tonontrivial versions of reasons internalism
in the form of the Central Problem. The Central Problemis that it
seems that some actions are wrong for everyone no matter what they
are like, and thattheir wrongness for someone requires that that
person have a reason not to do them. But manykinds of internalismin
particular Actual State viewssay that an agent has a reason only if
shesatisfies a certain condition, and hence that her reason depends
on what she is like. We can evenframe the Central Problem by
divorcing it from Moral Rationalism and Moral Absolutism, andsimply
insisting that for at least some actions (perhaps paradigmatic
wrong actions among them),there is a reason for anyone not to do
those actions, no matter what she is like. This leads to adirect
argument against many forms of internalism: that they undergenerate
reasons, by providingnegative verdicts in cases in which
intuitively there really are reasons.
Because this sort of argument has not always gotten a grip on
those skeptical about the objectiveauthority of morality, one
important development since the 1970s is the observation that a
similarsort of problem arises for prudential reasons (e.g. Nagel
1970). If I am going to travel to Israel insix months' time and
will regret not knowing any Hebrew once I get there, then I have a
reason tostudy Hebrew now, even if I don't now care about my future
regrets or about whether I will knowHebrew while I am in Israel.
Yet internalist theses place constraints on what I now have a
reason todo, on the basis of what my actual psychology is like now,
or on the basis of what counterfactualsare true of me now. So they
appear to have a problem in getting these intuitive judgments
aboutreasons right. This argument is thought to produce extra
dialectical leverage, because theseintuitions about prudential
reasons are thought to be harder to give up than
correspondingintuitions about moral reasons.
3.1.2 Defenses Against Undergeneration Arguments
Two lines of response are open to the internalist here. One,
proposed by Mark Schroeder (2007b)in defense of the Humean Theory
of Reasons, denies that internalism is genuinely incompatiblewith
the inescapability of some moral or prudential reasons. If there
are some actions that wouldserve any possible desire (or, on an
alternative internalist account, that any agent would bemotivated
towards under the relevant counterfactual conditions), then the
internalist canaccommodate reasons that any agent has no matter
what they are like: such reasons are massivelyoverdetermined. In
this way the internalist can seek to reconcile Moral Rationalism
with MoralAbsolutism (see section 1.2). The idea is that even if
internalism is true, it might still be the casethat we all have
reasons to avoid moral wrongdoing, no matter what we are
likebecause reasonsto avoid moral wrongdoing are generated from any
set of desires or dispositions. While this
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
15 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
solution is formally available, it remains to be seen whether it
can plausibly generate the robust setof moral and prudential
reasons posited by ordinary intuitions, and it appears reasonable
to bepessimistic on this count; plausibly there are actual or
possible sets of desires and dispositions thatwould not support any
reasons to avoid breaking promises made to those powerless to
retaliate, orto confess to one's crime for which somebody else has
already been convicted, for example.
Generally, however, internalists bite the bullet and reject the
data of these intuitions. They mightsimply challenge whether those
intuitions really exist or, more audaciously, maintain that they
areall false. It is not denied that speakers ascribe external
reasons to agents, and so internalists arecompelled to offer
diagnoses of this practice. The bluntest is to adopt an error
theory, and suggestthat these practices manifest a mistaken
understanding of the kinds of reasons that there are. Thisforces a
confrontation between internalism and ordinary practice; most
internalists dislike the oddsin this matchup and seek to explain
away the evidence.
A provocative diagnosis of external reasons claims is as a bluff
or a rhetorical device designed toinfluence the behavior and
attitudes of others (Williams 1979). On this view external
reasonsclaims are all false but stem from an attempt to apply
nonrational persuasion on others rather thanfrom error; recently
some philosophers have argued that we either do (Kalderon 2005) or
should(Joyce 2001) use moral claims as convenient fictions for this
purpose. In later work (1989),Williams proposes, more temperately,
that they may be optimistic internal reasons claims: likelyfalse
statements made in the hope that they may become true through the
intended audience'scontemplation of them.
A more conciliatory strategy is to claim ambiguity in the notion
of a reason. In one sense thereare external reasons; we might call
them institutional or pseudo-reasons (Mackie 1977; Joyce2001). But
the spirit of internalism is preserved in the claim that these are
not genuine practicalreasons, about which an internalist thesis is
correct. Recognizing the legitimacy of ascribing theseother kinds
of reasons may suggest softening the distinction between internal
and external reasonseven further; it has been proposed that what
counts as a genuine reason is determined by theconcerns
characterizing the context of discourse (Finlay 2006). So, for
example, we mayappropriately judge that the pain a certain action
would cause is a reason for a sadist not toperform the action,
because the salient concern in the context is our compassion for
others. Thisview would prompt us to abandon existence internalism
about practical reasons (reasons claimsare made relative to the
concerns salient in the conversation, and not necessarily to the
motivationsof the agent). On this view of reasons, however, an
agent can have reasons that count as genuine ina given context, but
that he can ignore without irrationality. Such a view can preserve
the spirit ofinternalism by claiming that the rational force of
these reasons for any agent depends upon hisdesires or
motivations.
These strategies aim to reconcile internalism, as much as
possible, with the apparently externalisttendencies in ordinary
practices of ascribing reasons. Externalists claim they are
unsuccessful;ordinary practice is committed to genuine (and
genuinely authoritative) external reasons, andrightly so. But
internalists remain optimistic. The issue is very much
unresolved.
3.1.3 Overgeneration Arguments
The literature is also full of extensional arguments against
theories which resemble internalism,but on the grounds that they
overgenerate, rather than undergenerate, reasons. Many famous
andcolorful examplesabout people who want to eat saucers of mud, or
count blades of grass, or who
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
16 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
have a disposition to turn on radiosare offered to show that not
every desire or motivation is ofthe right kind to generate
practical reasons. Strictly speaking, however, such cases only
createobjections to views which postulate a sufficient condition
for the existence of reasons, andinternalism itself postulates only
necessary conditions, and no such sufficient condition, asBernard
Williams makes clear (1989), for example.
There may, of course, be philosophical reasons why many
theorists who accept some version ofinternalism as a necessary
condition on reasons are also inclined to accept a sufficient
condition ofthis kind, and we will consider one such philosophical
reason in the next section. So these mayend up being good indirect
arguments against internalism. But no sufficient condition is part
ofinternalism by itself, so there are no direct overgeneration
arguments against internalism.
3.2 For Internalism
3.2.1 The Significance of Apparent Internal Reasons
So far we have considered extensional arguments against
internalism. But there are alsoextensional arguments in favor of
internalist theses. Setting aside peculiarly moral reasons,common
sense suggests that ordinary practical reasons exhibit a high
degree of agent-relativity. Itis also natural to think that in at
least many cases, different agents have different reasons
becausethey want different things. If A desires chocolate ice
cream, and B desires strawberry ice cream,then intuitively A has a
reason to purchase the chocolate, and B has a reason to purchase
thestrawberry. Many have thought that the Humean Theory of Reasons
is more than suggested by thissort of extensional data.
The idea behind this reasoning is that if we have to agree that
some reasons depend on desires,then we should give serious
consideration to the theory according to which all reasons do, as
beingsimpler and more explanatory than the theory according to
which some reasons derive from ourdesires but others do not. This
may even provide a promising analytical hypothesis about whatclaims
about reasons mean, or reductive hypothesis about what reasons are.
This kind of argumentis anticipated by Williams' claim that the
issue is whether there are both internal and externalreasons, or
internal reasons only (1979; see also Schroeder 2007b). We now
discuss three kinds ofexternalist objection to this argument.
3.2.2 Three Objections
One line of objection holds that no reasons derive from our
desires. It seems plausible that they doonly because desire is
closely connected to something else, which often is a source of
reasons:something like pleasure or enjoyment (Bond 1983, Millgram
1997, Scanlon 1998). Reasons thatseem to derive from desires can
arguably be more plausibly explained by pleasure, which can
alsoserve to explain reasons that desire cannot explain: reasons
deriving from pleasures that the agentdoes not actually desire. It
may therefore be a better and more explanatory hypothesis
thatsomething like pleasure grounds our agent-relative reasons.
However proponents of this kind ofobjection often take hedonic
states like pleasure to be merely one instance of
somethingpossessing intrinsic value, and offer as rivals to HTR
theories of reasons as based on intrinsicvalue (see the entry on
intrinsic vs. extrinsic value).
In response, Humeans can observe that in ordinary cases agents
want pleasure, and that therebyHTR can accommodate such reasons.
This line of objection needs a case in which an agent has a
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
17 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
reason to do not just something that she does not already desire
to do, but something that wouldnot serve any desire whatsoever that
she already has. Since any given action may serve manydifferent
possible desires, and agents who do not desire (e.g.) pleasure are
rare and peculiar, it isdifficult to control for these kinds of
factors. Externalists can claim that an agent would have areason to
do what is pleasurable even in the absence of any such general
desire, but this issomething that an internalist may be able to
deny without absurdityalthough here intuitionsseem to differ
radically.
A related objection consists in the complaint that agents can
have desires that clearly do notgenerate any practical reasons
because they are for worthless objects. Prominent examples in
theliterature include a desire to drink a saucer of mud or a can of
paint, and a disposition to turn onradios whenever they are off. As
noted in section 3.1.3, these examples can't provide
directcounterexamples to any sort of reasons internalism, because
reasons internalism itself places onlya necessary condition on
reasons and not a sufficient condition, and these examples are
proposedcounterexamples to a sufficient condition. But they are
highly relevant to the theoretical argumentfor internalism that is
our concern in this section. If we advance as our case for
internalism theexplanatory power of the thesis that reasons depend
on desire or motivation, then it is a significantproblem if this
relation isn't consistent and desire or motivation don't always
generate reasons.Some explanation of this inconsistency is needed,
and when we find it we may find that it revealsthat something other
than desire or motivation is the genuine source of our reasons.
These cases are taken to show that desires are only connected
with reasons if they are alsoconnected with something else, for
example intrinsic value, and they do not yield reasonsotherwise.
Against this the internalist can again challenge intuitions and
defend the consistency ofthe connection, by insisting (e.g.) that a
desire to drink a saucer of mud is sufficient for having areason to
do so. Such a reason need not be a good or strong one, after all,
and the peculiarity ofclaiming that there is such a reason may be
explained away as being merely pragmatic. In cases inwhich the
reasons for an action are dwarfed by the considerations against it,
it is usual to reportthat there is no reason for the action at all;
there is a reason to do A typically communicates thatthere is a
relatively weighty reason to do A. Whether or not agents have
desire-based reasons inthese circumstances remains a contested
issue.
A different version of this same sort of objection works by
granting a special connection betweenreasons and desire but
suggesting that this exists because desires involve judgments or
perceptionsthat something is a reason (e.g. Anscombe 1963, Stampe
1987, Quinn 1993, Millgram 1997,Scanlon 1998). Scanlon labels these
desires in the directed-attention sense; on this view,(apparent)
reasons are explanatory of desires, and not the reverse. This
hypothesis would explainwhy agents tend to have relevant desires
whenever they believe themselves to have reasons, but itdoes not
seem well-placed to explain why agents would have these desires
whenever they actuallyhave reasons. If we are disposed to ascribe
reasons to others in correspondence with their desires,the Humean
hypothesis is better.
A third kind of objection (Hampton 1998) insists that though it
is true that some reasons derivefrom our desires, this is only
because of more fundamental reasons which themselves do notderive
from our desires. Proponents of this view hold that there is a
fundamental reason to do whatyou desire and that changes in what
you desire simply affect what you need to do in order to goabout
doing so. This view admits that our desires can sometimes affect
our reasons but insists thatthey only do so because there is a
further reason, which does not depend on any desire.Philosophers
who accept this view are unmoved by the argument that Actual State
forms of reasoninternalism can provide a more unified explanation
of reasons. They don't deny the existence of
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
18 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
internal reasons (which do derive from desires), but do hold
that internal reasons are simplyderivative from and hence are
explained by a special case of external reasons (which do not
derivefrom or depend on desires at all). A similar dialectic goes
for Actual State views which appeal to amore general kind of state
than desire.
3.3 Relative Explanatory PowerAny evaluation of whether Actual
State reasons internalism is simpler, more elegant, orexplanatorily
more powerful than any possible externalist view will have to turn
on an evaluationof this kind of externalist explanatory strategy.
If internal reasons could be simply derivative fromexternal
reasons, and external reasons could be independently explained,
then Actual State reasonsinternalism will have very little traction
on these grounds. If the derivation of internal reasonsfrom
external reasons turns out to be unsuccessful, however, or external
reasons themselves aredifficult to explain, then Actual State
reasons internalism will gain traction as an explanatoryhypothesis.
Schroeder (2007b) attacks the derivation of internal reasons from
external reasons;here we can go on to consider whether external
reasons are themselves harder to explain thaninternal ones.
Many philosophers have held that external reasons are, in fact,
harder to explain than internalones; even some who were no skeptics
about external reasons, like Immanuel Kant (see the entryon Kant's
moral philosophy.) So what makes external reasons so puzzling? One
idea is that theyare puzzling because they leave so little on the
basis of which to explain why they are reasons forthe people for
whom they are reasons. Internal reasons are shared only by certain
peoplepeoplewith the requisite desires. So Max's desires can be
used to explain why he has the internal reasonsthat he has. But
categorical external reasons like those Kant was concerned about
(and which arerequired in order to reconcile Moral Rationalism with
Moral Absolutism) are supposed to bereasons for any agent, no
matter what she is like. So the only thing to which we can appeal
inorder to explain why Max has these reasons is the fact that Max
is an agent. Some philosophershave accordingly invested great
energy in developing robust enough accounts of agency to be ableto
explain moral reasons. For example, Christine Korsgaard (1996)
maintains that reasons derivefrom the demands of autonomy, or being
regulated by stable principles that define ones' self,which she
identifies as a necessary condition for acting at all.
However, even accounts that derive reasons from the nature of
agency may ultimately vindicatesome form of internalism. David
Velleman (1996), for example, argues that agency ischaracterized by
a particular higher-order inclinationto behave in, and out of, a
knowledge ofwhat you're doing. Although this is a kind of desire,
it is distinct from the contingent desires thatmight be satisfied
by particular actions and which internalists usually identify as
the source of ourreasons. Velleman accordingly describes his view
as a fainthearted externalism, but it remains aform of internalism
according to the scheme presented here.
Some advocates of various forms of internalism have complained
that advocacy of externalreasons amounts to nothing more than bluff
(Williams 1979). A natural way to understand thisidea is as the
complaint that external reasons theorists leave us with too few
constraints on whatreasons could be, and hence are able to make
whatever claims about reasons they want (so long asthey endorse
them in a serious enough tone of voice, perhaps), with no
independent way ofchecking their plausibility. This complaint could
be a fair one against externalists who are willingto offer no
general theory about or constraints on reasons, but it is unfair in
general. Externalistsmay simply look for discipline and unity in
their views about reasons from a source distinct from
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
19 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
facts about motivation or motivational psychology. Value-based
theorists, for example, tie theirclaims about reasons to
commitments about what is valuable. So their claims about what we
havereasons to do are checked by the plausibility of the
corresponding theses about what is valuable.
4. The Debate TodayThe debate over internal and external reasons
is very much alive today, open on nearly all of thefronts that we
have considered in this article. Or more accurately, we should say
that the debatesover internal and external reasons are very much
alive today. As we saw, there are importantdifferences between
State and Motivation forms of internalism, between Counterfactual
andActual forms of internalism, and between versions that give rise
to the Central Problem and thosethat do not. There are also
important further differences in precisely how to formulate any
givenversion of reasons internalism, and we have not precisely
formulated any single version in thisarticle.
What is clear is that there are two main varieties of
internalist view, each of which faces its ownclass of problems.
Most internalist views encounter the Central Problem, and hence
have difficultyin allowing for some of the important reasons that
we pre-theoretically are inclined to think thatthere are. Though
other arguments have been offered against them, this challenge is
at the heart oftheir difficulties. We saw that some Counterfactual
versions of internalism avoid the CentralProblem, by claiming that
the relevant counterfactuals are not grounded in any features of
agents'actual psychologies, but rather are explained in some other
way. The challenge facing these viewsis to provide such an
explanation without collapsing into triviality, as with the view
that therelevant counterfactual condition is that the agent is
motivated by all of her reasons.
Externalist views, on the other hand, avoid the Central Problem
and hence do well with moralreasons, but critics worry that
external reasons are more mysterious, and that such theories
cannotprovide as attractive an explanation of why some reasons do
appear to be internal. An attractiveway forward may have to show
entrenched parties how to achieve some of the importantadvantages
of each side of the debate.
BibliographyAnomaly, J., 2007. An Argument Against External
Reasons, Sorities, 18: 569.Anscombe, G. E. M., 1963. Intention, 2nd
Edition. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Arpaly, N., 2003.
Unprincipled Virtue: An Inquiry into Moral Agency, New York:
Oxford
University Press.Bedke, M., 2010. Rationalist Restrictions and
External Reasons, Philosophical Studies, 151(1):
3957.Bond, E. J., 1983. Reason and Value, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.Brady, M., 2000. How to Understand Internalism,
Philosophical Quarterly, 50: 917.Brandt, R., 1979. A Theory of the
Good and the Right, New York: Clarendon Press.Brewer, T., 2002. The
Real Problem with Internalism about Reasons, Canadian Journal
of
Philosophy, 32: 44374.Brunero, J., 2003. Practical Reason and
Motivational Imperfection, Philosophical Inquiry, 25:
21928., 2008. McDowell on External Reasons, European Journal of
Philosophy, 16 (1): 2242.Cohon, R., 1986. Are External Reasons
Impossible? Ethics, 96: 54556.
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
20 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
, 1993. Internalism about Reasons for Action, Pacific
Philosophical Quarterly, 74: 26588.Copp, D., 2001. Against
Internalism about Reasons-Gert's Rational Options, Philosophy
and
Phenomenological Research, 62: 45561.Cowley, C., 2005. A New
Defence of Williams's Reasons-Internalism, Philosophical
Investigations, 28: 34668.Dancy, J., 2000. Practical Reality,
New York: Oxford University Press.Darwall, S., 1983. Impartial
Reason, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Davidson, D., 1963.
Actions, Reasons, and Causes, Reprinted in Essays on Actions and
Events,
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980, 319.Finlay, S., 2006. The Reasons
that Matter, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 84: 120., 2007.
Responding to Normativity, in R. Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford
Studies in Metaethics
2. New York: Oxford University Press, 22039., 2009, The
Obscurity of Internal Reasons, Philosophers' Imprint, 9 (7):
122.Fitzpatrick, W., 2004. Reasons, Value, and Particular Agents:
Normative Relevance without
Motivational Internalism, Mind, 113: 285318.Foot, P., 1972.
Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives, Philosophical
Review, 81:
30516.Gert, J., 2001. Skepticism about Practical Reasons
Internalism, Southern Journal of Philosophy,
39: 5977., 2002. Avoiding the Conditional Fallacy, Philosophical
Quarterly, 52: 8895., 2003. Internalism and Different Kinds of
Reasons, Philosophical Forum, 34: 5372.Gibbard, A., 2003. Reasons
Thick and Thin, Journal of Philosophy, 100: 288304.Goldman, A.,
2005. Reason Internalism, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,
71:
50532., 2006. Desire Based Reasons and Reasons for Desires,
Southern Journal of Philosophy, 44:
46988.Hajdin, M., 1992. External Reasons and the Foundations of
Morality: Mother Theresa versus
Thrasymachus, Journal of Value Inquiry, 26: 43341.Hampton, J.,
1998. The Authority of Reason, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.Harman, G., 1975. Moral Relativism Defended, Philosophical
Review, 84: 322.Heathwood, C., 2011, Desire-Based Theories of
Reasons, Pleasure, and Welfare, in Russ Shafer-
Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics (Volume 6), Oxford:
Oxford University Press.Heuer, U., 2004. Reasons for Action and
Desires, Philosophical Studies, 121: 4363., 2012, Thick Concepts
and Internal Reasons, in U. Heuer & G. Lang (eds.) 2012.Heuer,
U. and G. Lang (eds.), 2012. Luck, Value, and Commitment: Themes
from the Ethics of
Bernard Williams, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Hooker, B.,
1987 Williams' Argument Against External Reasons, Analysis, 47:
424.Hurley, S., 2001. Reason and Motivation: The Wrong Distinction?
Analysis 61: 1515.Hurtig, K. I., 2006. Internalism and Accidie,
Philosophical Studies, 129: 51743.Johnson, R., 1997. Reasons and
Advice for the Practically Rational, Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, 57: 61925., 1999. Internal Reasons
and the Conditional Fallacy, Philosophical Quarterly, 49: 5371.,
2003. Internal Reasons: Reply to Brady, Van Roojen and Gert,
Philosophical Quarterly, 53:
57380.Joyce, R., 2001. The Myth of Morality, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.Kalderon, M. E., 2005. Moral
Fictionalism, New York: Oxford University Press.Kelly, T., 2003.
Epistemic Rationality as Instrumental Rationality: A Critique,
Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, 66: 61240.Korsgaard, C., 1986.
Skepticism about Practical Reason, Journal of Philosophy, 83:
525.
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
21 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
, 1996. The Sources of Normativity, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.Kriegel, U., 1999. Normativity and Rationality:
Bernard Williams on Reasons for Action, Iyyun,
48: 28192.Lillehammer, H., 2000. The Doctrine of Internal
Reasons, Journal of Value Inquiry, 34: 50716.Lubin, D., 2009,
External Reasons, Metaphilosophy, 40 (2): 273291.Mackie, J. L.,
1977. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, Harmondsworth: Penguin
Books.Markovits, J., 2011, Why Be an Internalist about Reasons? in
Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford
Studies in Metaethics (Volume 6), Oxford: Oxford University
Press.Mason, C., 2006. Internal Reasons and Practical Limits on
Rational Deliberation, Philosophical
Explorations, 9: 16377.McDowell, J., 1995. Might There Be
External Reasons? In J.E.J. Altham & R. Harrison (eds.),
World, Mind and Ethics: Essays on the Ethical Philosophy of
Bernard Williams, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 6885.
Mele, A., 2003. Motivation and Agency, New York: Oxford
University Press.Millgram, E., 1996. Williams' Argument Against
External Reasons, Nos, 30: 197220., 1997. Practical Induction,
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Moreau, S., 2005. Reasons
and Character, Ethics, 115: 272305.Nagel, T., 1970. The Possibility
of Altruism, Princeton: Princeton University Press; reprinted
1978.Parfit, D., 1984. Reasons and Persons, New York: Oxford
University Press., 1997. Reason and Motivation, Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society, Supplementary
Volume 71: 99130.Price, T., 1999. Are Williams's Reasons
Problematically External After All? Southern Journal of
Philosophy, 37: 46178.Quinn, W., 1993. Putting Rationality in
its Place, in Morality and Action, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.Robertson, J., 1986. Internalism
about Moral Reasons, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 67:
12435.Robertson, T., 2003. Internalism, (Super)fragile Reasons,
and the Conditional Fallacy,
Philosophical Papers, 32: 17184.Scanlon, T. M., 1998. What We
Owe to Each Other, Cambridge MA: Harvard University
Press.Schroeder, M., 2007a. Reasons and Agent-Neutrality,
Philosophical Studies, 135: 279306., 2007b. Slaves of the Passions,
New York: Oxford University Press.Shafer-Landau, R., 2003. Moral
Realism: A Defence, New York: Oxford University Press.Setiya, K.,
2004. Against Internalism, Nos, 38: 26698., 2007. Reasons without
Rationalism, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Setiya, K.
and H. Paakkunainen, 2012, Internal Reasons: Contemporary Readings,
Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.Shelton, M., 2004. What is Wrong with External
Reasons? Philosophical Studies, 117: 36594.Skorupski, J., 2007.
Internal Reasons and the Scope of Blame, in A. Thomas (ed.)
Bernard
Williams, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 73103.Smit, H.,
2003. Internalism and the Origin of Rational Motivation, Journal of
Ethics, 7:
183231.Smith, M., 1987. The Humean Theory of Motivation, Mind,
96: 3661., 1994. The Moral Problem, Oxford: Blackwell., 1995.
Internal Reasons, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 60:
109131., 2012, A Puzzle about Internal Reasons, in U. Heuer &
G. Lang (eds.) 2012.Sobel, D., 2001a. Subjective Accounts of
Reasons for Action, Ethics, 111: 46192., 2001b. Explanation,
Internalism, and Reasons for Action, Social Philosophy &
Policy, 18:
21835.
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
22 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
, 2003. Reply to Robertson, Philosophical Papers, 32:
18591.Stampe, D., 1987. The Authority of Desire, Philosophical
Review, 96: 33581.Tiffany, E., 2003. Alienation and Internal
Reasons for Action, Social Theory and Practice, 29:
387418.Tilley, J., 1997. Motivation and Practical Reasons,
Erkenntnis, 47: 10527.Thomas, A., 2002. Internal Reasons and
Contractualist Impartiality, Utilitas, 14: 13554.Thorpe, C., 2006.
A New Worry for the Humean Instrumentalist, Philosophical Studies,
131:
393417.Velleman, J. D., 1996. The Possibility of Practical
Reason, Ethics, 106: 694726., 2000. On the Aim of Belief, in The
Possibility of Practical Reason, New York: Oxford
University Press. [Reprint available from the author]Wallace, R.
J., 1990. How to Argue About Practical Reason, Mind, 99: 35585.,
1999. Three Conceptions of Rational Agency, Ethical Theory and
Moral Practice, 2:
21742.Watson, G., 1975. Free Agency, Journal of Philosophy, 72:
20520.Williams, B., 1979. Internal and External Reasons, reprinted
in Moral Luck, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1981, 10113., 1985. Ethics and the
Limits of Philosophy, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.,
1989. Internal Reasons and the Obscurity of Blame, Reprinted in
Making Sense of
Humanity, and other philosophical papers, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1995:3545.
, 1995. Replies, in J.E.J. Altham & R. Harrison (eds.),
World, Mind and Ethics: Essays onthe Ethical Philosophy of Bernard
Williams, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,185224.
, 2001. Postscript: Some Further Notes on Internal and External
Reasons, in E. Millgram(ed.) Varieties of Practical Reasoning,
Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 917.
Wong, D., 2006. Moral Reasons: Internal and External, Philosophy
and PhenomenologicalResearch, 72: 53658.
Academic ToolsHow to cite this entry.Preview the PDF version of
this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society.Look up this entry
topic at the Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO).Enhanced
bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers, with links to its
database.
Other Internet ResourcesMetaethics Bibliography, maintained by
James LenmanPEA Soup, a scholarly weblog with much discussion of
metaethical issues
Related Entriescognitivism vs. non-cognitivism, moral | Kant,
Immanuel: moral philosophy | moral motivation |reasons for action:
justification vs. explanation | value: intrinsic vs. extrinsic
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
23 de 24 19/08/14 17:22
-
Copyright 2012 byStephen Finlay
Mark Schroeder
Open access to the SEP is made possible by a world-wide funding
initiative.Please Read How You Can Help Keep the Encyclopedia
Free
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is copyright 2014 by The
Metaphysics Research Lab,Center for the Study of Language and
Information (CSLI), Stanford University
Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054
Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External (Stanford Encyclope...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-internal-external/
24 de 24 19/08/14 17:22