Abstract
Deferred internalists accept that sometimes, agents can form genuine normative judgments without any accompanying motivation. However, they propose that these judgments can only exist when they are embedded within psychologies or communities in which judgment and motivation typically align. In this paper, I sketch a version of externalism that challenges the interpretation of key evidence claimed by deferred internalists. According to this account, there is a robust but contingent connection between judgment and motivation that is explained by the structure of the neurocognitive apparatus we happen to employ in evaluative thought. This proposal allows that all of our judgments lacking accompanying motivation are contingently parasitic on judgments that are accompanied by motivation. It also suggests that it is not possible to create communities of beings like us whose judgments and motivation radically come apart. These results undermine current strategies for supporting deferred internalism. Proponents will need to find support elsewhere.
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Notes
Historically, there tended to be a narrower focus on versions of motivational internalism about specifically moral judgments. However, there has been growing interest in construing internalism in terms of first-personal practical judgments more broadly. For example, if one is a noncognitivist about first-personal moral judgments, then it is reasonable to also be a noncognitivist about first-personal practical judgments. And if internalism about some type of first-personal moral judgment poses a challenge to cognitivism, then internalism about some type of first-personal practical judgment also would seem to pose a challenge to cognitivism. So, cognitivists are on the hook for a plausible story about all first-personal practical judgments. And a generally unified account of first-personal practical judgments is plausible. For example, it appears that we rely on basically the same cognitive machinery for moral thinking and general practical thinking. So, in many cases, it is desirable to keep one’s discussion broad enough to capture a range of practical judgments. At times this sacrifices some precision, but it is more fruitful than running separate arguments for each possible view.
Since I am discussing practical normative judgments and moral judgments at once, ‘amoralist’ will refer to traditional amoralists (agents systematically indifferent to their moral judgments), but also to agents that are systematically indifferent to their practical normative judgments.
Sometimes, parasitic judgments have been interpreted as sociological beliefs about the judgments of others (e.g., Hare 1952, pp. 124-126). Those would not be genuine non-aligned judgments, since they are beliefs about others’ judgments. When deferred internalists talk about parasitic judgments, I interpret them as talking about genuine non-aligned judgments, since this interpretation fits best with their commitment to accommodating the traditional counterexamples to internalism. To do that, they need to interpret those cases as instances of genuine non-aligned judgment.
One way to distinguish their version of internalism from Smith’s would be to make a distinct normative claim about how judgment and motivation should relate to each other. But I do not know what this relation could be, other than the claim that judgment and motivation should align. And I do not find any evidence suggesting that there is some other normative claim at play in the writings of proponents. But even if proponents distinguished their account from Smith’s by forwarding a distinct normative claim—prescribing a different relationship between judgment and motivation, or appealing to a notion like proper functioning, rather than practical rationality—this would still render their account a variant of Smith-style restricted internalism, rather than a distinctive, novel approach to internalism.
As before, we could rephrase this in terms of ‘practical rationality’.
Perhaps there are further ways of developing normative interpretations of “typical” on behalf of deferred internalists that I have failed to consider. I’m unsure of how else to spell out normative versions of the view, but I cannot rule out that there may be better alternatives. If this discussion prompts others to describe in detail a plausible normative version of the account, I think that would still be a fruitful result, even if that means that I am wrong. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pressing me to expand on the arguments made in this section.
An “honorary” subcortical structure.
To be clear, I am not claiming that this brief sketch definitively supports externalism over internalism. Rather, the claim is that there is an externalist account (sketched here) that offers a coherent, plausible interpretation of the neurocognitive picture described above. And taking this account into consideration causes trouble for deferred internalists.
These results extend beyond deferred internalism: mere parasitism claims cannot support any form of internalism, and necessary parasitism claims cannot be relied on without having first shown that externalism is false. At most, necessary parasitism can be used among internalists to support particular versions of internalism.
I am not claiming that this is really the case, only that dual-process cognitivism is compatible with this claim.
It might seem uncharitable for me to have attributed this question-begging strategy to deferred internalists in Section 3.1. In my defense, I could think of two ways to use necessary parasitism to support deferred internalism, whereas I could not think of any ways of moving from contingent parasitism to deferred internalism. Also, in a key passage from Blackburn (1998, p. 61), he explicitly says “these cases are necessarily parasitic.” So, it seems that necessary parasitism—rather than contingent parasitism—is the more charitable and accurate interpretation.
I take it that, on its own, this result generically supports internalism over externalism. The case for deferred internalism depends on further considerations, such as its ability to accommodate individual amoralists and explain necessary parasitism.
The two views disagree on why this is the case. According to dual-process cognitivism, this is explained by contingent facts about how we happen to form judgments. According to deferred internalism, it is explained by constraints imposed by the concept of a judgment.
For the record, I don’t share internalists’ negative intuitions about the communities they’ve described. But perhaps my intuitions shouldn’t be trusted—I do play for the other team, after all. For the purposes of this paper, I am happy to assume that these communal cases should be interpreted in the way deferred internalists want.
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Cline, B. Contingent Parasites and Exotic Amoralists: Dual-Process Cognitivism Undermines the Case for Deferred Internalism. Rev.Phil.Psych. 14, 1005–1033 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-022-00618-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-022-00618-0