Abstract
Much in contemporary metaethics revolves around the two positions known as ‘motivational internalism’ and the ‘Humean theory of motivation’. The importance of these positions is mostly due to their role in what is considered to be the most powerful argument for metaethical non-cognitivism: the so-called ‘motivation argument’ (MA). In my paper, I want to argue that widely accepted renditions of the MA, such as the rendition recently forwarded by Russ Shafer-Landau, are flawed in two senses. First, they fail to sufficiently distinguish between conceptual claims and empirical psychological claims, thereby somewhat obscuring the status of the argument and its conclusion. Secondly, they start from definitions of motivational internalism that are, in crucial respects, too strong. Motivational internalism is usually formulated as the claim that moral judgements necessarily motivate; as I want to argue, however, the claim that moral judgements potentially motivate is all the motivational internalism a noncognitivist defender of the MA is ever going to need.
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Notes
For the term “motivation argument”, see Cohon (1997, p. 251), Zangwill (2009, p. 416), and Smith (2009, p. 105). The argument is also referred to as the “argument from motivation” (Brown 1988, p. 69) or the “non-cognitivist argument” (Shafer-Landau 2003, p. 119) and classified as an “internalist argument” (Strandberg 2011, p. 342), “antirealist argument” (Brink 1989, p. 37) or “internalist antirealist” argument (Brink 1989, p. 42).
For a discussion of this issue, see, for instance, the contributions in Pigden (2009).
Hume makes basically the same point in Sect. I of the Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals: “The end of all moral speculations is to teach us our duty; and, by proper representations of the deformity of vice and beauty of virtue, beget correspondent habits, and engage us to avoid the one, and embrace the other. But is this ever to be expected from inferences and conclusions of the understanding, which of themselves have no hold of the affections nor set in motion the active powers of men? They discover truths: but where the truths which they discover are indifferent, and beget no desire or aversion, they can have no influence on conduct and behaviour” (Hume 1751/1975, p. 172).
References to motivational internalism as one of the premises of the motivation argument can be found, for instance, in Brink (1989, p. 37f), Zangwill (2009, p. 416f), Smith (2009, p. 106), and Schroeder (2010, pp. 9–11). As already noted, Brink and Strandberg even refer to the motivation argument as an ‘internalist argument’ (see Brink 1989, p. 42; Strandberg 2011, p. 342). See also Björnsson et al. who explicitly emphasize that the vast attention motivational internalism has attracted in the past is mostly due to its being part of the motivation argument (Björnsson et al. 2012, p. 125). The second premise of the argument is usually referred to not under the label ‘motivational Humeanism’, but under the label ‘Humean theory of motivation’. It is important to note, however, that the latter term is used quite differently and that only the strong orthodox variant of this theory is equivalent to the second premise of the argument (for a discussion of different versions of the Humean theory of motivation, see Barry 2010).
That motivational internalism makes a conceptual claim is emphasized, for instance, by David Brink and Michael Smith (see Brink 1989, p. 42; Smith 1994, p. 61). See also Björnsson et al. who emphasize the conceptual nature of motivational internalism, but also note the recent tendency to discuss internalism as an a posteriori claim (see Björnsson et al. 2012, pp. 126, 132).
The only way to argue that, even as they stand, the second premise and the conclusion need to be read as conceptual claims, or that they at least imply such claims, were to generally exclude the possibility of our concepts being erroneous and in the need of modification. We could do so either by presupposing some kind of pre-established harmony between our concepts and the world or by employing a normative understanding of concepts according to which our concepts are constituted by true assumptions only. However, this take on concepts is far from being generally accepted, and there seem to be strong arguments that speak against it.
My reason for not following Shafer-Landau’s usage is that some contributors to the internalism debate employ the term ‘intrinsically motivational’ quite differently and take it to only refer to mental states which motivate without the help of other mental states (see, for instance, Svavarsdóttir 1999, p. 163; see also Zangwill 2009, p. 416). It seems less confusing, then, to refer to the two possible ways in which a mental state may exert motivational influence by saying that a mental state is potentially motivational.
The same can be said about Shafer-Landau’s definition of motivational externalism as the “contradictory” (Shafer-Landau 2003, p. 145) to motivational internalism. According to this definition, motivational externalism amounts to the claim “that it is at least conceptually possible for a sincere normative judgement to entirely lack motivational power” (Shafer-Landau 2003, p. 145). Yet, it seems that we may already attribute motivational power to a normative judgement if it is “intrinsically motivating”, that is, has the capacity to give rise to motivation, which means that one need not subscribe to the supposedly different and stronger claim that normative or moral judgements are necessarily motivating in order to claim motivational externalism to be false.
I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this possibility to me.
Caj Strandberg has recently argued that the non-cognitivist defender of the motivation argument needs to interpret motivational internalism in this way (Strandberg 2011, p. 346f). Strandberg does not discuss the relevant differences between the stronger and the weaker version of the Humean theory of motivation in this context. Yet, his suggestion that the weaker, and not the stronger, version of the Humean theory provides the second premise for the motivation argument, seems challengeable and in need of independent justification—be it only because it is the stronger, and not the weaker, version that is part of Hume’s original argument.
This is not only true of Shafer-Landau, but also of Jonathan Dancy, yet, while Shafer-Landau takes the view to be an example of externalism, Dancy sees it as “neither internalist nor externalist” and even claims that “there is a lot more about it that is internalist than there is externalist” (Dancy 1993, p. 25).
See, for instance, Svavarsdóttir’s critique of Blackburn in Svavarsdóttir (2001, pp. 22–24). Svavarsdóttir’s critique is taken up by Zangwill (see Zangwill 2009, p. 419ff). See also Brink’s suggestion that the dispute about externalism and Smith’s version of conditional internalism may, at least partly, be just a dispute about words (Brink 1997, p. 7).
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Acknowledgments
For helpful criticisms and suggestions, I am indebted to Wilfried Hinsch and an anonymous referee for Philosophical Studies. I would also like to express my gratitude to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) for funding the project on expressivism and moral sentimentalism (HI 376/6-1) from which this paper has emerged.
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Eggers, D. The motivation argument and motivational internalism. Philos Stud 172, 2445–2467 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-014-0420-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-014-0420-y