Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

In the Thick of Moral Motivation

  • Published:
Review of Philosophy and Psychology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

We accomplish three things in this paper. First, we provide evidence that the motivational internalism/externalism debate in moral psychology could be a false dichotomy born of ambiguity. Second, we provide further evidence for a crucial distinction between two different categories of belief in folk psychology: thick belief and thin belief. Third, we demonstrate how careful attention to deep features of folk psychology can help diagnose and defuse seemingly intractable philosophical disagreement in metaethics.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. For example, it’s not clear that we made Michael abnormal or irrational in the second half of the story. Rather, as Stocker put the point, such a “course of life” seems “typical” (1979, p. 741).

  2. For empirical work on moral judgments made by psychopaths (or people with so-called “acquired sociopathy”) see Roskies (2006, 2008). For empirical work on ordinary judgments about moral motivation about psychopaths see Nichols (2002, 2004).

  3. Gendler (2008a, b) draws an orthogonal distinction between ‘belief’ and ‘alief’. Further work is required to determine whether this interacts with our classification of thick and thin belief. For how the alief/belief distinction might bear on moral motivation and moral phenomenology, see Kriegel (2012). For yet another theoretical account of the different psychological states that might be implicated in the debate between internalists and externalists see Kauppinen (2015).

  4. Buckwalter et al. (2015) replicate this effect for thick and thin belief across several experiments using a number of different cover-stories.

  5. For a similar and insightful conceptual move in the debate about free will see May (2014).

  6. Theorizing about the nature of verbal disputes must be saved for another occasion. See Chalmers (2011, p. 522) for one general working definition that “a dispute over S is (broadly) verbal when for some expression T in S, the parties disagree about the meaning of T, and the dispute over S arises wholly in virtue of this disagreement regarding T.”

  7. If we weren’t joining an ongoing controversy in medias res, we would use different, simpler cases. Part of the reason, as we discuss below, is that certain details of Stocker’s original politician case suggest that it is not a fair test of internalism.

  8. As with the experiments reported below, participants were recruited using Amazon Mechanical Turk, tested online using Qualtrics survey software, and compensated $0.15 for approximately 2–3 min of their time. Participants were not allowed to re-take any survey reported here, and participants who had taken previous similar surveys were excluded by their AMT Worker ID. Participants were located in the United States. Preliminary analysis revealed no effects of participant age or gender on the dependent variables, so the analyses that follow collapse across those demographic variables. The same is true in all the other experiments reported in this paper.

  9. Seven participants were removed from the analysis for failing a comprehension question.

  10. In order to employ more powerful statistical tests to detect patterns in belief ascription, we also created a belief-confidence measure. This measure took answers given to the dichotomous belief questions and combined them with scalar confidence judgments (e.g. “How confident are you in the answer you just gave to the previous question?”). Using this more sensitive measure, we detected the same pattern of results reported on dichotomous scales throughout the paper and, thus, omit these analyses for simplicity.

  11. Dreier (1990, p. 12) notes a similar point when he writes of Stocker’s original politician case that being asked to imagine a person who “would not lift a finger, as it were, to achieve what he believes to be good” would “strain our imaginative power.”

  12. One participant was removed from the analysis for answering that the protagonist “still has some” motivation for helping the poor.

  13. Three participants were removed from the analysis for failing comprehension or motivation checks in Experiment 3.

  14. We credit an anonymous referee for raising this objection.

  15. Three participants were removed from the analysis for failing comprehension or motivation checks in Experiment 4.

  16. Insofar as participants’ judgments about the possibility of moral requirements in Strandberg and Björklund’s experiments serve as proxy for sincere moral judgments in our own.

  17. To that extent our discussion assumes that philosophers are people too and, thus, aren’t immune to the influence of folk psychology. For similar results to this effect see Vaesen et al. (2013) suggesting that epistemic intuitions of professional epistemologists are sensitive to native language, and results by Schulz et al. (2011) suggesting that certain personality differences among experts predict intuitions about free will and moral responsibility. For studies involving heuristics and biases among professionals see Machery (2012); Schwitzgebel and Cushman (2012, 2015); Knobe and Samuels (2013); Tobia et al. (2013).

  18. For more on the role of assertion in demarcating categories of thick and thin belief see Rose et al. (2014).

References

  • Armstrong, D. 1969. Does knowledge entail belief? Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 70: 21–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Björklund, F., G. Björnsson, J. Eriksson, R. Francén Olinder, and Caj Strandberg. 2012. Recent work on motivational internalism. Analysis 72(1): 124–137.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blackburn, S. 1984. Spreading the word. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blackburn, S. 1998. Ruling passions, 59–68. Oxford: Clarendon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brink, D. 1989. Moral realism and the foundations of ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Brink, D. 1997. Moral motivation. Ethics 108: 4–32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buckwalter, W., D. Rose, and J. Turri. 2015. Belief through thick and thin. Noûs 49(4): 748–775.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buckwalter, W., and J. Turri. forthcoming. Moderate scientism in philosophy. Forthcoming in Scientism: prospects and problems. In eds. de Ridder, J., Peels, R., and von Woudenberg, R. Oxford University Press.

  • Chalmers, D.J. 2011. Verbal disputes. Philosophical Review 120(4): 515–566.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, J. 1966. More about knowing and feeling sure. Analysis 27: 11–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Copp, D. 1997. Belief, reason, and motivation: Michael Smith’s the moral problem. Ethics 108: 33–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dreier, J. 1990. Internalism and speaker relativism. Ethics 101: 6–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dreier, J. 2006. Moral relativism and moral nihilism. In Oxford handbook of ethical theory, ed. D. Copp, 240–264. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dretske, F. 1983. The epistemology of belief. Synthese 55(1): 3–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Falk, W.D. 1947. “Ought” and motivation. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 48: 111–138.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fodor, J.A. 1990. A theory of content. Cambridge: MA. MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gendler, T.S. 2008a. Alief and belief. Journal of Philosophy 105(10): 634–663.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gendler, T.S. 2008b. Alief in action (and reaction). Mind & Language 23(5): 552–585.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hume, D. 1748 [1977]. In An enquiry concerning human understanding, (2nd ed.), ed. E. Steinberg. Indianapolis: Hackett.

  • Hume, D. 1772 [1992]. Of the dignity or meanness of human nature. In Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects. London: Basil.

  • Hume, D. 1779 [2007]. Dialogues concerning natural religion. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Library. URL<http://name.umdl.umich.edu/004895521.0001.000>.

  • James, W. 1889. The psychology of belief. Mind 14(55): 321–352.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jones, O.R. 1971. Knowing and guessing: By examples. Analysis 32: 19–23.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kauppinen, A. 2015. Intuition and belief in moral motivation. In Moral internalism, ed. G. Björnsson, C. Strandberg, R.F. Olinder, J. Eriksson, and F. Björklund. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Knobe, J., and R. Samuels. 2013. Thinking like a scientist: Innateness as a case study. Cognition 126: 72–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Korsgaard, C.M. 1996. The sources of normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kriegel, U. 2012. Moral motivation, moral phenomenology, and the alief/ belief distinction. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90(3): 469–486.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leher, K. 1974. Knowledge. Oxford: Clarendon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Machery, E. 2012. Expertise and intuitions about reference. Theoria 73: 37–54.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mackie, J. 1977. Ethics: Inventing right and wrong. New York: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • May, J. 2014. On the very concept of free will. Synthese 191(12): 2849–2866.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mele, A. 1996. Internalist moral cognitivism and listlessness. Ethics 106: 727–753.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miller, A. 2003. An introduction to contemporary metaethics. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray, D., J. Sytsma, and J. Livengood. 2013. God knows (but does God believe?). Philosophical Studies 166(1): 83–107.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Myers-Schulz, B., and E. Schwitzgebel. 2013. Knowing that P without believing that P. Noûs 47(2): 371–384.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nichols, S. 2002. On the genealogy of norms: A case for the role of emotion in cultural evolution. Philosophy of Science 69: 234–255.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nichols, S. 2004. Sentimental rules: On the natural foundations of moral judgment. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Peirce, C.S. 1958. In Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, ed. Charles Hartshorne, Paul Weiss, and Arthur W. Burks. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Radford, C. 1966. Knowledge — by examples. Analysis 27: 1–11.

    Google Scholar 

  • Railton, P. 1986. Moral realism. Philosophical Review 95: 163–207.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosati, Connie S. 2006. Moral motivation. In The stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, (Fall 2008 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta. URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/moral-motivation/>.

  • Rose, D., W. Buckwalter, and J. Turri. 2014. When words speak louder than actions: Delusion, belief and the power of assertion. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 92(4): 683–700.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roskies, A. 2003. Are ethical judgments intrinsically motivational? Lessons from ‘acquired sociopathy’. Philosophical Psychology 16: 51–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roskies, A. 2006. Patients with ventromedial frontal damage have moral beliefs. Philosophical Psychology 19: 617–627.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roskies, A. 2008. Internalism and the evidence from pathology. In Moral psychology, vol. 3, ed. W. Sinnott-Armstrong, 191–206. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rose, D., and J. Schaffer. 2013. Knowledge entails dispositional belief. Philosophical Studies 166(1): 19–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sayre-McCord, G. 1997. The metaethical problem. Ethics 108: 55–83.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schulz, E., E.T. Cokely, and A. Feltz. 2011. Persistent bias in expert judgments about free will and moral responsibility: A test of the expertise defense. Consciousness and Cognition 20: 1722–1731.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwitzgebel, E., and F. Cushman. 2012. Expertise in moral reasoning? Order effects on moral judgment in professional philosophers and non-philosophers. Mind & Language 27: 135–153.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwitzgebel, E., and F. Cushman. 2015. Philosophers’ biased judgments persist despite training, expertise and reflection. Cognition 141: 127–137.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shafer-Landau, R. 2003. Moral realism. A defence. Oxford: Clarendon.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, M. 1994. The moral problem. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stocker, M. 1979. Desiring the bad: an essay in moral psychology. The Journal of Philosophy 76: 738–753.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Strandberg, C., and F. Björklund. 2013. Is moral internalism supported by folk intuitions? Philosophical Psychology 26(3): 319–335.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Svavarsdottir, S. 1999. Moral cognitivism and motivation. The Philosophical Review 108: 161–219.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tobia, K., W. Buckwalter, and S. Stich. 2013. Moral intuitions: Are philosophers experts? Philosophical Psychology 26(5): 629–638.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vaesen, K., M. Peterson, and B.V. Bezooijen. 2013. The reliability of armchair intuitions. Metaphilosophy 44(5): 559–578.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williams, D.C. 1937. The meaning of ‘good’. Philosophical Review 46(4): 416–423.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zangwill, N. 2008. The indifference argument. Philosophical Studies 138: 91–124.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada

    Wesley Buckwalter & John Turri

  2. Cognitive Science Program, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    John Turri

Authors
  1. Wesley Buckwalter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. John Turri
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wesley Buckwalter.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Buckwalter, W., Turri, J. In the Thick of Moral Motivation. Rev.Phil.Psych. 8, 433–453 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-016-0306-3

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-016-0306-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation