TITLE>SIFA ROMA 99

R. Mordacci
Internalism, subjectivism and normativity


1. Since it was first formulated (Falk 1947-48; Frankena 1958), the distinction between internalism and externalism has acquired a number of similar but not identical meanings; parallel distinctions have also been introduced (e.g. internal and external reasons; Williams 1980), generating some confusion.
The distinction responds to an important need in the theory of motivation, namely the need to express the relation between the explicative and the normative value of practical judgements. The possibility of a convincing normative ethical theory rests considerably on the viability of that connection.

2. The distinction has been drawn and used in at least three distinct but partially overlapping ways.
In a first sense, moral motivation can be internal or external to the subject, in an unspecified understanding of «subject»; in this perspective, the internalist interpretation maintains that a moral «ought» has a «motivation al» sense which «bears at least a sufficient resemblance to what ordinary usage expects of a normative term» (Falk 1947-48, p. 36); moral obligations are «con clusive reasons» which operate as «a dictate of conscience» (Ibid., p. 40). 2)
In a second sense, internalism entails the claim that moral obligation logically implies motivation, while externalism argues for a logical gap between them. This distinction refers to the concept of «ought» and not directly (nor necessarily) to the subject. For an internalist, a felt obligation is essentially motivating, that is, it cannot be present without motivating. This claim is too strong because it cannot explain such phenomena as weakness of will and accidie; furthermore, «internalism, in building in motivation, runs the [...] risk of having to trim obligation to the size of individual motives» (Frankena 1958). This objection amounts to a charge of subjectivism.
In a third sense, internalism and externalism oppose each other on whether moral reasons are intrinsically (but not essentially) motivating, that is, on whether, when they do motivate at all, they do it in their own right or not. In this sense, a moral reason might be present without motivating, but when it does it does not need the external sanction of a desire (Dancy 1993).

3. The third sense excludes the second, but it moves the distinction from the semantic to an epistemological level. The first sense is compatible with the third, but it is extremely ambiguous, since «in al/external to the subject» can be interpreted in various ways. One is to use a different distinction altogether (Williams 1980), according to which reasons are, respectively, internal or external to the «subjective motivational set of the agent». This set (the agent's «character») is not what Falk called «conscience». Williams argues that there are no external reasons; so, if obligations exist at all, they must be internal reasons. This interpretation is indeed exposed to the charge of subjectivism.

4. Internalism is predominant in the recent debate, for some good reasons: 1) externalism has difficulties in explaining in which sense a moral reason can be normative for a particular subject; 2) in an externalist framework, it is not clear what normativity amounts to; 3) externalism cannot explain the practicality of practical reason, i.e. its action-guiding power. On the contrary, internalism seems able to overcome the difficulties posed to it by the amoralist and the problems of weakness of will and of accidie (Dancy, 1993).

5. However, the whole distinction can be criticized. Our desires contain beliefs and are always inchoatively rationalized; our beliefs are very frequently conditioned by a conative attitude and can be caused by desires. So, the opposition of desire and reason should be attenuated. In the Humean-Kantian perspective, desire is always particular and reason always universal, so that it is hard, on the one hand, to be fair to the particularity of the individual agent and, on the other hand, to grant the universalizability claim of moral judgments. Internalism seems to have difficulties in granting the second demand as far as it tries to respond to the first (as in Williams's version).
The Aristotelian account of proairesis as «desid tive reason or ratiocinative desire» (Nichomachean Ethics, VI, 1139a) seems less exposed to such difficulties. This view can be supported by McDowell's (1998) understanding of both desire and cognition as open on a world which is not «motivationally inert». This perspective makes normativity dependent on the perceptual capacity of the subject, which makes him or her able to respond adequately to the demands of the situation; motivation is inscribed in the recognition of the morally relevant features of the situation.

6. In a subjectivistic interpretation, normativity can only mean that an individual might feel an idiosincratic imperative to perform some act. This is contrary to the common experience that some of our actions implicitly express our intention to do something which we believe to be what we should do in a certain situation. My choice for action expresses a desiderative reason or a ratiocinative desire that claims to be respondent to the requirements of the recognizable features of the circumstances. If I choose to be the person who performs a certain act in certain circumstances, I am expressing my belief that being such a kind of person can be good for me as a rational person among others (Nagel 1970). This will to believe in our moral judgements has some important implications: first, we are therefore interested in that our moral judgments be true, at least for ourselves, i.e., we do want to respond adequately to the situation; second, this implies that we want our moral judgments to be virtually intelligible for other rational agents; third, we want other rational agents to recognize that the action we chose, although it might not be the only one required by the situation, does respond adequately to it, i.e. that our judgements are true (there can be more than one way to respond adequately to the situation). This amounts to a universalizability claim: a rational agent like me in the relevant circumstances ought to share the same reasons for action as mine, although he or she might choose a different course of action.
The normativity of moral reasons results from the sustainability of this claim: if the proposed reasons for action can be shown to be consistent with the (mor ally relevant) features of the situation as seen by a competent agent, then the agent is justified in his or her choice; those reasons can be sustained by both beliefs and desires, granted that they are both open on a motivationally «-ert» world. The universalizability claim is thus a «respondence-to-the-world» claim.

7. Within such a framework, moral reasons are internal in the first and third sense of the distinction, although the picture that was in the background has radically changed. Problems of weakness of the will and the like may still raise (although Dancy's arguments seem to hold), but at least the risk of subjectivism, and the corresponding lack of normativity, can be avoided.

References

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. W.D. Ross, Oxford University Press, New York 1925
Dancy J., Moral Reasons, Blackwell, Oxford 1993
Falk W.D., '«Ought» and motivation', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 48 (1947-48), pp. 492-510; repr. in Falk, Ought, Reasons, and Morality, Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1986, pp. 21-41
Frankena W.K., 'Obligation and motivation in recent moral philosophy', in Melden A.I. (ed.), Essays in Moral Philosophy, University of Washington Press, Seattle 1958, pp. 40-81; repr. in Perspectives on Morality, ed. K. Goodpaster, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame 1976
McDowell J., Mind, Value and Reality, Harvard University Press, Cambridge 1998
Nagel T., The Possibility of Altruism, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1970
Williams B., 'Internal and external reasons', (1980), in Id., Moral Luck. Philosophical Papers 1973-1980, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1981

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