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Moral Motivation First published Thu Oct 19, 2006 

In our everyday lives, we confront a host of moral issues. Once we have deliberated and

formed judgments about what is right  or wrong , good  or bad , these judgments tend to have a

marked hold on us. Although in the end, we do not always behave as we think we ought, our

moral judgments typically motivate us, at least to some degree, to act in accordance with

them. When philosophers talk about moral motivation, this is the basic phenomenon they

seek to understand. Moral motivation is an instance of a more general phenomenonwhat

we might call normative motivation for our other normative judgments also typically have

some motivating force. When we make the normative judgment that something is good for

us, or that we have a reason to act in a particular way, or that a specific course of action is

the rational  course, we also tend to be moved. Many philosophers have regarded the

motivating force of normative judgments as the key feature that marks them as normative,thereby distinguishing them from the many other judgments we make. In contrast to our

normative judgments, our mathematical and empirical judgments, for e!ample, seem to have

no intrinsic connection to motivation and action. "he belief that an antibiotic will cure a

specific infection may move an individual to take the antibiotic, if she also believes that she

has the infection, and if she either desires to be cured or judges that she ought to treat the

infection for her own good. All on its own, however, an empirical belief like this one appears

to carry with it no particular motivational impact# a person can judge that an antibiotic will

most effectively cure a specific infection without being moved one way or another.

Although motivating force may be a distinguishing feature of normative judgments, the phenomenon of normative motivation seems most significant in the case of

narrowly moral  judgments. Moral motivation has, in any case, received far greater attention

than motivation in connection with other normative judgments. Morality is widely believed

to conflict, fre$uently and sometimes severely, with what an agent most values or most

 prefers to do. %erhaps because of the apparent opposition between self&interest and morality,

the fact of moral motivation has seemed especially pu''ling. (ow is it that we are so reliably

moved by our moral judgments) And what is the precise nature of the connection between

moral judgment and motivation) Of course, the less pu''ling and more mundane moral

motivation comes to seem, the more pu''ling failures of moral motivation become. If we are

to e!plain moral motivation, we will need to understand not only how moral judgments soregularly succeed in motivating, but how they can fail to motivate, sometimes rather

spectacularly. *ot only do we witness motivational failure among the deranged, dejected,

and confused, but also, it appears, among the fully sound and self&possessed. What are we to

make of the +amoralistthe rational, strong willed individual who seemingly makes moral

 judgments, while remaining utterly indifferent)

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In answering the foregoing $uestions, philosophers have been led to sharply differing views

about moral motivation, and these views have sometimes been thought to have important

implications for foundational issues in ethics. More precisely, differing views about moral

motivation involve commitment to particular theses which have been thought to bear on

$uestions about moral semantics and the nature of morality. %erhaps most famously, certain

theses have been jointly deployed to support skeptical or anti-realist  views in metaethics.

"his entry provides an overview of the main positions philosophers have taken in their

efforts to understand and e!plain the phenomenon of moral motivation. It also briefly

e!plains how key theses concerning moral motivation have come to inform and structure

debates about moral semantics and the nature of morality.

• -. "he asic %henomenon of Moral Motivation

• /. Moral Motivation and the *ature of Moral %roperties

• 0. Moral 1udgment and Motivation

o 0.- (umeanism v. Anti&(umeanism

o 0./ Internalism v. 2!ternalism

• 3. Moral Motivation and Metaethics

• ibliography

• Academic "ools

• Other Internet 4esources

• 4elated 2ntries

1. The Basic Phenomenon of Moral

Motivation"he basic phenomenon of moral motivation might be given a more systematic depiction as

follows, using 5  6 to stand for some person or individual and 576 and 586 each to stand for

some action9

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When   judges that it would be morally right to 7, she is ordinarily motivated to 7#

should   later become convinced that it would be wrong to 7 and right to 8 instead, she

ordinarily ceases to be motivated to 7 and comes to be motivated to 8.

"his depiction aims to capture features of our common e!perience. As observation suggests,

 people generally feel moved to do what they judge it right to do# what is more, theirmotivation ordinarily shifts to match or +track changes in their moral judgments. If an

individual judges it right to keep a promise rather than to aid a stranger in need, she will

ordinarily feel moved, at least to some degree, to act so as to fulfill the promise. If she comes

to change her mind about the priority of her promise, she will ordinarily no longer be moved

to keep the promise and will be moved instead to provide aid.

efore we turn to the many $uestions which the foregoing depiction leaves open, and which

lie at the heart of debates about the nature of moral motivation, we should make note of two

important points. :irst, the depiction says nothing about the strength of moral motivation.

:or all that it tells us, the motivation all or some people feel to do what they judge rightmight be e!traordinarily weak. ;ommon e!perience suggests that moral motivation in fact

tends to be fairly robust, but with one $ualification to be noted later, philosophical views

about moral motivation generally follow the depiction in taking no position regarding the

e!act strength of moral motivation. <econd, the depiction reflects a widely shared

assumption, one which forms part of the backdrop for debates about the nature of moral

motivation, namely, that moral motivation is a stri!ingl" regular and reliable phenomenon.

"hroughout social life, in both our personal relations and our public interactions, we take it

for granted that moral judgments dependably, if not unfailingly, motivate, that they

effectively influence and guide how people feel and act. <till, the assumption is not wholly

uncontroversial# indeed, some have e!pressed serious doubts regarding whether moralmotivation is as regular and reliable as we commonly suppose =;opp ->>?, @B.

"he basic phenomenon of moral motivation seems relatively straightforward. "he difficult

 philosophical task becomes one of attempting to understand and e!plain more fully and

 precisely the nature of moral motivation. <ections / and 0 e!plore two approaches to the

task. While the approach discussed in section 0 has been predominant, the approach to be

considered briefly in section / provides an instructive contrast, as well as a useful first

glimpse of how ideas about moral motivation have been thought to bear on broader

metaethical $uestions.

2. Moral Motivation and the Nature ofMoral PropertiesWhen we judge that an action is right or wrong or that a state of affairs is good or bad, we

seem to represent the world as being a certain way. We seem to e!press a moral belief,

attributing a particular moral property or normative characteristic to the action or state of

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affairs. "aking the apparent representational form of moral judgments as our lead, we might

try to e!plain moral motivation by appealing to the nature of the properties that figure in our

moral judgments. %erhaps we are reliably motivated by our moral judgments, at least when

those judgments are roughly correct, because moral properties

like rightness and goodness themselves motivate us, when we apprehend them.

1.C. Mackie =->??B famously critici'es this picture of moral properties in his e!tended

argument against the objectivity of ethics. Mackie claims to find something like it in the

work of a number of historical figures, including Dant and <idgwick, but his clearest

 presentation of the picture comes in his remarks about %lato. Mackie writes9 +In %latoEs

theory the :orms, and in particular the :orm of the Food, are eternal, e!tra&mental, realities.

"hey are a very central structural element in the fabric of the world. ut it is held also that

 just knowing them or 5seeing6 them will not merely tell men what to do but will ensure that

they do it, overruling any contrary inclinations. "he philosopher&kings in the #epublic can,

%lato thinks, be trusted with unchecked power because their education will have given them

knowledge of the :orms. eing ac$uainted with the :orms of the Food and 1ustice and

eauty and the rest they will, by this knowledge alone, without any further motivation, be

impelled to pursue and promote these ideals =Mackie ->??, /0G/3B.

;ertain features of %latoEs picture of moral motivationor at least MackieEs characteri'ation

of itmerit attention. :irst, as Mackie construes %latoEs view, moral motivation springs

directly and entirely from moral properties themselves. "hose properties move an agent to

act, and they do so unaided by any additional source of motivation# their motivational power

is wholly intrinsic, depending on no desire or disposition of the individual herself. <econd,

moral properties not only motivate entirely on their own9 they provide overriding  motivation.

Of course, their motivational power depends on an individualEs grasping or apprehendingthem. Once an agent does apprehend them, however, their motivating power overcomes any

opposing desires or inclinations.

In maintaining, as he does, that %latoEs theory of the :orms depicts what objective values

would have to be like, Mackie, in effect, subscribes to =and attributes to %latoB a view

called e$istence internalism. According to e!istence internalism, a necessary connection

e!ists between having a certain normative status and motivation.H- A state of affairs

couldnEt be good, for e!ample, unless it, or at least apprehension of it, was capable of

motivating, though it need not motivate overridingly. If an individual apprehends something

and fails to be moved, then ceteris paribus, it isnEt good. As Mackie describes %latoEs view,objective values provide overriding motivation, and so the view reflects a particularly strong

form of e!istence internalism. "he internalist character of MackieEs %latonic picture curiously

aligns it with contemporary views that similarly accept e!istence internalism, while holding

that the capacity for motivation in fact depends on a pree!isting desire. ;onsider a view

about reasons associated most prominently with ernard Williams =->J-B. According to what

is called internalism about reasons or reasons internalism, it is necessarily the case that if an

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individual has a reason to do an action, he must be able to be motivated to do that action. On

WilliamsE view, in order to be motivated, an individual must have a desire. 4oughly

speaking, then, if a consideration does not motivate a person given her current desires or

+motivational set, it cannot be a reason for her to act. oth the views of Williams and of

MackieEs %lato posit a necessary connection between normative status and motivation, but

the former view makes normative status depend, in a way the latter view would flatly reject,

on an individualsE subjective motives.

MackieEs discussion provides a first illustration of how accounts of moral motivation have

 been deployed to defend or refute broader positions in metaethics. According to Mackie, the

motivating power of objective values, if there were such values, would have to be just as

%lato depicted it. +%latoEs :orms give a dramatic picture of what objective values would have

to be. "he :orm of the Food is such that knowledge of it provides the knower with both a

direction and an overriding motive# somethingEs being good both tells the person who knows

this to pursue it and makes him pursue it. An objective good would be sought by anyone who

was ac$uainted with it, not because of any contingent fact that this person, or every person, is

so constituted that he desires this end, but just because the end has to&be&pursuedness

somehow built into it =Mackie ->??, 3B. Mackie contends that the moral sentences we utter 

when we make moral judgments in fact e!press propositions about just such +objectively

 prescriptive properties# as a result, our moral judgments can be true or false. <o moral

cognitivism the view that moral judgments and beliefs, and the sentences that e!press them,

can be true or falseprovides the correct account of moral semantics, of what our moral

 judgments mean. Fiven that our moral discourse is cognitivist , it would seem to presume the

correctness of moral realism, the view, roughly, that moral judgments and beliefs are truth

evaluable, and some of them are literally true.H/ ut moral discourse suffers from what is

called +presupposition failure, according to Mackie9 moral discourse presupposes

objectively prescriptive properties, but there arenEt any# such properties would have to be

+$ueer entities unlike anything else in the world. "alk about morality is, Mackie evidently

thinks, rather like talk about unicorns. Our +unicorn talk e!presses propositions =at least

assuming it follows medieval legendB about horse&like creatures, tamable only by virgins,

whose spiral horns possess magical powers. ut there are no such creatures, and so our

unicorn talk is systematically in error, though few of us any longer succumb to the error. In

denying the e!istence of moral properties, Mackie rejects moral realism, combining a

cognitivist moral semantics with an error theor". According to the error theory, +although

most people in making moral judgments implicitly claimKto be pointing to somethingobjectively prescriptive, these claims are all false =Mackie ->??, 0@B.H0

Although contemporary philosophers have been divided with respect to MackieEs moral

skepticism, they have mostly agreed in rejecting his e!tremely strong claims about what

moral motivation, and the objective moral properties that figure in our moral judgments,

would have to be like. "hey have uniformly rejected the suggestion that a grasp of moralityEs

re$uirements would produce overriding motivation to act accordingly. And most have

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rejected efforts to e!plain moral motivation by appealing to a motivating power emanating

from moral properties and the acts and states of affairs that instantiate them. One partial

e!ception to this last claim may be worth noting. ;hristine Dorsgaard =->>LB has endorsed

the idea of something like objectively prescriptive entities, though these entities are not, in

her view, moral properties. Dorsgaard shares MackieEs skepticism about objective values of

the sort he describes as figuring in the moral realist views of philosophers like %lato.

 *evertheless, she observes, Mackie is wrong and the realist is right with respect to whether

any e!tant entities can meet the dual criteria of providing the agent who knows of them with

+both a direction and a motive. It is, she insists, +the most familiar fact of human life that

the world contains entities that can tell us what to do and make us do it. "hey are people, and

the others animals =Dorsgaard ->>L, -LLB. Most philosophers, even those sympathetic to

DantEs moral philosophy and to DorsgaardEs brand of Dantianism, find the idea that people

=and non&human animalsB have value and can in that regard +tell us what to do and +make

us do it rather elusive. ut DorsgaardEs claims are part of a large, e!tremely rich picture of

ethics which cannot be e!plored here, and a fair assessment of her claims would re$uireattention to this larger picture. "he important point, for present purposes, is that at least some

 philosophers, Dorsgaard, and perhaps others drawn to ideas deriving from DantEs moral

 philosophy, retain some attraction to the idea that moral motivation and normativity find their 

source in inherently normative or +objectively prescriptive entities.

Whether or not there are any properties or entities with anything like the powers Mackie

describes, it is a mistake to suppose that moral realists and objectivists must be committed to

their e!istence. *o realist or objectivist need think that moral properties, or facts about their

instantiation, will, when apprehended, overridingly move all persons regardless of their

circumstances, including their cognitive and motivational makeup. An individual might grasp

a moral fact, for e!ample, but suffer from temporary irrationality or weakness of will# she

might be free of such temporary defects but possess a more indelible motivational makeup

that impedes or defeats the motivating power of moral facts. Any plausible account of moral

motivation will, and must, acknowledge these sources of motivational failure# and any

 plausible analysis of moral properties must allow for them. 2ven those realists or objectivists

who maintain that all rational  and motivationall" unimpaired  persons will be moved by

moral facts need not think they will be overridingl" moved. As already noted, regardless of

their views with respect to broader metaethical $uestions, contemporary philosophers do not

take any position on the precise strength of moral motivationwith the $ualification

=alluded to earlierB that they reject, apparently universally, the idea that moral motivation isordinarily overriding.

3. Moral Judgment and Motivation%hilosophers have most often attempted to e!plain moral motivation not by appealing to the

special powers of moral properties but by appealing to the nature of moral %udgments.

%erhaps moral judgments are such that no person could sincerely judge an act morally right

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or a state of affairs good, while remaining wholl" unmoved. 2fforts to understand moral

motivation in terms of motivation by moral judgments must confront two central $uestions.

:irst, what is the nature of the connection between moral judgment and motivationdo

moral judgments motivate necessaril" or do they motivate only contingentl") <econd, can

moral judgments motivate on their own or can they motivate only by the intermediation of a

desire or other conative state) Of course, philosophers have answered these $uestions in

varying ways.

3.1 Humeanism v. AntiHumeanism

CetEs consider the second $uestion first. *ow one way in which moral judgments could

motivate, and, indeed, motivate on their own, would be if moral judgments were not

representational after all. <uppose moral judgments did not ascribe properties and e!press

moral beliefs about what things have those properties. <uppose instead, as moral

noncognitivism maintains, that moral judgments e!press desires or other conative states 

what philosophers sometimes call +pro&attitudes. "hen it would be clear how moral judgments connect to motivation. "hey simply e!press a motivating state that the individual

already has# to make a moral judgment is already to be motivated, at least to some degree.

"he real pu''le as to how moral judgments can motivate arises for those who maintain that

moral judgments e!press moral beliefs, for the connection between belief, a cognitive state,

and motivation is uncertain.

(ow philosophers resolve the pu''le turns on a central issue in moral psychology, namely,

whether what is called the &umean theor" of motivation is true. According to the (umean

view, belief is insufficient for motivation, which always re$uires, in addition to belief, the

 presence of a desire or conative state. Moral motivation thus cannot arise from moral beliefalone but must depend as well upon a pree!isting desire or other conative or intrinsically

motivating state. It would perhaps be fair to say that (umeanism continues to be the

dominant view. It has been held both by some who accept and by some who reject

cognitivism and moral realism, so it has not alone been considered decisive in settling

 broader issues in metaethics. "he view has been held by noncognitivist anti&realists, for

e!ample, but also by moral realists like Michael <mith =->>3B and %eter 4ailton =->JLaB. A

number of prominent philosophers, including "homas *agel =->?B, 1ohn Mcowell =->?>B,

Mark %latts =->JB, avid Mc*aughton =->JJB, 1onathan ancy =->>0B, "homas <canlon

=->>JB, and 4uss <hafer&Candau =/0B, have rejected the (umean picture, however, arguing

that, in fact, moral motivation does not depend on the e!istence of desire9 moral belief can

itself give rise to motivation.

%recisely how and under what conditions moral belief can itself motivate is a matter of

dispute among anti&(umeans. <ome hold that moral belief is sufficient to motivate directly.

Merely believing that it is right, say, to keep a promise will move the believer, at least to

some degree, to act so as to keep it. Others hold that moral beliefs produce desires, which

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then motivate in conjunction with the moral beliefs that produced them. elieving that it is

right to keep a promise produces a desire to do so, and these cognitive and conative states

 jointly move the believer, at least to some degree, to act so as to keep the promise. ;ertain

virtue theorists offer a $uite refined version of the latter idea, arguing that only a particular

type of moral beliefone tied to an ideal or complete conception of a situation in light of a

more e!pansive understanding of how to livenecessarily generates in an individual the

motivation to do as a moral belief of that type indicates she ought.H3 "he virtuous person has

not mere moral beliefs but a comple! of moral belief and outlook which will reliably move

her to behave morally. %roponents of various anti&(umean views readily acknowledge that

 persons often fail to be moved and to act as they believe they ought. According to any of

these views, however, a failure of motivation springs from a cognitive failure.

As already noted, many have found the basic (umean picture most plausible. efore

e!amining a few of the considerations thought to favor it, we should make note of the fact

that (umeanism does not itself commit one to any particular view as to the sorts of desires

responsible for moral motivation. A (umean might well take the view that no particular

desire is implicated in moral motivation. On the contrary, varying desires may, when

contingently present, move an individual to do what she judges she ought to do, including the

desire to be well regarded by her neighbors, to advance her interests in some way, or to

 promote the welfare of those who matter to her. Appealing simply to some contingent desire

or other may be inade$uate, however, to e!plain the basic phenomenon of moral motivation.

After all, what needs to be e!plained, many would argue, is not merely how we may, on

occasion or even fre$uently, be motivated to do as we think we ought9 what needs to be

e!plained is how we are reliabl" motivated to do as we think we ought. "hat includes

e!plaining why motivation reliably shifts so as to track changes in our moral beliefs. As we

will see, those who accept the (umean picture have sometimes suggested that we look to

$uite particular desires or to deep features of human psychology to e!plain moral motivation.

One argument in favor of (umean picture alleges that if beliefs were sufficient to motivate,

then we would e!pect people with the same beliefs to be motivated in the same way. In fact,

however, whereas some people are motivated by their moral belief, say, that contributing to

famine relief is a duty, to write a check to O!fam, others feel no such inclination whatsoever.

ut anti&(umeans claim that they can e!plain away these differences by showing either that

differential motivation is in fact due to other differences in belief or to motives that compete

with and override the desires generated by moral beliefs =<hafer&Candau /0, -/>G-0B.

A second argument in favor of (umeanism appeals to the view about reasons associated with

Williams =->J-B, briefly discussed earlier. 4ecall that according to internalism about reasons

or reasons internalism, it is necessarily the case that if an individual has a reason to do an

action, then he must be able to be motivated to do that action. On a more specific version of

the view, an individual has a reason to do an action only if he has a desire to perform that

action or to achieve some end which re$uires doing that action. If internalism about reasons

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is correct, then when an individual correctly judges himself to have a reason to perform an

action, he must already have a pree!isting desire. Anti&(umeans sometimes reject reasons

internalism, as well as the (umean theory of motivation. ut even allowing that reasons

internalism is correct, they believe this second argument fails to undermine their position.

:or it seems possible that not all of our moral judgments involve the judgment =correct or

otherwiseB that we have a reason for action. An individual could, for e!ample, judge that it

would be right to fulfill a promise without judging that she has a reason to do anything. What

might e!plain this) %erhaps, for instance, she fails to reflect on the connection between what

it is right to do and what one has reason to do# or perhaps she mistakenly believes that truths

about morally right action do not entail truths about what one has reason to do. If an

individual can judge an action right without judging that she has a reason to perform the

action, then even if an actionEs being right entails a reason for action and reasons entail

desires, moral beliefs need not involve a pree!isting desire =<hafer&Candau /0, -/JG-/>B. H@

%erhaps the most sophisticated argument in favor of the (umean theory of motivation

appeals to considerations in the philosophy of mind and moral psychology, specifically, to

fundamental differences between belief and desire that would seem to count against anti&

(umeanism.HL elief and desire, as a conceptual matter, it is argued, differ in what has been

called their +direction of fit. "hey differ in such a way, it would seem, that belief states

cannot entail desire states. Whereas beliefs aim to fit the world, desires aim to change the

world. "hat is to say, whereas beliefs have a +mind&to&world direction of fit, desires have a

+world&to&mind direction of fit. :or a mental state to count as a belief, it must be at least

somewhat responsive to evidence that bears on the truth or falsity of its propositional

content# that the facts are contrary to a belief counts against it. In contrast, facts contrary to

the propositional content of a desirethe fact that the world is not currently as one wants 

need not count against that desire. %recisely because desires aim not to answer to the world

 but to make the world answer to them =to make the world fit their propositional contents or

what the desires are desires forB, they may well persist even when the world refuses to

cooperate. Assuming the foregoing claims about belief and desire are true, as they surely are,

so the argument goes, at least some versions of anti&(umeanism would re$uire what is

incoherent, namely, mental states with incompatible directions of fit9 mental states that could

 be at once representational in the way that beliefs are and motivational in the way that desires

are. ut anti&(umeans would argue that their picture of moral motivation via moral belief

need involve no incoherence. "o see this, we need merely consider the possibility that a

mental state could  have opposing directions of fit so long as in e!hibiting each direction offit, the mental state was directed at different propositions9 the virtuous agent +believes

=belief direction of fitB, say, that a state of affairs ' ought to be promoted  and +desires

=desire direction of fitB that ' be brought about  =Cittle ->>?, L3B.H?

Anti&(umeans have offered various considerationssome positive, others negativeto

support their rejection of (umeanism. On the negative side, they attempt to defeat

considerations thought to favor the (umean theory, as we have already seen in the course of

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e!ploring some of those considerations. On the positive side, Anti&(umeans sometimes

appeal to the phenomenology of moral motivation, arguing that it supports their view. Ask

the agent who is sorely tempted to do otherwise why he ultimately acted as he believed

morality re$uired and he will not report his desires at the moment of action# rather, he will

e!plain that he believed the action was the right thing to do=<hafer&Candau /0, -/0B. Our

own e!perience and that of others tells us that although our actions often arise from our

desires, sometimes they arise instead from our evaluative beliefs. As further support for these

claims about the phenomenology of moral motivation, <hafer&Candau has appealed to

nonmoral cases in which motivation seems to follow from belief. ;onsider the individual

who convinces herself that she has a desire she in fact lacks, such as the desire to become a

lawyer. <he enrolls in law school only to find herself unmotivated by her coursework and

dropping out after a summer spent working as a carpenter reveals her love of carpentry

=<hafer&Candau /0, -/@B. What most plausibly e!plains the individualEs enrollment in law

school and her efforts during that first year would seem to be her mistaken belief that she

desired to become a lawyer. Fiven that many of our choices will involve subjecting ourselvesto tedious, even painful, e!periencese!periences which surely none of us desire for their

own sakethe (umean owes us some e!planation of our willingness to persist in such

choices. "he (umean will, it seems, be forced to appeal to some further desire we thereby

seek to satisfy, such as, in the case of the law school drop&out, the desire to become a lawyer.

ut such an e!planation will be implausible in cases in which we are mistaken about our

desires. *o compelling reason can be given to accept a desire&based e!planation of our

actions, <hafer&Candau argues, over the more straightforward e!planation in terms of our

 beliefs.

Net (umeans would insist that there is nothing straightforward about attempts to e!plain

moral motivation and action in terms of beliefs# just recall the argument for (umeanism

 based on differences in +direction of fit between belief and desire. Ceaving that argument to

one side, however, neither the phenomenology of moral motivation nor cases in which

individuals are mistaken about their desires support the anti&(umean view. "he fact that an

individual may cite a belief rather than a desire in e!plaining why she did what she judged to

 be right does nothing to show either that her moral belief directly moved her to act or that it

generated a desire that moved her to act. Individual self&reports are notoriously unreliable

and can hardly settle so fundamental a $uestion about moral psychology. As for cases in

which individuals are =allegedlyB mistaken about their desires, common sense suggests that

the (umean has the more straightforward e!planation. "he (umean might argue that the lawschool drop&out in fact did desire to become a lawyer, or at least to enroll in law school# she

simply didnEt understand what studying law would be like. Once she e!perienced it, she lost

her desire to continue her studies. Alternatively, perhaps she really didnEt desire to become a

lawyer, though she told herself that she did. <till, she was moved to enter law school not by

her bare belief, but by a more deep seated, perhaps not fully conscious desire, such as the

desire to please her parents or to have the prestige or pay that comes with being a lawyer.

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Anti&(umeans have given us no reason to favor their e!planation over the (umean

alternatives. Of course, anti&(umeans need not think the phenomenology, as they suppose it

to be, settles the dispute, but (umeans will insist that it does not even tend to favor the anti&

(umean position.

"he foregoing discussion does not, of course, cover every argument that has been offered inthe longstanding debate between (umeans and anti&(umeans, just a few of the ones that

 philosophers have evidently found most persuasive. Whether and how the debate might be

resolved remains uncertain, in part, because the nature of the dispute is rather unclear. Is it at

 bottom a conceptual dispute to be resolved, for instance, by analysis of the concepts of belief 

and desire) %erhaps, though arguments that appeal to considerations in the philosophy of

mind and moral psychology have thus far proved less than fully convincing. Is the dispute

instead fundamentally empirical) "he tendency to appeal to common sense and the

 phenomenology of moral action would seem to betray some temptation to treat the issue as at

least partly empirical, though perhaps these appeals are meant to serve merely as a check on

conceptual claims. Appeals to our e!perience can, in any case, be just as well, and just as

inconclusively, invoked by those on either side of the debate. In the conte!t of warding off

criticisms of the view that virtue is knowledge, Cittle =->>?B suggests that the dispute is

fundamentally theoretical, implicating large and comple! $uestions about the nature of

agency, normativity, and responsibility. Whether or not that is so, Cittle may be right in

suggesting that the dispute will not be resolvable by appeal to merely local arguments of the

sort we have considered. (ow plausible one finds either side may turn, in the end, on the

 plausibility of the larger normative theories in which these views respectively figure.

3.2 !nternalism v. "#ternalism

Whatever one might conclude as to whether moral judgments or beliefs motivate on their

own or only by means of some pree!isting conative state, a $uestion remains as to the precise

nature of the connection between moral judgment and motivation. o moral judgments

motivate necessaril" or do they motivate only contingentl") If the latter, then how are we to

e!plain why the contingent connection between moral judgment and motivation is as strong

and reliable as it appears to be)

"he main division of opinion regarding the nature of the connection between moral judgment

and motivation is between those philosophers who accept and those who reject a thesis

known asmotivational %udgment internalism. "he latter thesis is a form of %udgmentinternalism, which holds that a necessary connection e!ists between sincere moral judgment

and either justifying reasons or motives9 necessarily, if an individual sincerely judges that she

ought to 7, then she has a reason or motive to 7. 1udgment internalism must be distinguished

from the thesis of e!istence internalism, which we considered earlier. 4ecall that according

to e$istence internalism, a necessary connection e!ists between having a certain normative

status and motivation.HJ A consideration can be a reason or be right&making, for e!ample,

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only if it is capable of motivating. Whereas judgment internalism states a necessary condition

on being a judgment of a certain kind, e!istence internalism states a necessary condition on

 being an act or state or consideration of a certain normative kind.

 (otivational  judgment internalism, hereafter +internalism, holds that a person cannot

sincerely make a moral judgment without being motivated  as least to some degree to abide by her judgment. Internalism can assume weaker or stronger forms, depending on whether

one allows that the connection between moral judgment and motivation is defeasible and on

 precisely how strong the motivation is taken to be. We might call +strong internalism the

view that, necessarily, the person who makes a sincere moral judgment will

 be overridingl" motivated to comply with her judgment. MackieEs view of what objective

moral properties must be like involves, as we have seen, a strong e!istence internalism akin

to strong internalism about moral judgments. ;ontemporary moral philosophers have been

no more attracted to so strong a claim when moral motivation is tied to moral judgment than

they have been when moral motivation is tied to moral properties. More commonly, they

have accepted forms of what we might call +weak internalism, which allows that even

though, necessarily, the person who makes a sincere moral judgment will

feel some motivation to comply with it, that motivation can be overridden by conflicting

desires and defeated by a variety of mental maladies, such as depression and weakness of

will. <mith =->>3B has advanced an even weaker version of internalism, or what he calls the

+practicality re$uirement, maintaining a necessary connection between moral judgment and

motivation, at least in the +good and strong&willed person.

As should already be evident, those who accept one or another form of motivational

 judgment internalism have a ready e!planation of the reliability of moral motivation,

including the reliability of motivational shifting so as to track changes in moral judgment.Indeed, one argument offered in favor of internalism is that only if we accept it can we

 plausibly e!plain why changes in moral motivation reliably follow upon changes in moral

 judgment =<mith ->>3, ?-G?LB. <uppose 1ones and "homson are debating the moral

 permissibility of abortion. 1ones is inclined to believe abortion is morally wrong. <he has

 been known to join the protest line outside of a local abortion clinic and to try to dissuade

women from having abortions. "homson, in contrast, believes abortion is morally

 permissible. <uppose that after e!tensive discussion, "homson convinces 1ones that the more

 plausible arguments support the permissibility of abortion. What would people reasonably

 predict in terms of 1onesEs future conduct) "hey would reasonably predict, among other

things, that she would no longer be inclined to join the protest line and that she would desist

from her efforts to discourage other women from having abortions. ut that prediction rests

 precisely on the e!pectation that, at least insofar as 1ones is a good and strong&will person 

not depressed or apathetic or suffering from weakness of willwhat she is motivated to do

will have been altered in response to the change in her moral judgment, which is just what

internalism would have us e!pect. If internalism is true, then, we can readily account for

motivational changes. "he reliable connection between moral judgment and motivation is,

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ultimately, best e!plained internally as due to the very content or nature of moral judgment

itself =<mith ->>3, ?/B. "hose who accept internalism will, of course, ultimately owe us an

account of the content of moral judgments that e!plains and captures the necessary

connection that supposedly e!ists between moral judgment and motivation.H>

"he thesis that directly opposes motivational judgment internalism, motivational e$ternalism,or just e$ternalism, denies the e!istence of a necessary connection between moral judgment

and motivation. According to e!ternalism, any connection that e!ists between moral

 judgment and motivation is purely contingent, though it may turn out to rest on deep features

of human nature.H-"he foregoing argument in favor of internalism in effect denies that

e!ternalism can ade$uately e!plain the basic phenomenon of moral motivation and, in

 particular, the reliable shifting of moral motivation to match changes in moral judgment. ut

why think e!ternalism will be e!planatorily inade$uate) Once we have the internalist thesis

about the necessary connection between moral judgment and motivation, it seems we have,

as it were, the whole story9 if an individual makes a moral judgment, she is, ceteris paribus,

motivated# if she is not motivated, she was not making a sincere and competent moral

 judgment at all, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. ecause the e!ternalist denies

the e!istence of a necessary connection between moral judgment and motivation, the

e!ternalist thesis leaves us in need of an independent e!planation of moral motivation. "he

internalist maintains that any such e!planation will fall short.

According to one important version of the internalist challenge, offered by Michael <mith,

the e!ternalist would have to e!plain the connection between moral judgment and

motivation e$ternall"as due not to the content of moral judgments but, rather, the +content of

the motivational dispositions possessed by the good and strong&willed person =<mith ->>3,

?/B. ut this allegedly commits the e!ternalist to an unacceptable picture of moralmotivation. "he internalist will say that an agent who is moved to do the right thing is moved

to do the very thing that is given by the content of her moral judgment# she is motivated to do

the right thing, +where this is read de re and not de dicto =?0B. "he person who judges it

right to perform an act that advances anotherEs welfare, for e!ample, ac$uires and is moved

 by a non&derivative desire or concern to advance his welfare. In contrast, the e!ternalist must

say that an agent is moved to do what she judges right due to the content of the motivational

dispositions that she has in being a good person. "he $uestion then is what those dispositions

might be. "hey cannot be nonderivative concerns for the values her judgment is about, such

as anotherEs welfare, for in the case in which a personEs judgment changes, her motivation

changes. If motivational shifting is to be e!plained in terms of the motivational dispositions

of the good person, rather than in terms of the content of her moral judgments, then the only

disposition that could do the e!plaining would be the motivation to do the right thing ,

whatever it happens to be# the good person is motivated to do the right thing, +where this is

read de dicto and not de re =?@B. According to <mith, such a view implausibly treats moral

motivation as derivative# it derives from the desire to do the right thing together with a

 personEs current moral judgment about the right thing to do. A person desires to promote

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anotherEs good, not  non&derivatively because she judges it right to promote his good and so

desires to do just that, but because she desires to do what is right, and that just happens to be

 promoting his good. ut the good person, <mith claims, cares non-derivativel" about justice,

e$uality, and the welfare of loved ones. "o care non&derivatively only about doing what one

 believes right, to be motivated in that way, and not by these other things, is +a fetish or moral

vice =?@B. <mith suggests that in taking the good person to be motivated to do what she

 believes morally right, whatever that might be, the e!ternalist picture +alienates her from the

ends at which morality properly aims =?LB.

2!ternalists have responded to this challenge by pointing out that the fact that a good person

is motivated to do what she thinks right does not preclude her from also being motivated

non&derivately by direct concern, for e!ample, for the welfare of loved ones. "hey have also

argued that there is nothing fetishistic in supposing that the good person is motivationally

disposed to do the right thing and that, in any case, alternative e!ternalist e!planations of a

reliable connection between moral judgment and motivation are available =;opp ->>?, 3>G 

@B. An individual could, for e!ample, simply be disposed to desire immediately to do

whatever she believes it right to do or whatever she judges to be valuable =;opp ->>?, @G 

@-B. <igrun <vavarsdottir =->>>B has argued that while <mith is mistaken when he claims that

the e!ternalistEs only option for e!plaining motivational shifting is to appeal to a desire to do

the right thing, something close to the view <mith rejects provides just the right e!ternalist

 picture of moral motivation. We should, on her view, understand the good person as

concerned with doing what is morally valuable or re$uired, where that concern should be

understood to encompass what is honest, fair, kind, considerate, just, and so on. "he fact that

the good person is so motivationally disposed does not mean, as <mith seems to suggest, that

she cares only about one thing, namely, doing what she believes is right. *or does it mean

that she undertakes an act conceiving of it simply as the right thing to do. On the contrary, it

is compatible with the e!ternalist picture that the good person will often simply respond

directly to anotherEs need for comfort or relief. :inally, an e!ternalist view that conceives of

the good person as motivated by the desire to be moral does not involve introducing an alien

=or alienatingB thought+itEs the right thing to do into her consciousness in order to

e!plain moral motivation. 4ather, having formed the moral judgment that she ought to 7, the

desire to be moral plays, in the good person, a role in effecting the +psychological transition

from judging it right to 7 to wanting to 7 =<vavarsdottir ->>>, /-B.

Indeed, the point on which perhaps most e!ternalists want to insist is that some conative state

must be at work in the movement from judging it right to 7 to wanting or being moved to 7.

We do not, after all, the e!ternalist will remind us, see this movement occur in all  moral

agents# some will judge it right to 7 without coming to want to 7. 2!ternalists typically take

it as a point of common sense observation that wide variation e!ists in the impact moral

 judgments have on peopleEs feelings, deliberations, and actions =<vavarsdottir ->>>, -L-B.

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ebates between internalists and e!ternalists often center on the figure of the +amoralist 

the person who apparently makes moral judgments, while remaining wholly unmoved to

comply with them. Internalists insist that the amoralist is a conceptual impossibility. "he

standard strategy internalists employ to cope with the hypothetical amoralist is to identify a

content for moral judgments which would have the result that no agent =or no rational  agent,

anywayB could employ moral concepts competently and make a sincere moral judgment,

while remaining unmoved. Internalists allow that moral motivation need not be overriding#

competing desires may be stronger and so may win out. "hey allow, too, that moral

motivation is defeasible# a person may judge it right to 7, while failing to be moved to 7, due

to depression or weakness of will. ;ases of irrationality aside, however, the person

who appears to be making a moral judgment, while remaining unmoved, must really either

lack competence with moral concepts or be speaking insincerely. In the latter case, she

 judges an act +right only in an +inverted commas sense, as when the unrepentant criminal,

seeking a lesser sentence, tells the judge, in a remorseful tone, that he knows what he did was

+wrong.

2!ternalists maintain that the amoralist is not a conceptual impossibility. After all, if we can

imagine such personsand we surely can imagine amoraliststhen they are not

conceptually impossible =<hafer&Candau /0, -3LB. ;ontrary to what internalists claim,

individuals can sincerely and competently apply moral concepts without being motivated in

any specific way. While some amoralists may use moral terms only in an inverted commas

sense, not all cases of motivational failure can be e!plained away as cases of irrationality,

conceptual incompetence, or insincerity.

At this point in the dialectic, internalists and e!ternalists tend to produce additional cases and

 probe our intuitions further in an effort to overcome what seems an impasse. 2!ternalists, for e!ample, may invite us to consider cases in which a person judges it right to 7, while

 believing it would in fact be impossible to succeed in doing 7, or cases in which she thinks

doing 7 would markedly interfere with her welfare or would prevent her from obtaining

something she dearly desires. oesnEt it seem plausible that in such cases a person could

 judge it right to 7, while failing to be moved to 7) More generally, e!ternalists argue that

internalists cannot make sense of moralityEs historical challengerthe skeptic who asks,

+Why be moral)

2!ternalists maintain that they can fully and ade$uately account for the strong but ultimately

contingent connection between moral judgment and motivation, offering variouse!planations of how moral judgments reliably motivate. As we have seen, <vavarsdottir

seeks to e!plain moral motivation by appealing to a particular conative state, namely, the

desire to do what is morally valuable or re$uiredthe desire, in short to be moral. %eter

4ailton appeals to the concern people generally have to be able to justify their choices and

conduct from a more impartial standpoint. ut he also apparently thinks that peopleEs more

ordinary motives play a part# at least this is suggested when he remarks that, if we really

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want people to take morality seriously, +we should ask how we might change the ways we

live so that moral conduct would more regularly be rational given the ends we actually have

=4ailton ->JLa, /0B. According to avid rink, e!ternalism makes the motivational force of 

our moral judgments +a matter of contingent psychological fact, depending on both the

content of peopleEs moral views and their attitudes and desires =rink ->J>, 3>B. <till, these

attitudes and desires may be widely shared and rooted in central features of human nature.

<uppose, as the philosopher avid (ume maintained, that sympathy is a deep and widely

shared feature of human psychology. "hen, rink observes, while it may be a contingent fact

that most people will have some desire to comply with what they believe morality re$uires, it

will also be a deep fact about them. +Moral motivation, on such a view, can be widespread

and predictable, even if it is neither necessary, nor universal, nor overriding =rink ->J>,

3>B.

%hilosophers who endorse e!ternalism commonly also endorse (umeanism. Indeed, some

contend that the basic observation that supports the former thesis also lends support to the

latter thesis9 wide variation in the motivational impact of moral judgments suggests not only

that they motivate contingently but that they do so via some conative state. <till, e!ternalists

need not be (umeans. <hafer&Candau, who rejects both (umeanism and internalism, holds

that moral beliefs are indeed intrinsically motivatingthey can motivate by themselves. ut

contra internalism, they are not necessarily motivating. Intrinsically motivating beliefs may

fail to motivate under conditions of e!treme e!haustion, serious depression, or overwhelming

contrary impulses =<hafer&Candau /0, -3?G-3JB. "he fact that <hafer&Candau treats the

defeasibility of moral motivation under such conditions as supporting a form of e!ternalism,

whereas <mith treats defeasibility under like conditions as compatible with a form of

internalism, suggests some disagreement among philosophers as to precisely when a view

should be classified as a form of internalism or e!ternalism.H--

$. Moral Motivation and Metaethics%hilosophical thinking about the phenomenon of moral motivation has long overlapped with

and influenced ongoing efforts to address foundational $uestions in ethics. Of special

importance has been the use of ideas concerning the nature of moral motivation to

support anti-realism in ethicsthe view that contrary to the claims of moral realists, there

are no moral facts, no truths about what morality re$uires, forbids, or permits. We have

already seen one e!ample of how ideas about moral motivation might bear on broader

metaethical views in MackieEs criti$ue of ethical objectivism. As noted earlier, Mackie

defends cognitivist anti-realism, a form of anti&realism that couples cognitivism with an error 

theory. According to cognitivist anti&realism, although ethical sentences e!press propositions

about objectively prescriptive propertiesones with +to&be&pursuedness built inno such

 properties e!ist# and due to this presupposition failure, we are systematically in error in our

moral judgments.

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"he development of metaethical theories over roughly the past seventy years has perhaps

 been shaped most profoundly by the use of certain theses about moral motivation to

supportnoncognitivist anti-realism. )oncognitivist  anti&realism, like cognitivist anti&realism,

rejects the e!istence of moral properties and moral facts. ut unlike the latter view, it rejects

cognitivism in favor of noncognitivism, which as traditionally depicted is the view that moral

 judgments e!press attitudes rather than beliefs and propositions, and that, conse$uently, they

are not truth evaluable.H-/

<hafer&Candau =/0B offers a formulation of what he calls the )on-cognitivist *rgument ,

which helpfully makes e!plicit how theses that have figured in efforts to understand moral

motivation have been employed to support noncognitivist anti&realism9

-. *ecessarily, if one sincerely judges an action right, then one is motivated to some

e!tent to act in accordance with that judgment. = (otivational +udgment nternalismB

/. When taken by themselves, beliefs neither motivate nor generate any motivationallyefficacious states. = (otivational &umeanismB

0. "herefore, moral judgments are not beliefs. = (oral )on-cognitivismBH-0

ecause every form of cognitivism and moral realism hold that moral judgments are beliefs,

that some moral judgments are true, and that therefore there are moral facts, the

noncognitivist argument entails that moral realism is false.

;ontemporary philosophers who have sought to defend versions of moral realism or

objectivism have had to come to grips with this basic line of argument, even if they have not

always engaged it e!plicitly. "he *on&cognitivist Argument therefore provides us with auseful tool for mapping out competing positions in metaethics. We can categori'e

 philosophersE positions negatively in terms of which premises of the noncognitivist argument

they accept or reject.H-3 <ome have rejected premise -, often going on to defend forms

of naturalist moral realism that embrace e!ternalism =e.g. 4ailton ->JL# rink ->J>B.

According to the latter views, moral properties are a kind of natural property and moral facts

are natural facts. 1udgments about these facts e!press propositions, and so they can be true or 

false, but these judgment do not necessarily motivate. Whether our moral judgments

motivate us is fi!ed by contingent facts about our psychologies and our substantive moral

 beliefs. <ome have rejected premise /, aligning themselves with versions of moral

constructivism or rationalism =e.g. arwall ->J0# <canlon ->>JB. "he latter views takewidely varying forms, but they generally see moral principles as re$uirements of rationality

or reason, or as the output of a hypothetical agreement among reasonable, suitably situated

 persons. Moral reasons are considerations that are motivating, at least when we properly

reflect on them, but their motivating force does not depend on a prior desire. <ome have

rejected both premises - and /, defending forms of nonnaturalist moral realism =<hafer&

Candau /0B. Moral properties, on this view, are not identical with natural or descriptive

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 properties, although they may be wholly constituted by them. Moral judgments are

intrinsically motivatingthey can motivate in the absence of a pree!isting desire, but they

are not necessarily motivating. :inally, some have accepted both premises - and /, at least

appropriately refined, arguing that we can see them both to be compatible with moral realism

=<mith ->>3B. *ormative reasons are given by facts about what we would, suitably ideali'ed,

want ourselves to desire# and the e!istence of such facts means that some desires are

rationally re$uired. If we believe ourselves to have a normative reason to 7, then rationally

we ought to 7, and in judging that we have normative reason to 7, we will necessarily,

insofar as we are rational, be moved to 7. "he concept of rightness is the concept of what we

would desire ourselves to do in our actual world, were we fully rational. When we believe it

would be right to 7, then, we will, insofar as we are rational, be motivated to 7.

"he debate about moral motivation has been presented in this entry following a fairly

common way of framing it. ut "homas <canlon =->>J, ch. 3B suggests that the debate about

moral motivation has, in fact, been misleadingly framed. It would, he claims, be better

understood as concerned not with motivation but with understanding the reasons people

have. According to <canlonEscontractualism, an action is wrong +if its performance under the

circumstances would be disallowed by any set of principles for the regulation of behavior

that no one could reasonably reject as a basis for informed, unforced general agreement

=-@0B. Moral motivation, on his view, re$uires no appeal to a conative state. 4ather, we can

e!plain how persons are moved, say, to avoid wrongful actions +by the fact that people have

reason to want to act in ways that could be justified to others, together with the fact that

when a rational person recogni'es something as a reason we do not need a further

e!planation of how he or she could be moved to act on it =-@3B. <canlonEs position turns on

a number of controversial ideas, among them, rejection of the (umean theory and, perhaps

most important, his contractualism together with his view about the normative primacy of

reasons.

:ull consideration of <canlonEs rich system of thought would obviously take us far afield. It

is worth simply registering here, however, his suggestion that the debate about moral

motivation has been framed improperly. :or his suggestion serves to illustrate that how we

ought to understand the debate about moral motivation is itself a matter open to dispute.

"heses about moral motivation have shaped arguments about foundational issues in ethics.

ut as <canlonEs own ideas suggest, views about foundational issues in ethics may in turn

shape both how we understand the $uestion of moral motivation and how we answer it.

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cognitivism vs. non&cognitivism, moral T moral anti&realism T moral non&naturalism T moralrealism Tnaturalism9 moral T practical reason9 and the structure of actions T Williams, ernard

Ac)no*ledgments

I want to thank <arah uss for helpful suggestions on an earlier draft.