rosati - internal ism and the good for a person

8/9/2019 Rosati - Internal Ism and the Good for a Person

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Internalism and the Good for a PersonAuthor(s): Connie S. RosatiSource: Ethics, Vol. 106, No. 2 (Jan., 1996), pp. 297-326Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2382061

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298 Ethics January 1996X can have a certain normative status N only if someone A would bemotivated by it in sense M. Thus, depending upon the area of norma-tive assessment, something can be a reason or an obligation or a valueof a certain kind only if that thing could appropriately motivate theappropriate person or persons. Proponents of internalist accounts ofa person's good hold that something can be intrinsically, nonmorallygood for an individual person A only if-she herself would desire it (ordesire to desire it), at least under suitably ideal conditions.2One need not accept internalism as a global thesis about normati-vity to find it a compelling thesis about some normative categories.Internalism about a person's good has seemed to many to have particu-larly strong intuitive appeal. Expressing his own acceptance of inter-nalism, Peter Railton remarks, "It does seem to me to capture animportant feature of the concept of intrinsic value to say that what isintrinsically valuable for a person must have a connection with whathe would find in some degree compelling or attractive, as least if hewere rational and aware. It would be an intolerably alienated concep-tion of someone's good to imagine that it might fail in any such wayto engage him."3The principal intuition supporting internalism about a person'sgood, as aptly expressed by Railton, is that an individual's good mustnot be something alien-it must be "made for" or "suited to" her.4But something can be made for or suited to an individual, the thoughtgoes, only if a concern for that thing lies within her motivational

2. The relevant motivation is typically taken to be a desire (first or second order)or a preference for a given thing. Obviously, if internalism is to be a substantial thesis,ideal conditions cannot include those in which a person has the information that X isgood for her. For recent proponents of accounts of a person's good that satisfy inter-nalism see John Rawls, A TheoryoflJustice Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,1971), pp. 395-433; Richard B. Brandt, A Theoryof the Goodand the Right (Oxford:Clarendon, 1979); Peter Railton, "Moral Realism," Philosophical Review 95 (1986):163-207, "Facts and Values," Philosophical Topics 14 (1986): 5-31, and "Naturalismand Prescriptivity," SocialPhilosophyand Policy7 (1990): 151-74; David Gauthier, MoralsbyAgreement Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), chap. 2; John C. Harsanyi, "Mo-rality and the Theory of Rational Behavior," in Utilitarianismand Beyond, ed. AmartyaSen and Bernard Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 39-62;and James Griffin, Well-Being:Its Meaning, Measurement,and Moral Importance Oxford:Clarendon, 1986), esp. pp. 31-32. Darwall endorses Rawls's account of a person's goodin ImpartialReason, pt. 2. For a more recent dispositional theory of value that endorsesinternalism, see David Lewis, "Dispositional Theories of Value," Proceedingsof the Aristo-telian Society,suppl. vol. 63 (1989): 113-37.3. Railton, "Facts and Values," p. 9.4. David Velleman finds a different intuitive basis for internalism in the subjectivistthought that value can exist only in virtue of beings for whom things can matter. SeeJ. David Velleman, "Is Motivation Internal to Value?" in Preferences, d. Georg Meggle,Christoph Fehige, and Ulla Wessels (in press). I prefer to treat this consideration assuggesting what I will latter describe as a metaphysical argument for internalism.


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Rosati Internalismand the Good 299capacity: what is good for her must connect with what she would find"in some degree compelling or attractive, at least if [she] were rationaland aware." In this way, there must be a "fit"between an individualand her good.Theorists about the good do not always explicitly endorse inter-nalism. But it must lie behind a now standard strategy for defendingboth subjectivist theories of the good and value pluralism, and so mustpartly explain the popularity of these views.5 Hedonists like Sidgwickcommonly argue that so-called ideal goods, such as beauty and knowl-edge, have no value apart from their relation to human happinessand would not be regarded as desirable if they did not tend to promotehappiness.6 Desire theorists in turn commonly reject hedonism byappealing to examples such as that of Nozick's experience machine,which they take to show that we care about things besides pleasure.7More generally, value pluralism arises from a rejection of monism:we care about more than can be captured by any single value such aspleasure or intellectual pursuits-indeed, we may not all be able tocare about the alleged single value-so a good consisting simply ofwhat satisfies a monistic standard would not be suited to us.8 Onecould not reasonably think that appeals to what we care about wouldso decisively either favor hedonism or rule out any monistic theoryunless one thought that our capacity to care about a thing is at leasta necessary condition on its being good for us.Given the widespread tendency to defend accounts of nonmoralvalue in a way that presupposes internalism, it is surprising how littledirect defense has been given for the thesis that a plausible accountof a person's good must satisfy internalism. Those defenses that havebeen offered have rarely received adequate development. As a result,those who accept this thesis have tended at best only implicitly torecognize the kind of connection to motivation that the central intu-ition behind internalism requires.

5. By 'subjectivist theories', I mean theories according to which a person's goodeither consists in or crucially depends upon certain positive psychological states orproattitudes, such as pleasure or (actual or counterfactual) desires. Here I roughlyfollow Brink, pp. 220-21.6. Henry Sidgwick, TheMethodsofEthics, 7th ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981), pp.400-402, 113- 15.7. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic, 1974), p. 42. See,e.g., Griffin, pp. 9-10. Curiously, even some who seem to reject internalism makearguments that rely upon it. See Brink's use of Nozick's example to reject hedonism(Brink, pp. 223-24).8. For example, a long tradition of scholarship criticizes Aristotle's intellectualistpicture in book 10 of NichomacheanEthicsas too narrow an account of the human good.For a recent defense of Aristotle's conception(s) of happiness, see Gavin Lawrence,"Aristotle and the Ideal Life," PhilosophicalReview 102 (1993): 1-34.


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300 Ethics January 1996My aims in this article are two. First, I intend to show that theprincipal intuition behind internalism supports a stronger version ofthe thesis than it might at first appear-one that effects a "double

link" to motivation. Second, I will identify and develop the main argu-ments that have been or might be given in defense of internalismabout a person's good, showing how these arguments support thisstronger version of internalism. Together, these arguments present acase for internalism about a person's good that is sufficiently strong,I suggest, to require a serious response from anyone who would stillreject it.9THE PROBLEM WITH SIMPLE INTERNALISMIn- its simplest form, internalism about a person's good tells us thatsomething cannot be good for a particular individual unless it canmotivate her. It thus offers only a necessary condition that must be metby any putative good for a person. Not everything that can motivate aperson, of course, is a part of her good. The notion of a person'sgood-of what would make her life go well-serves to distinguishwhat a person may uncritically desire or find motivating from whatwould be of genuine value to her. The task for those who woulddevelop an internalist theory of a person's good is to strengthen "sim-ple internalism" by supplying whatever additional conditions serve todelimit the extension of a person's good.As a preliminary matter, however, simple internalism itself needsrefinement. In what sense must a person's good be something thatcan motivate or engage her? The idea that a person's good must besomething than can motivate her would seem to suggest that some-thing can be good for her only if she can be moved to seek it. Thiswould seem to require in turn that she antecedently want or desire it.

9. Critics of internalism about a person's good fall into two camps. Those in thefirst camp reject internalism about goodness entirely. It includes externalists who, likeMoore, hold a nonnaturalistic account of good, proponents of what Derek Parfit callsan "objective list theory," and certain perfectionists. See G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903), esp. pp. 81-85; Panayot Butchvarov,"That Simple, Indefinable, Nonnatural Property 'Good',"Reviewof Metaphysics 6 (1982):51-75; Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984), pp. 499-500;Thomas Hurka, "'Good' and 'Good For'," Mind 96 (1987): 71-73, and Perfectionism(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), see pp. 17, 27. The second camp includesobjectivists and perfectionists who may accept internalism about the good for humanswhile rejecting internalism about an individual's good. Some perfectionists might hold,for instance, that something can be good for human beings only if it can motivate ormatter to most (normal) humans, given their essential nature, while rejecting thatsomething can be good for an individual only if it can motivate or matter to her. Onthe latter view, the person who cannot care about the human good is simply someonewho will miss out on her good. For a discussion of the various forms that perfectionismcan take, see Hurka, Perfectionism.


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Rosati Internalismand the Good 301A person's good will, of course, includes many things that she couldantecedently desire. But it will also include many things that she didnot or could not antecedently desire, as well as things that she canacquire only by accident, or at least not by direct effort.10 A personcan fall in love, for instance, with someone that he met by chance, orbenefit from the kindness of strangers, or delight in a spontaneousadventure. Our good is perhaps achieved as much through serendipityas through rational endeavor. Yet as long as we can care about or likeor be glad of something once we acquire or experience it, this seemsenough to satisfy the intuition behind internalism. Internalism abouta person's good should thus not be characterized in relation to motiva-tion narrowly construed. Rather, it should be characterized in relationto motivation in the broad sense. In this sense, to motivate is to promptor elicit a proattitude-such as desiring, liking, being glad of, caringabout, and so on-an attitude which may or may not be a motive toaction. To say that something must motivate, in the broad sense, tobe part of a person's good, is to say that it must be something thatcan, in a positive way, matter to her or be an object of her concern.11For simplicity, I shall from here on simply speak in terms of caringabout a thing. This locution is not intended to designate the strongsense of caring about a thing that contrasts with merely liking orwanting it. Instead, 'caring about' should be understood to stand forhaving one or another of those proattitudes that we commonly havetoward things plausibly regarded as a part of our good. Anything thata person is capable of caring about in this sense is a possible object ofher concern. Let's understand simple internalism, then, as follows:something X can be good for a person A only if A is capable of caringabout X. X, to be good for A, must be a possible object of her concern.12

Simple internalism represents perhaps the most minimal condi-tion that must be met if something is to be a part of a person's good.But simple internalism is clearly too weak: it counts as possible goodsfor a person things that would violate the intuition that inspires inter-nalism-the intuition that a person's good must suit her, that it cannotbe something alien to her.

10. Velleman makes this point in "Is Motivation Internal to Value?" See alsoGriffin, p. 11.11. I here follow an idea of Ve'lleman's. He construes internalism, however, asrequiring a relation to affect. I talk in terms of motivation broadly construed andproattitudes, because the term 'affect' may have connotations of emotion or feeling thatare unnecessary to the relationship between a person and her good that internalismseeks to capture. Moreover, 'affect' suggests a passive state and so may not capture therange of relevant attitudes.12. Velleman characterizes internalism along basically these lines. See his discus-sion for a distinction between two senses of a person's good and two correspondingversions of internalism,


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302 Ethics January 1996A creature's biological nature limits what it is capable of caringabout, and thus what is a possible object of its concern. But within thelimits imposed by its biology, a creature may be capable of caring

about a vast number of things. What it actually comes to care aboutwill depend upon the conditions under which it is placed. A horse'sbiological nature, for instance, limits what it can care about. But withvarious amounts of tinkering, it might come to care about things thatwould never have mattered to it but for our tinkering. By the sametoken, though a person A's physiology and psychology limit what sheis capable of caring about, what she comes to care about will alsodepend upon the conditions under which she is placed. If A is subjectedto hypnosis, or brain surgery at the hands of a mad neurosurgeon, orreligious indoctrination, she may come to care about all sorts of thingsthat she would not have cared about otherwise. Yet what she wouldcare about under conditions like these may be just as alien to her asthose things that she cannot care about at all. They lie within hermotivational capacities but do not suit or fit her. Rather, we wouldgenerally say, she has been made to fit them.I say that such things may be as alien to her as what she cannotcare about at all, because, in an important sense, simple internalismis right to treat a person's good as so elastic. A plausible account of aperson's good must surely allow that her good could include what shewould want only after undergoing various transformations. And notjust because once a person is transformed, the things she comes tocare about may suit her changed self, however unsuitable they wereto her in her unaltered condition. There are two reasons why anaccount of a person's good must allow for this. First, it might well begood for a person to alter herself or allow herself to be altered so thather "latent" concerns for certain things are actualized. It might bebetter for her to be the person she would be with those concerns thanthe person she is now with her present concerns. A person mightindeed be able to endorse the changes that would lead her to acquirethese new concerns, and in this sense, even those things she wouldwant only after markedly changing can still suit her. But second, with-out undergoing some changes, a person may be unable to care aboutthings that are a part of her good as the person she currently is, andthat she would recognize as such, if only she were in a position toappreciate them.The worry about simple internalism, then, is not that it counts aspossible goods for a person things that she would care about onlyafter undergoing marked alterations. The problem is that it counts aspossible goods for her anything that she could be brought to careabout no matter how arbitrary the alterations. To say that a person'sgood must suit her is not to say that her good must fit her just as shecurrently is. But it is to say that her good cannot consist either in what


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Rosati Internalismand the Good 303she is incapable of caring about or what she would come to care aboutonly by undergoing an alteration that places her under "alienated"conditions. Her good must include only objects of possible concernwithin the range of nonarbitrary, nonalienated alterations. The initialdifficulty for efforts to further strengthen internalism lies with ex-plaining when alterations count as nonarbitrary.Now one response to the problem for simple internalism wouldbe to reformulate internalism so as to make a tight connection betweena person's good and what she can care about as she is, without whatwe would intuitively regard as a marked alteration of her presentcondition. In this sense, she can now care about what she does careabout, but also what she would care about were she, say, simply givena bit of information. Thus, we might reformulate simple internalismas "strict internalism": something X can be good for a person A onlyif she can care about X without any marked alteration of her presentcondition. But strict internalism makes the connection to the actualperson far tighter than is supported by the intuition that drives inter-nalism. That intuition is not that a person's good cannot be somethingalien to her no matter what her present condition; rather it is that hergood must suit her by connecting with what she would find compelling,at least if she were rational and aware. As already noted, a personmay be unable in her present condition to care about something thatshe would care about under other conditions and that we are perfectlyprepared to regard as a part of her good. Her unaltered condition,after all, might itself be one in which she is seriously impaired. Evenwhere she is not seriously impaired, in her present state, she may beincapable of appreciating important information or unable to reasoncarefully, and so may be unable to care about X. We often regard whata person would care about while in an altered state as a part of hergood because the very character of that state confers authority on aperson's responses while she is in it.If internalism is to remain faithful to the intuition that inspiresit, it must be formulated so as to avoid two extremes. On the onehand, it must not hold that something can be good for a person onlyif the actual, unaltered person can care about it, for this ties a person'sgood too closely to her present condition, however defective. On theother hand, although it must allow that, in some sense, anything sheis capable of caring about might be good for her, it must not include aspossible goods for her what she would care about only under alienatedconditions. Internalism must treat a person's capacity to care counter-factually, while constraining counterfactual conditions so that theypermit as possible goods for a person only what can recognizably fitor suit her.We might begin to characterize a stronger internalist constraintas follows: something X can be good for a person A only if A would


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304 Ethics January 1996care about X for her actual self, were A under appropriate conditionsand contemplating the situation of her actual self as someone aboutto assume her position.13 This formulation captures the thought thatwhat a person would care about while under a given set of conditionscan serve to delimit her good only if those conditions are themselvesappropriate. Moreover, it recognizes that what may be good for aperson as she would be under ideal conditions may not be good forher as her actual self. 14 Furthermore, by requiring A under appropriateconditions to contemplate the position of her actual self as someoneabout to assume that position, it insures that counterfactual A willcome to care about things for actual A. She will prefer, for instance,that actual A undertake certain pursuits over others. The constraintis thus formulated so that the person A is under appropriate conditionsserves to fix the good of the person she is under actual conditions.Notice that this formulation of the internalist constraint, by requi-ring only that A would care about X for her actual self, allows for thevariety of relationships in which an actual person might stand to hergood. In cases of "indirection," for instance, something might be goodfor a person, but she will not be able to achieve it if she wants to haveit or if she pursues it directly. Suppose that doing well on an importantexam, for instance, will greatly affect a person's future happiness, butwhenever she cares about doing well, she does worse than when shedoes not care about doing well. In such a case, doing well may begood for her and, just for that reason, caring about doing well is not.The formulation allows for such cases. A may care about X for heractual self, without wanting her actual self to have a desire for X;indeed, she may want her actual self not to want X in order that shemay have or achieve X. Of course, A may sometimes want her actualself to want X. A person's good may in such cases even include chang-ing the person she is under actual conditions, so that she would cometo want what she would counterfactually want her self to want. Inother cases, though, A may only care that her actual self have orreceive X and that she act to achieve it where X can be gained bydirect effort.Ultimately, a plausible internalist account of a person's good willlikely follow this last formulation, but a crucial question must first beanswered. How are we to constrain what shall count as "appropriate"conditions? To satisfy the intuition supporting internalism and avoidthe problem for simple internalism, we must insure that these condi-

13. I talk in terms of what a person would want under appropriate conditions,rather than what she could want, since the canonical way of testing whether a personcould want X under C is to put her in C and see if she would want it.14. On the need for this distinction, see Railton, "Moral Realism," p. 174, n. 15;and Griffin, pp. 11-12.


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Rosati Internalismand the Good 305tions do not themselves strike us as alien. Yet how conditions may nowsit with a person need not settle their appropriateness any more thanwhether she can now care about something settles whether it is goodfor her. We need a way to rule out alienated conditions, withoutallowing the appropriateness of conditions to depend upon how theynow strike a person, whatever her present state might be.We can do so by requiring that a person regard counterfactualconditions as appropriate not in her present state, but under ordinaryoptimal conditions. These would include that a person not be sleeping,drugged, or hypnotized, that she be thinking calmly and rationally,and that she not be overlooking any readily available information.This list of conditions is not intended to be exhaustive. By 'ordinaryoptimal conditions' I mean whatever normally attainable conditionsare optimal for reflecting on questions about what to care about self-interestedly. Thus, we might say, counterfactual conditions are appro-priate only if a person would so regard them under ordinary opti-mal conditions.15We need not worry that appealing to one set of conditions as atest of the acceptability of other sets of conditions will generate aregress. Doing so does not force us to appeal to yet other conditionsunder which we would regard ordinary optimal conditions as appropri-ate in order to validate the latter conditions in turn. Ordinary optimalconditions are simply those that we already accept as the minimalconditions that must be met for a person to think sensibly about hergood at all. They are presupposed by and indeed central to discourseabout a person's good. This is readily shown by the advice we tend togive to someone who is trying to decide what to pursue for herself, aswell as by the kinds of criticisms we make of our own and of others'self-regarding decisions. We criticize people's choices, for instance,when they are made irrationally or in disregard of obvious facts or inthe heat of the moment.Ordinary optimal conditions are insufficiently ideal to be the testof what is good for a person. Determining what it makes sense forsomeone to care about may require far more information, for instance,than is readily available. But at least three considerations suggest thatthey are appropriate to test the adequacy of more removed counterfac-tual conditions. First, the test of ordinary optimal conditions accordswith the intuition that inspires internalism: the test insures that a

15. I am indebted here to David Velleman, who originally suggested to me theneed to incorporate something like ordinary optimal conditions. The qualification 'self-interestedly' does not preclude from a person's good concern for others or for largerprojects, but merely distinguishes between a person's moral concerns and her concernsfrom a personal standpoint. By 'rationally' I mean simply that she makes no errorsin reasoning.


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306 Ethics January 1996person's good is not something alien, since it connects her good towhat she would care about, at least if she were rational and aware.Second, the test of ordinary optimal conditions helps to insurethat internalist theories capture our concept of a person's good. If aninternalist account of a person's good is to be conceptually adequate,counterfactual conditions must bear on those concerns that actuallyanimate inquiry into our good. These concerns are not ones that anyparticular person may happen to have, however neurotic or irrational.Rather, they are the concerns that persons generally would have underordinarily accessible improved conditions-those conditions that arethemselves presupposed by and central to our discourse about a per-son's good.Finally, the nature of the inquiry into counterfactual conditionslimits how ideal test conditions need to be. For instance, the informa-tion needed to test the appropriateness of counterfactual conditionsis nowhere near as extensive or hard to obtain as the informationrequired to determine what it makes sense to care about. To determinethe latter might require, for instance, currently undiscoverable infor-mation about the effects of a medication. In contrast, assessing coun-terfactual conditions requires more limited information, such as infor-mation about the coherence of those conditions or about how wellthose conditions address concerns persons have when inquiring abouttheir good. Information of this sort is obtained by careful reflectionor by consulting others rather than by complex empirical inquiry.Ordinary optimal conditions are adequate to the kind of inquiryinvolved. 6The requirement that a person under ordinary optimal conditionsregard removed counterfactual conditions as appropriate seems toostrong, however, since it apparently requires that she be able to makecertain theoretical judgments. It is the job of the theorist, not of theperson who is contemplating her good, to make such judgments andto design the proper counterfactual conditions. Still, while we mayhave no particular antecedent views about what conditions are appro-priate, we clearly do care about our counterfactual concerns undersome conditions and not under others. All else being equal, we do careabout whether we would enjoy something if we were able to experienceit, and we do not care about whether we would enjoy it if we were

16. As noted earlier, my specification of ordinary optimal conditions is not intendedto be complete. Those conditions could, for instance, include attention to more informa-tion than is readilyavailable. Even so, for reasons already given, the information requiredto assess counterfactual conditions is limited. The nature of the inquiry suggests as wellthat the conditions under which a person assesses remote counterfactual conditionsneed not be otherwise extraordinary. A person need not, for example, have phenomenalpowers of reason, memory, or imagination.


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Rosati Internalismand the Good 307brainwashed to do so. In keeping with the internalist effort to linkmotivation and value, we might say this: counterfactual conditions Care appropriate only if the fact that a person would come to careabout something X for her actual self when under C is itself somethingthat she would care about when under ordinary optimal conditions.A person need not care about X itself while under ordinary optimalconditions in order for X to be good for her. But if her good is notto be alienated, the fact that she would care about X for her actualself under a particular set of counterfactual conditions had better besomething that would prompt her concern under ordinary optimalconditions.

The appeal to ordinary optimal conditions may seem a weakerconstraint on counterfactual conditions than it is. Suppose that I worryabout my tendency to anger easily and offend others when understress, and I know that were I under stressful conditions S, I wouldwant my actual self to make a particularly offensive remark. One mightargue that, because I am concerned about my character traits, I will,under ordinary optimal conditions, care about the fact that I wouldwant myself to want certain things under S. Thus, one might concludethat counterfactual conditions S pass the test. But they do not. Recallthat to 'care about' something, in the sense intended here, is to havea proattitude toward it, and so the appeal to what a person would careabout under ordinary optimal conditions must be understood in thislight. The fact that I would want certain things for myself under Swould not, under ordinary optimal conditions, elicit (for instance) adesire on my part to conform to my verdicts under S. Thus, conditionsthat prompt a person's concern in the "wrong sense," as in the forego-ing example, are excluded, and without presupposing any particularnormative judgments. For reasons offered earlier, my construal ofcaring about something is the relevant one if we are plausibly tocharacterize internalism about a person's good.The stronger form of internalism that we finally arrive at tells usthat something X can be good for a person A only if two conditionsare met:

1. Were A under conditions C and contemplating the circum-stances of her actual self as someone about to assume her actualself's position, A would care about X for her actual self;2. conditions C are'such that the facts about what A wouldcare about for her actual self while under C are something Awould care about when under ordinary optimal conditions.

Call this version of internalism "two-tier internalism."My suggestion is this: if an account of a person's good is to satisfythe intuition that drives internalism, it must effect a double link tomotivation. The first link provides for a motivational connection be-


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308 Ethics January 1996tween an individual and her good under counterfactual conditions,and thus at a further remove from her actual self. This link capturesthe thought that while a person's good might include things that shecannot in her present state care about, it must include only what sheis capable of caring about. It avoids the alienation of treating as goodfor a person things that cannot matter to her, while not connecting aperson's good too closely to her actual concerns. The second linkeffects a motivational connection between an individual and informa-tion about her counterfactual attitudes. It provides for a closer connec-tion to the actual individual, requiring that appropriate conditionsconnect with what a person would care about when contemplatingher good under ordinary optimal conditions. This requirement furthercaptures the intuition that a person's good must connect with whatshe would find compelling, at least if she were rational and aware.The second link thus prevents the alienation of treating as possiblegoods for a person things she would come to care about only underalienated conditions, conditions irrelevant to her inquiry about hergood. And it achieves this without implausibly requiring that a person'scounterfactual concerns, or even information about her counterfac-tual concerns, now motivate her no matter what her current conditionmight be.It is important to see that two-tier internalism most directly teststheories rather than alleged goods. For instance, because of what weare like and what our ordinary concerns tend to be, it excludes count-erfactual conditions such as being brainwashed or under hypnosis,thereby excluding as possible goods for a person what she would careabout for her actual self under these conditions but under no otherconditions that would pass the test. Whether a particular thing mightbe good for a person will depend upon whether any of the sets ofconditions under which she would want it for her actual self wouldalso prompt her concern under ordinary optimal conditions.Although proponents of internalist theories have never explicitlyformulated the constraint given by two-tier internalism, some appearat least implicitly to recognize it. The defenses they provide of theirviews may thus serve to illustrate two-tier internalism. Railton, forinstance, argues that a person's good consists in what she would wanther self to want or to pursue, were she to contemplate the situationof her actual self as someone about to assume her actual self's position,from a standpoint in which she was fully informed and rational. Hedefends this account in part by arguing that it "satisfies an appropriateinternalist constraint": "the views we would have were we to becomefree of present defects in knowledge or rationality would induce aninternal resonance in us as we now are.""7The counterfactual condi-

17. "Facts and Values," pp. 17, 13-14; "Moral Realism," pp. 177-78.


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Rosati Internalismand the Good 309tions in Railton's account speak to certain concerns we ordinarilyhave in contemplating whether something is good for us-Do Iknow enough about the thing I desire? Am I being sufficiently ratio-nal?-and so they apparently pass muster under ordinary optimalconditions.Notice that two-tier internalism still provides only a necessarycondition on something being good for a person, since it says nothingabout what the correct counterfactual conditions might be. I will notexplore here whether an account like Railton's is adequate.'8 For allwe know, there may be no single set of conditions that would meetthe test of ordinary optimal conditions. In any case, the task faced bythose who wish to develop an internalist account of a person's goodwould be to supply whatever other conditions must be met by suchan account.FIVE ARGUMENTS FOR INTERNALISMI have argued that the intuition that lies behind internalism about aperson's good supports a stronger version of internalism than it mightat first appear. But those who reject internalism will doubtless beunimpressed. Externalists hold that a person can be quite radicallymistaken about her good: she can never correctly conclude merelyfrom her incapacity to care about something that it is not a part ofher good. A form of internalism that accepts only the first motivationallink, externalists might argue, at least comes closer to acknowledginghow markedly a person's good may diverge from what she currentlyfavors. To constrain counterfactual conditions by means of a link tothe individual under ordinary optimal conditions reinvites the chargethat internalist accounts of a person's good cannot provide the requi-site critical stance on a person's desires and aims. If the intuitive sup-port for internalism leads to two-tier internalism, then so much theworse for internalism.But internalism cannot be dismissed so easily. Although thosewho accept internalism about a person's good rarely defend it directly,at least five distinct arguments can be given in support of it.19 I will

18. I have elsewhere raised difficulties for full information, dispositional theoriesof a person's good such as Railton's..See my "Naturalism, Normativity, and the OpenQuestion Argument," Nous 29 (1995): 46-70, and "Persons, Perspectives, and FullInformation Accounts of the Good," Ethics 105 (1995): 296-325. Also see J. DavidVelleman, "Brandt's Definition of 'Good'," PhilosophicalReview 97 (1988): 353-71. Atheory of the good for a person need not be dispositional to satisfy internalism.19. As far as I can tell, only the fourth argument has been explicitly offered as adefense of internalism about a person's good. The other arguments I here consider aresuggested either by the approaches that theorists have taken to defending particularaccounts of a person's good or by arguments given in support of internalism withrespect to other areas of normative assessment.


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310 Ethics January 1996develop these arguments here, showing how each supports not onlysimple internalism, but two-tier internalism. Some of the argumentsrely upon others. And as we shall see, the arguments sometimes relyupon other forms of internalism. Thus, the plausibility of internalismabout a person's good may partly depend on whether these otherforms of internalism are plausible. Taken individually, the argumentspresented here are certainly inconclusive, and I shall identify theweaker arguments as I proceed. My aim, however, is to show thatthey jointly provide a powerful case for two-tier internalism about aperson's good.JudgmentInternalismA first consideration sometimes offered in support of internalismabout a person's good appeals to the action-guiding character of nor-mative language. The legacy of noncognitivism was to reveal the con-nection between the use of normative language and the guidance ofaction.20Noncognitivists hold that this connection is conceptual ratherthan contingent and empirical. They thus accept a view called 'judg-ment internalism." According to judgment internalism, it is a neces-sary condition on sincere judgment about a person's good that thespeaker normally have some inclination, not necessarily overriding,to promote or to care about that thing.2' A person cannot sincerelyjudge that something is good for herself unless she has some tendencyto approve of or pursue that thing. And a person cannot sincerelyjudge something good for someone else without being inclined toendorse it and recommend it to that person. Normative language hasinherent expressive and recommending force.The truth of judgment internalism might seem to support theclaim that a plausible account of the good for a person must satisfyexistence internalism, at least in the form of simple internalism.22 An

20. For discussion, see Stephen Darwall, Allan Gibbard, and Peter Railton,"Toward Fin de Siecle Ethics: Some Trends," PhilosophicalReview 101 (1992); 115-89,pp. 116-20.21. As Drier observes, judgment internalism can be stated in an implausibly strongform (pp. 9-14). He endorses "modest internalism," according to which necessarily "innormal contexts a person has some motivation to promote what he believes to be good"(p. 14). Whereas externalism holds that moral judgments typically motivate due toexternal factors, modest internalism holds that an internal connection exists betweensincerely asserting a moral judgment and being motivated to act, though the necessaryconnection holds only for normal contexts (p. 11). I here add this qualification to mydepiction of judgment internalism.22. Railton's discussion suggests an argument of this kind in "Naturalism andPrescriptivity," p. 173. See also "Facts and Values," p. 16. Arguments from judgmentto existence internalism also surface with regard to other areas of normative assessment,although those who make them do not always clearly distinguish between these formsof internalism. Darwall seems to presuppose such an argument in constructing the


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Rosati Internalismand the Good 311account of the good for a person must permit judgments about aperson's good to serve their characteristic action-guiding functions. Itmust be able to explain how it is that, at least normally, judgmentsabout a person's good motivate, and it must also preserve their charac-teristic recommending and expressive functions or normative force.An account can succeed in this, without embracing noncognitivismand its antirealist implications, only if it satisfies simple internalism.By limiting a person's good to some subset of those things that canmatter to her, an account insures that it will at least be possiblefor judgments about a person's good to perform their characteristicfunctions.

Notice, however, that an account of a person's good that satisfiesonly simple internalism may still be unable to explain or preservethese functions. All simple internalism tells us is that a person's goodmust be capable of eliciting her concern under some set of conditionsor other. Imagine an account according to which something X is goodfor a person if and only if she would want it after undergoing hypnosis.The account constrains a person's good within the range of possibleobjects of her concern. But clearly it would fail to explain or preservethe recommending and expressive functions of discourse about a per-son's good. Of course, those who support internalism claim only thatit is a necessary condition on a plausible account of a person's good,not that it is a sufficient condition. Similarly, they must claim only thatsatisfying simple internalism is necessary to explaining and preservingthe connection between judgments about a person's good and theguidance of action. But so is satisfying two-tier internalism.An account of the good for a person can succeed in explainingand preserving the inherent normative force of judgments about aperson's good only if it suitably constrains the possible objects of aperson's concern relevant to a determination of her good. To do so,it must link a person's good to what she would care about, but notunder just any conditions whatsoever. Rather, the conditions must besuch that information about a person's wants or reactions under themwould matter to the actual person, at least if she were under ordinaryoptimal conditions. Judgments about our good, after all, serve to guideattitudes and action, and they perform their characteristic expressiveand recommending functions in everyday life and as addressed to oruttered by actual persons. Unless an account constrains in this waythe counterfactual concerns relevant to determining a person's good,the judgment that something is good for a person will not normallysecond half of the Humean case for internalism about reasons (ImpartialReason, pp.56-57). Nagel seems to suggest that existence internalism about morality can be sup-ported by appeal to judgment internalism (p. 7). And Drier argues from judgmentinternalism to a form of speaker relativism about morality (p. 7).


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312 Ethics January 1996serve to recommend it or to express a proattitude. Indeed, a strongerclaim may be warranted. When an account does so constrain coun-terfactual conditions, the judgment that something is good for a per-son A will normally count as a recommendation of that thing to Aand give rise to the corresponding attitudes and action tendencies; andwhen sincerely uttered by A herself, such judgments will normallyexpress a proattitude and be accompanied by any corresponding ac-tion tendencies.23The "argument from judgment internalism," as I will call it, is aninstance of two more general lines of argument. The first and mostgeneral seeks to insure that a theory of the good for a person capturesthe central features of our discourse about a person's good. A theorymust neither change the subject altogether, in the extreme case, norunacceptably revise our concept so that it fails to capture what is ofinterest to us in our talk about what is good for someone. One mightthink that theorists can best capture certain central aspects of talkabout a person's good, such as its action-guiding character, by devel-oping accounts that satisfy internalism.The argument from judgment internalism is also an instance ofa more general argument that appeals to the expressive and recom-mending functions of talk about a person's good. One need not acceptjudgment internalism in order to argue from the action-guiding func-tion ofjudgments about a person's good to existence internalism. Oneneed only be impressed that there is, if not a conceptual connection,then a very strong and deep, albeit contingent, connection betweenjudgments of goodness and the guidance of action. Any theory of aperson's good must be able to explain why this strong and deep connec-tion, whether necessary or contingent, regularly holds. Of course, oncewe allow that judgments about a person's good guide action onlycontingently, we also allow that a person's good may only contingentlymotivate her. Thus, the most secure argument from the action-guidingcharacter of normative language to existence internalism dependsupon the truth of judgment internalism. Nevertheless, because exist-ence internalism posits a necessary connection between goodness fora person and what can matter to a person, accounts that satisfy it

23. I am indebted here to D. Gene Witmer's argument for an internalist connectionakin to what I have called "two-tier internalism" in his "Normative Realism: An EclecticDispositional Analysis" (unpublished paper, Rutgers University). I had originallythought that the second link to motivation provides a necessary condition on counterfac-tual conditions because it is needed to capture recommending force. But Witmer'sarguments convinced me that the need is more generally due to the action-guidingcharacter of normative language. The argument I present here for the double linkthus follows his argument in this regard. I am still inclined for various reasons, however,to emphasize recommending force and the guidance of attitude over that of action.


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Rosati Internalismand the Good 313can readily explain and preserve the (contingent) recommending andexpressive functions of our judgments.24 Even ifjudgment internalismis false, then, two-tier internalism may still provide the best accountof the normative force of judgments about a person's good.An account of a person's good that satisfies two-tier internalismwill not only be positioned to explain and preserve the normative forceof judgments about a person's good. It will also be in a position toexplain why the necessary connection thatjudgment internalism positsbetween sincere judgment and proattitudes only holds "normally";alternatively, it can explain why the contingent connection betweenjudgments about a person's good and the guidance of action is onlyso strong. If a person is not under ordinary optimal conditions-sheis not thinking clearly, for instance, or is suffering from weaknessof will-a judgment about her good may fail to have its ordinaryrecommending force. Such judgments will normally recommend(whether necessarily or contingently) because, since ordinary optimalconditions are just those normally attainable conditions that are opti-mal for reflecting on what to care about, people will normally be ableto approximate to those conditions when consideringjudgments abouttheir good.TheMetaphysicsof ValueA second argument for internalism about a person's good begins withan argument for subjectivism, according to which value exists only invirtue of subjectivity. R. B. Perry expresses this idea in GeneralTheoryof Value: "A certain positive plausibility is given to this hypothesis bythe fact that in order to create values where they did not exist beforeit seems to be sufficient to introduce an interest. The silence of thedesert is without value, until some wanderer finds it lonely and terrify-ing; the cataract, until some human sensibility finds it sublime, or untilit is harnessed to satisfy human needs."25 Introduce into the worldcreatures who are affected by and react to their world, Perry tells us,and you introduce value as well. Indeed, he suggests, introducing suchcreatures is sufficient for the introduction of value.It is a natural step from this thought to the thought that valueitself must be a complex motivational property.26 If value can exist

24. Railton's discussion in "Naturalism and Prescriptivity" suggests both lines ofargument.25. R. B. Perry, General Theoryof Value (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UniversityPress, 1954), p. 125. For a strikingly similar, though more careful, passage which offersthis same basic argument for subjectivism, see Railton, "Facts and Values," p. 9.26. The argument presented here follows an argument that Darwall has offered(and apparently endorsed) in explaining Hume's internalism about reasons (ImpartialReason, pp. 55-57). In "Internalism and Agency," however, Darwall distinguishes be-tween "constitutive internalism" and "non-constitutive internalism." While both are


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314 Ethics January 1996only if there are creatures who can be affected by and react to theirworld, then value, and more specifically, goodness for a person, mustbe a motivational property.27What else, after all, could it be? The onlyalternative might seem to be that the property of being good for aperson is a Moorean, nonnatural property, but this alternative intro-duces special metaphysical and epistemological problems.28 We thusarrive at the suggestion that not only nrust a person's good be some-thing that she can care about, but that the very goodness of her goodis constitutedby her being disposed to care about it, at least under idealconditions. Considerations about the metaphysics of value show that aplausible account of a person's good must satisfy existence internalism.This "metaphysical argument" for internalism, by its very nature,must be inconclusive. Its force depends on ruling out not only all (asyet unknown) externalist accounts of what the property of being goodfor a person might be, but internalist alternatives that reject treatingit as a motivational property. For instance, an internalist view alongthe lines of the "sensibility theories" proposed by John McDowell andDavid Wiggins might hold that goodness for a person is a sui generissecondary property, akin to color properties, that can only be graspedby those with the proper ethical sensibilities.29 While such a propertyand the corresponding sensibility are mutually dependent, in the waythat color and color sense are or that humorousness and a sense ofhumor are, the property is not constituted by our dispositions to careabout things.While the metaphysical argument is thus inconclusive, we canimagine how it might be strengthened. One way is by reconstructingforms of existence internalism, only constitutive internalism holds that "motivation isa constituent of ethical facts themselves" (p. 157). And so only constitutive internalism,Darwall argues, can explain how ethical knowledge necessarily motivates: such knowl-edge is itself of motives "deriving from the agent's practical reasoning" (p. 158). Alsosee Darwall, Gibbard, and Railton, pp. 176-77.27. Some who reject internalism may agree that at least some value can exist onlyif there are creatures for whom things can matter, while denying that goodness mustbe a motivational property. On Moore's view, the organic unities that have the greatestintrinsic value require the existence of creatures who are capable of aesthetic apprecia-tion and friendship. But even these wholes are made good by the presence of a nonnatu-ral property.

28. J. L. Mackie offers the classic criticisms of this picture of value in Ethics: In-venting Right and Wrong (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1978), chap. 1.29. Sensibility theories have been developed chiefly with respect to moral value.See John McDowell, "Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?" Proceedingsof the AristotelianSociety,suppl. vol. 52 (1978): 13-29, "Values and Secondary Qualities,"in Moralityand Objectivity, d. Ted Honderich (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985),and "Truth and Projection in Ethics," Lindley Lecture (University of Kansas, 1987).Also see David Wiggins, "A Sensible Subjectivism," "Truth as Predicated of MoralJudgments," and "Truth, Invention, and the Meaning of Life," in Needs, Values, Truth:Essays in the Philosophy of Value (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), pp. 185-214, 139-84,87-138.


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Rosati Internalismand the Good 315it as follows. If goodness for a person is not a complex motivationalproperty, then either it is a peculiar nonnatural property, or it issome other kind of property which itself presupposes the truth ofinternalism. The conclusion would then be not "either a strange non-natural property or a motivational property," but "either a strangenonnatural property or internalism." A second way of strengtheningthe argument is more in keeping with the original version. One mightargue that the known alternative views about what the property ofbeing good for a person could be, whether externalist or internalist,are problematic.30 Thus, the only plausible view supports internalism.If the leading alternatives can be shown to be problematic, then evenif the argument does not handle all comers, it may establish a sufficientpresumption in favor of internalism about a person's good.The metaphysical argument supports simple internalism directly.If goodness for a person can only be a complex motivational property,then something can be good for a person only if her dispositions aresuch that she can care about it. Unless she is capable of caring aboutit and thus is disposed to care about it-at least under some set ofconditions-any particular item cannot possess the property inquestion.But the argument also supports two-tier internalism, albeit moreindirectly. That is because this argument for internalism cannot beentirely independent of the first. Part of what typically bothers peopleabout the Moorean picture of intrinsic value is that it leaves the connec-tions between goodness, attitude, and action utterly mysterious. Inorder for a property to fill the place of goodness for a person, it mustbe able to perform the functions of this property, and to do this it mustnot only function to guide attitude and action but make intelligible howjudgments about its presence would carry normative force. For reasonsalready given, an account of a person's good can arguably succeed inthis only if it secures a double motivational link.The point can also be put in this way. We are disposed to careabout a great many things, depending on what conditions we occupy.But the only dispositions to care that can be candidates for the propertyof goodness for a person are those that can also fill the functional roleof this property. Only dispositions that conform to two-tier internalismcan fill this role.JustificationA third argument for internalism about a person's good might focusnot on the metaphysics, but on the epistemology of value. We can

30. For critical discussion of sensibility theories, see Darwall, Gibbard, and Railton,pp. 152-65; and Allan Gibbard, WiseChoices,Apt Feelings:A TheoryofNormativeJudgment(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), p. 186.


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316 Ethics January 1996justify to a person the claim that something is good for her, one mightthink, only if her alleged good satisfies internalism. The guiding ideabehind the "epistemological argument" for internalism is that nothingcan be shown to be a good for us unless we are capable of regardingit as such, and we are capable of regarding it as such only if we arecapable of caring about it. The epistemological argument might bedeveloped in two distinct ways.One version is suggested by Mill's proof of the principle of utilityin chapter 4 of Utilitarianism. Mill tells us that "ultimate ends do notadmit of proof, in the ordinary acceptation of the term. "31 He goeson to invoke his much-criticized analogy between 'desirable' on theone hand and 'visible' and 'audible' on the other: "The only proofcapable of being given that an object is visible is that people actuallysee it. The only proof that a sound is audible is that people hear it;and so of the other sources of our experience. In like manner, Iapprehend, the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anythingis desirable is that people do actually desire it. If the end which theutilitarian doctrine proposes to itself were not, in theory and in prac-tice, acknowledged to be an end, nothing could ever convince anyperson that it was so."32We would certainly dispute Mill's contention that the sole evidencethat can be given in support of the claim that something is desirableis that people actually do desire it. In part, we would dispute it becausewe doubt that in order to justify to a person a claim of desirability thatperson must actually desire the thing in question. Nevertheless, Mill'sbasic point may seem correct and can be formulated in more compel-ling terms. Unless a person could care about the thing in question itcannot be justified as a part of her good, because the possibility ofher caring about the thing is necessary evidence of its being good forher. But why think that it is necessary evidence? Consider the followingthought experiment. Suppose that a person A could not be broughtto care about a thing X under any conditions and so concluded that itis not good for her. What counterevidence could be produced to sub-vert Xs conclusion? We have no picture, the argument might go, ofwhat such evidence could be.33The argument leaves open what could count as evidence of thegoodness of X for A. Claims about evidence would have to be evaluatedas they arose. As a consequence, the argument does not refute exter-nalism about a person's good, but it does shift the burden to thosewho endorse externalism. They must now explain what kind of evi-

31. John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1979), p. 34.32. Mill, p. 34.33. Griffin sometimes talks as if he might endorse such an argument, though hedoes not formulate it explicitly (pp. 26-31).


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Rosati Internalismand the Good 317dence might be produced to support the claim that something a personis incapable of caring about is nevertheless good for her. Certaincandidates for evidence are nonstarters. For instance, intuitions aboutthe presence of a nonnatural property surely cannot subvert A's con-clusion. Neither can appeals to the experience of others. We do ordi-narily treat the responses and assessments of others as evidence ofwhat might be good for us. We do so, however, on the assumptionthat we are relevantly like them. The fact that everyone else who hasexperienced X has come to love it would not undermine A'sconclusion,since there is obviously a relevant difference between other peopleand A: others were capable of caring about X and A is not. The factthat all those who experience X have come to love it may be evidencethat X has qualities which tend to make it a good for persons. It mighteven be relevant to the claim that it would have been better for A hadA been capable of caring about X, since she would then have beenable to love X as others do. But it will not show that X is good for A.34One suggestion, then, is that the possibility of a person caringabout a thing is necessary evidence of its goodness for her because inthe absence of this evidence, nothing could show it to be good for her.If indeed the possibility of a person caring about X is necessary evi-dence that it is good for her, internalists are not only in a position toproduce this evidence when X satisfies their accounts. They are alsoin a position to explain why, without it, no proof can be given thatsomething is good for a person: that which is necessary as evidenceof value is also necessary to the existence of value.Richard Brandt's defense of his reforming definition of 'good'suggests a second version of the epistemological argument. Accordingto Brandt, we should use the term 'good' to mean "rationally desired,"and 'rationally desired' to mean "would be desired after maximal expo-sure to facts and logic."35To show a person that she would rationallydesire something, Brandt seems to think, is to provide her with all thejustification it is possible to give that it is good for her.36 Persons care,Brandt argues, about having rational desires, because irrational desirestend to result in unhappiness, and because knowing that one's desiresare irrational tends to create an uncomfortable phenomenon akin to

34. One might try to support appeals to the experience of others by connectingthem to an account of human nature together with an account of how our nature givesus a particular good. But surely even such an approach must take account of variationsin individual natures.35. Brandt defines the notion 'good' rather than the notion 'good for a person',but since different persons may rationally desire different things, his definition is betterunderstood as one of goodness for a person.36. Brandt does not say this explicitly, but see his defense of his reforming defini-tion of 'morally right' (pp. 244-45).


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318 Ethics January 1996cognitive dissonance. To show a person that something is good forher in his sense is to justify it to her because such a showing naturallyprovides her with a reason to care about that thing.37Much of the work of justification, of course, is accomplished bythe ideal conditions that Brandt specifies. But Brandt's strategy sug-gests that in order to justify to a person the claim that something isgood for her one must be able to show how that thing connects withher own actual or possible concerns. We must show her that she hasreason to care about it, and we can show her that she has reason tocare about it only by appropriately connecting it with something thatshe already does or can care about. That is because (on this view)justifying reasons are desire or at least proattitude based. This versionof the epistemological argument makes use of internalism about an-other area of normative assessment-namely, something's being areason-to support internalism about a person's good.38 The forceof the argument depends on the assumption that internalism aboutjustifying reasons is less controversial than internalism about a person'sgood. Given the widespread acceptance of instrumental or desire-based accounts of reasons, this assumption is not unreasonable,though again the resulting argument is inconclusive.On either version of the epistemological argument, the claim thatsomething X is good for a person can be justified only if the accountin terms of which that claim is framed satisfies simple internalism. Ifnecessary evidence for the truth of the claim that X is good for aperson is that she could care about it, then X must indeed be a possibleobject of her concern. If we can only justify the claim that X is goodfor a person by showing her that she has a reason to care about it,and we can only show her that she has a reason to care about it if itis possible for her to care about it, then justifying the claim dependson the fact that X is a possible object of her concern. Either way, anaccount of a person's good will be able to justify claims about what isgood for a person only if it satisfies simple internalism.The role of simple internalism injustifying claims about a person'sgood will, of course, be quite minimal. The fact that something X isnot a possible object of concern for a person may be conclusive evi-dence that it is not a part of her good. But the fact that X is a possibleobject of her concern is not quite evidence that it is her good, noteven prima facie evidence. At most, it is evidence that X has not yetbeen ruled out as a part of her good, and it is necessary evidence onlyin this sense. Similarly, the fact that something is a possible object of

37. Ibid., pp. 154-60. Railton makes similar arguments. See n. 17.38. Falk's defense of internalism about the moral 'ought' similarly relies on inter-nalism about practical reasons. See his "'Ought' and Motivation"; and Darwall, "Inter-nalism and Agency," pp. 155-56.


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Rosati Internalismand the Good 319concern for a person does not provide her with a reason to care aboutit. Suppose person A can care about X but would care about it onlyif she underwent massive brain surgery. Clearly, the mere fact that Xis a possible object of her concern does not give A any reason to careabout X, if we accept the proattitude based view of reasons. Of course,post-brain-surgery A may have a prima facie reason to care about X,since she does care about X, but that does not show that actual A hasa reason to care about it. To be sure, it will not be possible on thisview to give someone a reason to care about something unless she iscapable of caring about it. But the fact that she is capable of caringabout it does not yet give her that reason.The epistemological argument does support simple internalismas a necessary condition to be met by any plausible theory of a person'sgood, but it also supports two-tier internalism. Consider again theevidence version of the epistemological argument and the thoughtexperiment employed to show that the possibility of a person caringabout a thing is necessary evidence of its being good for her. Thesame thought experiment seems to show that the possibility of hercaring about the fact that she would care about something under whatmay be inaccessible conditions is also necessary evidence of its beinggood for her. Suppose that a person could be brought to care aboutsomething X, but only under conditions C. And suppose that shecannot care about the fact that she would care about X under C, evenwhen she is under ordinary optimal conditions. What counterevidencecould be produced to subvert her conclusion that X is not good forher? She is, after all, reflecting on the information that she would careabout X under C, while under whatever normally attainable conditionsare optimal for reflecting on such matters. Once again, the thoughtexperiment does not refute externalism. But if it is at least as compel-ling as the comparable argument supporting simple internalism, thenthe first version of the epistemological argument equally supports theconclusion that a plausible account of a person's good must satisfytwo-tier internalism.The reasons version of the epistemological argument yields a sim-ilar result. This argument relies upon the idea that we can show aperson that she has a reason to care about X only by showing her thatit connects with something she already does or at least could careabout. Two-tier internalism exploits this very idea. If a person is tohave a reason to care about X, and thus a reason to think that it is, atleast prima facie, a part of her good, it is not enough that X be amongthe possible objects of her concern. Rather, it must be the case thatalthough she does not now care about X, she would care about itunder certain conditions, and what's more, the fact that she would careabout it under those conditions is something that concerns her evennow, at least if she reflects on the matter carefully. A person has reason


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320 Ethics January 1996to care about something X that she would want under conditions Conly if she has reason to care about the fact that she would want Xunder C, and she has reason to care about that fact only if, underordinary optimal conditions, she would care about it. This is not yetto specify the actual concerns that serve to give her reasons. But it isto require that there be such concerns.In order for a person to have a reason now to care about whatshe would care about under more remote or inaccessible conditions,there must be a basis in the concerns she would have under conditionsthat persons normally can occupy. The reason she may thereby haveto care about something X is, of course, indirect. It may take time andeffort beyond mere reflection on this consideration to develop a directconcern for X. The fact that she would care about caring about X,however, is surely necessary to give her a reason to care about X itself.To show all of this, though, is just to satisfy two-tier internalism.39'Ought'Implies 'Can'Perhaps the most immediately compelling argument for the claim thata plausible account of a person's good must satisfy internalism seeksto derive internalism from the principle that 'ought' implies 'can'.David Velleman has recently offered such an argument in direct sup-port of simple internalism.40 We think of our good, he suggests, asbeing that which we ought, at least prima facie, to care about. Yet itcannot be that we ought to care about something if we are incapableof caring about it. We can be prima facie obligated to care aboutsomething only if it is at least prima facie an option, an option theimpossibility of which isn't "settled in advance of practical reasoning"about whether to care about it. And something can only be primafacie an option for a person, if she is capable of caring about it. Simpleinternalism thus derives from a plausible rendering of the principlethat 'ought' implies 'can'. An important implication of seeing thissource of support for simple internalism, Velleman suggests, is thatthose who oppose internalism must now explain why a plausible ac-count of a person's good need not answer to this principle.Velleman's "'ought' implies 'can' argument" has certain real ad-vantages over those arguments we have already considered. It doesnot rely upon any other argument for internalism about a person's

39. The way in which internalists about a person's good defend their accountssuggests that they have implicitly recognized this. See, again, Brandt, pp. 154-60. Alsosee Griffin, pp. 12-14.40. See his "Is Motivation Internal to Value?" More specifically, Velleman arguesthat simple internalism is derivable from the principle that 'ought' can imply 'can'.Velleman suggests that an implication of this derivation is that simple internalism maybe the strongest version of internalism that is true.


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Rosati Internalismand the Good 321good or on any other form of internalism: it is free standing. Moreover,the principle that 'ought' implies 'can' is arguably a fixed point in ourthinking about ought judgments, even if we disagree about how bestto interpret that principle. And when plausibly construed, the prin-ciple does support simple internalism. But it also supports two-tierinternalism.Think about what we are asking when we invoke the principlethat 'ought' implies 'can'. When, in the moral case, we ask the question,"Can a person choose to die rather than to hand over her money toa thief?" we do not mean to ask, "Can she if we hypnotize her to makethat choice?" or "Can she if we alter her brain?" We mean somethingmore like this: "Can she make that choice on her own, as she is, andwith all that she can muster from that standpoint?" Now, to return tothe nonmoral case, there may well be things that a person would careabout if only she were under conditions other than her current ones.Suppose, for instance, that under conditions C person A would careabout X, but the conditions are that she is tripping on LSD. The barefact that A would care about X under C surely does not show that Acan care about X in the relevant sense. The ought of "'ought' implies'can "'is not addressed to the person she is under C. Insofar as judg-ments about our good present us with prima facie oughts, they areaddressed to us in our actual positions. More precisely speaking, theyare addressed to us as occupants of normally accessible improvedconditions.A person prima facie ought to care about something only if shecan now care about it, at least indirectly, by caring under ordinaryoptimal conditions about the fact that she would care about it undercounterfactual conditions.4' If someone is not thus capable of caringunder conditions persons can normally get into about the fact that shewould care about something under conditions she may never be in,then she is not in the relevant sense capable of caring about it. Thingsthat she cannot care about even indirectly under ordinary optimalconditions are not prima facie options for her, since, from her stand-point as an agent attempting to determine her good, their impossibilityas options is settled in advance of her practical reasoning. A personcan practically consider whether to care about only what she as agentis capable of caring about.

A plausible rendering of-the principle that 'ought' implies 'can'thus supports a stronger version of internalism than simple inter-nalism. A person's good, according to two-tier internalism, must be41. In this way, one of two things is possible:first, she may be able over time toinducein herselfa directconcern for the thing itself; second,she maybe motivated osubmit to a procedureof the sort that would bring her to care about what she wouldcare about under those conditions.


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322 Ethics January 1996something that she can care about, not only in the sense that it is apossible object of her concern, given the changes she is capable ofundergoing, but that it is a possible, if indirect, object of her concernunder conditions that a person normally can occupy. It is thus a possi-ble object of her concern in two respects. She would care about itunder possibly remote counterfactual conditions; and she would careabout the fact that she would care about it under those conditions, atleast when she is under ordinary optimal conditions. Her good, assomething that prima facie she ought to care about, is something thatshe can care about, at least in the sense that she is capable of caringabout her possible concern for it.42AutonomyA final argument for internalism returns to the intuition that supportsit and to the problem that we encountered with simple internalism.Recall that simple internalism allows among possible goods for a per-son things that she would come to care about only by undergoingarbitrary alterations. The fact that we are concerned to exclude froma person's good things that she would come to want only under alienconditions suggests that internalism is supported by a second but re-lated intuition. It suggests that we think that something can suit or fita person and hence be good for her only if, in some sense, she couldcome to care about it on her own. Internalism is thus supported notmerely by the negative concern to prevent alienation, but by a positiveconcern about autonomy. The negative side of insuring that a person'sgood is made for or suits her is insuring that it is not something aliento her. The positive side of insuring that her good suits her is insuringthat it is a reflection of her autonomous nature. We might, then,attempt to defend internalism about the good directly by appeal toautonomy.43We find the kernel of an autonomy-based defense of internalismabout a person's good in Peter Railton's discussion of relational theo-ries of nonmoral value. Before going on to present his own theory ofa person's nonmoral good, Railton considers the simpler, relationaltheory of Hobbes, which he praises as "nonpaternalistic."44The praise,

42. This view can explain, in keeping with the principle that 'ought' implies 'can',why some nomologically realizable conditions are not candidates for assessing whethersomething can be a part of a person's good, whereas some nomologically unrealizableconditions may be relevant. No person can be fully informed and rational, yet what aperson would care about for herself while under such conditions at least seems relevant.43. Darwall has argued that there is a distinct autonomist rationale for internalismabout morality, though the rationale he considers differs from the one suggested here.See "Autonomist Internalism and the Justification of Morals," p. 263. See also "Inter-nalism and Agency."44. See "Facts and Values," p. 11.


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Rosati Internalismand the Good 323I think, is mistaken, since the issue of paternalism does not have todo with what or who determines what a person's good consists in-anoutsider might perfectly well get my good right. Rather, it has to dowith forcing or compelling a person to do or refrain from doingsomething, on the grounds that it is for her own good. Perhaps abetter way to describe what seems right about the Hobbesian picture,despite its shortcomings, is that it seems to respect a person's capacityfor autonomous choice: it recognizes that an alleged good can fit aperson or autonomous agent, and thus be her good, only if its goodnessfor her is at least partly determined by her capacity for rational self-governance.A somewhat fuller picture of the autonomy-based rationale forinternalism is suggested by John Rawls's conception of a person's goodas given by her rational plan of life. Rawls describes one of the moralpowers of persons as "the capacity to form, revise, and rationally topursue a plan of life."45 What can be good for persons is thus con-strained by one of their central capacities; to suit them it must fit whatthey are like. On Rawls's picture, it can fit what they are like if andonly if a person's good is identified with those plans of life that shemight, of her own accord, choose to follow, at least when she chooseswith what Rawls calls "full deliberative rationality." Her good cannotbe provided by a plan that is simply imposed from without.The "autonomy-based argument" for internalism is an instanceof a more general intuition, namely, that the good of a creature mustsuit its own nature. In the case of persons or autonomous agents, theirnature most centrally includes the capacity for rational self-gover-nance. Their good must thus suit them as creatures with this capacity.We need not settle whether Rawls has provided the correct accountof a person's good to see what necessary conditions the autonomy-based argument might impose on a plausible account of a person'sgood. It clearly supports simple internalism. Something cannot be a

45. Rawls, "Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory," Journal of Philosophy 77(1980): 515-72, p. 525, A Theoryof Justice, pp. 407-24, and Political Liberalism(NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 72-77. An autonomy-based rationale forinternalism is also suggested by David Velleman's account of an agent's values in PracticalReflection(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989). According to Velleman,agents have intellectual motives that incline them toward preferring and performingonly those actions that they find intelligible. Agents are autonomous insofar as theseintellectual motives enable them to "restrain, redirect, and reinforce [their] other motivesfor acting, in accordance with [their] own conception of those motives" (p. 173). Thesearch for values consists in the search for intelligible desires, ones that can be part ofa standing self-conception that enables us to act in ways that we can both anticipateand understand. This picture suggests that something can be a value for a person onlyif it can be intelligible to her and thereby enter into her self-governance. But presumablya person can find a desire intelligible only if she is capable of caring about having it.


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324 Ethics January 1996part of a person's good if it cannot enter into her rational self-gover-nance. And it can enter into her self-governance only if she is capableof caring about it. If she is not capable of caring about it, she cannotof her own accord rationally pursue it, promote it, or simply cherish it.The autonomy-based argument, however, supports a yet strongernecessary condition. Simple internalism insufficiently satisfies thethought that something can be good for a person only if it can enterinto her rational self-governance. If a person can care about somethingonly under conditions that she cannot under ordinary optimal condi-tions care about satisfying, then she cannot on her own rationallypursue, promote, or cherish the thing in question. In order for analleged good to be able to enter into her self-governance, then, shemust not only care about it under certain conditions. She must careabout the fact that she would care about it under those conditions, atleast when she is under ordinary optimal conditions. Otherwise it can-not be a part of her rational self-governance, since, as we saw earlier,it cannot be something that she could have reason to pursue or value.The autonomy-based argument thus also supports as a necessary con-dition on any plausible account of a person's good that it satisfy two-tier internalism.CONCLUSIONI have argued that if we accept internalism about a person's good,then we ought to accept two-tier internalism. Moreover, we ought toaccept internalism. I suggested at the outset that the arguments forinternalism jointly establish a strong presumption in its favor thatwould need to be rebutted by anyone who still wants to reject it. Let'sconsider briefly the overall case for internalism about a person's good.If the foregoing arguments are correct, then an account of aperson's good that satisfies two-tier internalism will fare better thanone that does not on a number of scores. It is better positioned toaccount for the normative force of judgments about a person's good,explain what the property of goodness for a person might be, justifyclaims about a person's good, satisfy the principle that 'ought' implies'can', and show how the good of persons suits their nature as autono-mous agents. What's more, it can afford us a unified account. Ac-cording to the internalist thesis defended here, something can be goodfor a person only if it bears the right relationship to her motivationalcapacities. But then that which is necessary for normative force, justi-fication, a successful ought judgment, a good suited to autonomousagents, and a property able to fill the role of goodness for a personis the very thing that the internalist claims is necessary for somethingto be good for a person.Those who might reject internalism, then, face a difficult chal-lenge. They must either show why an adequate theory of a person's


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Rosati Internalismand the Good 325good need not account for all that can be accounted for by internalisttheories, or show how an externalist theory can do as well.But even a strong defense of internalism is of limited help tothose who would construct internalist theories of a person's good. Thereal work will come with selecting from among diverse accounts, allof which may satisfy two-tier internalism. Whether the process oftheory selection can overcome the vexing problem of disagreementthat has plagued discussions of moral realism is an open question.Without trying to answer that question, it is worth noting that two-tier internalism makes room for what may be a quite plausible antireal-ism about an individual's nonmoral good.46Suppose then that many sets of counterfactual conditions, withdiffering implications for a person's good, could prompt a person'sconcern under ordinary optimal conditions. Proponents of internalisttheories of a person's good would face at least two difficulties. First,the conditions favored by theorists may not always be among thosethat prompt a person's concern. A given individual may, for instance,find that a proposed set of conditions does not speak fully to herconcerns in wondering about her good. Second, even if they are amongthose that prompt an individual's concern, she may care less aboutwhat she would care about under those conditions than under differentconditions. To defend one theory over others, any given theorist mustbe able to explain what mistake a person would make if she dismissed,for self-regarding reasons, the determinations of his or her theory.Yet she may be making no linguistic, logical, or factual mistake.47In theend, the question of what conditions are appropriate for determining aperson's good may be a normative question the answer to which de-pends for any individual on what ideal of the person she is inclinedor can be brought to embrace.48

The sort of antirealism about a person's good toward which theseconsiderations gesture isjust the sort that might be plausible-namely,one that itself satisfies two-tier internalism. Such an antirealism couldrespect the intuitions that support internalism. It would hold that notjust anything can be good for a person-only those things that she iscapable of caring about. It would hold further that, since persons areautonomous agents, something can be good for them only if it canenter into their rational self-governance, and for this they must be

46. For efforts to derive moral relativism from internalism, see Drier; and GilbertHarman, "Moral Relativism," Philosophical Review 85 (1975): 3-22, and "MetaphysicalRealism and Moral Relativism: Reflections on Hilary Putnam's Reason, Truth, and His-tory," ournal of Philosophy79 (1982): 568-75.47. I borrow this way of expressing the point from Gibbard, p. 12.48. See my "Naturalism, Normativity, and the Open Question Argument" forfurther discussion of this final point.


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326 Ethics January 1996capable of caring about their possible concern for that thing. It would,of course, reject the existence of a property of goodness for a person,but would be in a position to explain why no such property exists.Finally, it could explain how judgments about what is good for aperson might be both action guiding and susceptible to justification.

rosati - internal ism and the good for a person

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