Often, when there is a reason for you to do something, it is the kindof thing to motivate you to do it. For example, if Max and Carolineare deciding whether to go to the Alcove for dinner, Caroline mightmention as a reason in favor, the fact that the Alcove serves onionrings the size of doughnuts, and Max might mention as a reasonagainst, the fact that it is so difficult to get parking there thistime of day. It is some sign—perhaps not a perfect sign, butsome sign—that each of these reallyis a reason, thatMax and Caroline feel the tug in each direction. Mention of theAlcove’s onion rings makes them feel to at least some degreeinclined to go, and mention of the parking arrangements makes themfeel to at least some degree inclined not to. According to somephilosophers, reasons for actionalways bear some relationlike this to motivation. This idea is variously known as‘reasons internalism’, ‘internalism aboutreasons’, or ‘the internal reasons theory’.According to other philosophers, not all reasons are related tomotivation in any of the ways internalists say. This idea is known as‘reasons externalism’ or ‘externalism aboutreasons’.

• 1. Preliminaries
  • 1.1 Varieties of Internalism
    • 1.1.1 VaryingM
    • 1.1.2 VaryingR
  • 1.2 The Philosophical Significance of Reasons Internalism
    • 1.2.1 The Humean Theory of Reasons
    • 1.2.2 The Central Problem
    • 1.2.3 Generalizing
  • 1.3 Explanatory Direction
• 2. Indirect, Theoretical Arguments
  • 2.1 Motivational Arguments
    • 2.1.1 The Classical Argument
    • 2.1.2 An Argument from Explanation
    • 2.1.3 Other Motivational Arguments
  • 2.2 The Analogy to Theoretical Reason
  • 2.3 Arguments from Reactive Attitudes
  • 2.4 The Conditional Fallacy
• 3. Direct, Extensional Arguments
  • 3.1 For Externalism
    • 3.1.1 Undergeneration Arguments
    • 3.1.2 Defenses Against Undergeneration Arguments
    • 3.1.3 Overgeneration Arguments
  • 3.2 For Internalism
    • 3.2.1 The Significance of Apparent Internal Reasons
    • 3.2.2 Three Objections
  • 3.3 Relative Explanatory Power
• 4. The Debate Today
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Preliminaries

1.1 Varieties of Internalism

It is important to clarify that reasons internalism is a thesisaboutnormative (orjustifying) reasons, not aboutmotivating (orexplanatory) reasons. A normativereason is a consideration that counts in favor of or against doingsomething, whereas a motivating reason is an answer to the question,‘why did she do it?’. Clearly, motivating reasons areconnected to motivation; reasons internalism maintains the moreinteresting claim that normative reasons are also closely connected tomotivation. For the remainder of this article, by ‘reason’we will always meannormative reason.

Reasons internalism as we’ve so far presented it is not yet athesis. To get a thesis from this vague idea we must fill in adetailed answer to the question:what sort of relationmust reasons bear to motivation, and in what sense of‘motivation’? So the idea sketched thus far is reallya family of theses, each corresponding to a different way of filling inthe following schema:

Schematic Internalism:Every reason for action must bear relationR to motivational factM.

Different ways of spelling out relationR and motivationalfactM correspond to different ways of trying to cash out theintuitive thought about Max and Caroline’s reasons. Each way offilling in a candidate forR and a candidate forMresults in a different thesis—aversion of reasonsinternalism (henceforth for this article, a version of internalism).Importantly, since not all versions of internalism say the same thing,there is no single question about whether internalism is correct.Rather, there is a family of questions which raise very similarphilosophical issues.

Unfortunately, the labels ‘internalism’ and even‘reasons internalism’ are often used for different kinds ofviews than the ones that are our topic here. For example,‘reasons internalism’ is sometimes used as a name for theview that if something is morally wrong then there must be a reason notto do it. This view will be important to our discussion; to avoidconfusion we will follow the rival convention of calling itMoralRationalism.

In the terminology of Darwall (1983), reasons internalism is anexistence form of internalism, contrasting withjudgment forms of internalism. According to existenceinternalism, a consideration is a reason for an agent only if somemotivational fact about that agent obtains. According to judgmentinternalism, an agent genuinely judges that she has a reason only ifsome motivational fact about that agent obtains; see the entry onmoral motivation. Judgment forms of internalism play an important role in traditionalarguments for noncognitivist metaethical theories (see the entry onmoral cognitivism vs. noncognitivism) but are a quite different issue from that discussed here.

A ‘reasons externalist’ is someone who rejects reasonsinternalism, maintaining that at least some reasons for action are notconnected to motivation in the way reasons internalism claims.However, since there are many different internalist theses aboutthe way in which reasons and motivation are related, there is no clearand unambiguous question of whether reasons externalism is correct.Philosophers generally describe their views as‘externalist’ if they reject any thesis they consider toinvolve aninteresting and controversial dependence of reasonson facts about motivation; it is most likely not fruitful to try hereto adjudicate which theses these are. Externalists need not denythat reasons are commonly connected to facts about motivation, but theycan attribute these connections to desires or dispositions that someagents have while others lack.

1.1.1 VaryingM

An important division among versions of reasons internalism isbetween what we will here callMotivation views andState views. According to Motivation views, the kind ofmotivational fact that reasons require is a fact about what the agentis or can be motivated (i.e. moved through her own volition) todo. According to State views, in contrast, the kind ofmotivational fact that reasons require is not actually a fact aboutmotivation at all, but rather, that the agent has a certain kind ofmotivational attitude—a certain kind of psychologicalstate which plays a role in motivation. These states are oftentaken to be desires, but can include other attitudes such as emotions,intentions, and aversions. Motivation and State views are oftenrun together, but we shall see that they have importantly differentimplications. Motivation views do not, by themselves, require thepresence of any particular kind of psychological state which does themotivating, and State views do not, by themselves, require that themotivating state which is present actually does any motivating.

1.1.2 VaryingR

Another very important distinction among versions of Internalism isbetweenActual andCounterfactual versions. Theformer claim that if someone has a reason to doA, then itfollows by necessity that sheactually is somewhat motivatedto doA (on the Motivation version), oractually hasa desire that would be served by doingA (on the Stateversion). Counterfactual versions make weaker claims: that if someonehas a reason to doA, then it follows by necessity thatshewould be motivated to some degree, orwoulddesire to doA, in circumstances of a particular kind.

Different Counterfactual theories disagree over the nature of this“particular kind” of circumstances: prominentproposals include (i) that the agent be in possession of fullinformation, or at least not have any relevant false beliefs (Smith1994; Joyce 2001); (ii) that she have completed “cognitivepsychotherapy” or that her attitudes have reached a state ofreflective equilibrium (Brandt 1979); (iii) that she have a vividawareness of all relevant contingencies (Darwall 1983); (iv) that shedeliberates faultlessly from her existing motivations (Williams 1979);(v) that she bepractically rational (Korsgaard 1986)—asuggestion to which we shall return; and (vi) that she be ideallyvirtuous—a ‘phronimos’ (McDowell 1995).

Some views which count by our classification as Counterfactual formsof internalism are too weak to be interesting. For example, considerthe thesis that if someone has a reason to doA, then itfollows by necessity that were she to be motivated to do everythingthat she actually has a reason to do, she would be motivated to doA. This thesis is in some sense a variety of internalism—afterall, it posits a necessary connection between reasons and a certainkind of counterfactual about motivation. But given the way thatthe counterfactual is specified, it is trivially true. Similaraccusations can be and have been made about versions of this kind ofthesis which invoke virtue, and perhaps also about those invokingrationality—depending on how rationality is to be understood.It should be noted that some philosophers (e.g. McDowell) whoaccept one or another of these weak theses are commonly considered tobe ‘externalists’ by themselves or others, because of theirrejection of any stronger, more interesting, internalist thesis.

Because it is uncontroversial that an agent can have reasons to dothings that she is not actually motivated to do (particularly if she isunaware of those reasons), we will assume that interesting Motivationversions of internalism take Counterfactual forms. State versionsof internalism, by contrast, can be interesting in both Counterfactualand Actual forms.

1.2 The Philosophical Significance of Reasons Internalism

The different versions of reasons internalism are philosophicallyinteresting for a variety of reasons. But it is impossibleto understand why these different theses have received so muchattention as a group without appreciating one problem in particularthat is encountered by some kinds of reasons internalism. We callthis theCentral Problem. We’ll first introduce thisproblem in its most familiar form for one famous version of reasonsinternalism; we then generalize.

1.2.1 The Humean Theory of Reasons

One of the historically most important versions of reasonsinternalism is an Actual State view according to which the actualstates connected to reasons aredesires. Due to itsrough affinity to David Hume’s view of the dependence of morality onthe passions, this view is often called the ‘Humean Theory ofReasons’, despite controversy over whether Hume himself held anysuch view.

The Humean Theory of Reasons (HTR): If thereis a reason for someone to do something, then she must havesome desire that would be served by her doing it.

Although both are often called ‘reasons internalism’,there are significant differences between HTR and CounterfactualMotivation versions of internalism. One can accept aCounterfactual Motivation view without accepting HTR (e.g.Korsgaard 1986), and one can accept HTR without accepting any(nontrivial) Counterfactual Motivation view (e.g. Schroeder2007b). However, these two internalist theses are oftenlinked. Consider the following popular view about motivation,which, following Smith (1987), we call theHumean Theory ofMotivation (again despite controversy over whether Hume himselfheld it):

The Humean Theory of Motivation (HTM):Desires are necessary and beliefs are not sufficient formotivation.

If (as Counterfactual Motivation versions of internalism claim) anagent has no reason to doA if there is no possibility of her beingmotivated to doA, and if (as HTM claims) there is no possibility of anagent’s being motivated to doA if she has no desire that couldmotivate her to doA, then it seems to follow that an agent has noreason to doA if she has no desire that could motivate her to doA. This is the classical argument for HTR, which we will evaluatein section 2.1.1.

1.2.2 The Central Problem

The Humean Theory of Reasons, along with other Actual State versionsof internalism, is philosophically important because of a CentralProblem motivating much ethical theorizing since the 1940s, whichderives from a tension between HTR, Moral Rationalism (see section1.1), and Moral Absolutism:

Moral Absolutism: Some actions are morallywrong for any agent no matter what motivations and desires theyhave.

For example, presumably it was morally wrong for Hitler to order aprogram of genocide, even if it served some of his desires and wasn’tdetrimental to any of them. (The characteristic of morality that MoralAbsolutism expresses is sometimes described, following Immanuel Kant,as its consisting of ‘categorical’ rather than‘hypothetical’ imperatives; see the entry onKant’s moral philosophy.) If (as Moral Rationalism claims) an action (like ordering genocide)is morally wrong for an agent (like Hitler) only if there is a reasonfor him not to do it, and if (as HTR claims) there is a reason for himnot to do it only if he has some desire that would be served by hisnot doing it, then it follows that whether an action is morally wrongfor an agent depends upon what he or she desires. But that seems incompatiblewith Moral Absolutism. So it seems we must reject at least one of HTR,Moral Rationalism, and Moral Absolutism.

In response to this dilemma one could reject MoralAbsolutism—either by embracing a form of moral relativism,according to which all moral duties vary according to agents’contingent characteristics (e.g. Harman 1975), or by embracing amoralerror theory, accepting that moral claims aresystematically false because they presuppose the existence of externalreasons while in actuality there are none (e.g. Mackie 1977;Joyce 2001). On this view, we mightthink that it wasmorally wrong for Hitler to order genocide, and hence that he hadreasons not to do so, but we would be mistaken. Alternatively,one could reject Moral Rationalism and deny that the moral wrongness ofan act entails that there is a reason not to do it (e.g. Foot1972). On this view, it is possible that Hitler’s deedswere morally wrong yet he had no reason not to perform them. Manyphilosophers, however, prefer to preserve these commonsense thesesabout morality—and our ability to say that Hitler had reasons notto act as he did—by rejecting HTR, along with other Actual Stateversions of internalism. The tension among these views is a bigpart of what motivates philosophical interest in whether all reasonsare related to motivation in the way that some internalist thesisclaims.

1.2.3 Generalizing

Philosophers concerned with the Central Problem have mainly directedtheir criticisms at the Humean Theory of Reasons, but in fact anyActual State version of reasons internalism will lead to a structurallysimilar problem. Any Actual State version of reasons internalismsays that to have a reason, an agent must have some correspondingactual motivational state. But this is precisely what makesreasons hostage to an agent’s actual psychology, creating thetension with Moral Rationalism and Moral Absolutism.

Does the Central Problem similarly arise for Counterfactual versionsof reason internalism? The answer is: it depends upon the natureof the counterfactual condition a particular version of internalismrequires. There is no such tension if this is a condition underwhich any agent would be motivated, no matter what motivations anddesires she actually has. For example, Christine Korsgaard (1986)advocates a Counterfactual Motivation internalism, and Michael Smith(1994) advocates a Counterfactual State internalism, on which it isnecessarily the case that any agent whatsoever would act in the sameway as every other, if they satisfied those counterfactualconditions. Smith grounds his claim in optimism that no matterwhat desires they started with, if every agent was to resolve conflictsbetween their own desires under the condition of full information, theywould converge on the same set of desires. Consequently, what anagent would desire under those conditions does not depend on what she isactually like. So what is wrong for an agent can depend on whatshe has a reason to do (as Moral Rationalism claims), without dependingon what she is like (which would put it in tension with what MoralAbsolutism claims). Smith calls his view an ‘Anti-Humeantheory of reasons’ in order to contrast it with Counterfactual Statetheories which do give rise to the problem that confronts HTR.

On the other hand, many Counterfactual versions of reasons internalismdo hold that whether their counterfactuals are true of some agent mustbe grounded in some actual feature of that agent. These viewsencounter the Central Problem, because they hold that what an agenthas reason to do depends on whether some counterfactual is true ofher, and that whether that counterfactual is true of her depends onwhat she is actually like. So, for example, Richard Joyce (2001)accepts Smith’s Anti-Humean theory of reasons, but rejectsSmith’s claim that under conditions of full information and theresolution of conflicting desires all agents would converge on thesame desires, on the grounds that the desires an agent would have atthe end of this process depend upon the desires he startedwith. (Notice that all Counterfactual versions of internalism of thiskind can be re-formulated as Actual State versions ofinternalism—where the actual state isbeing such thatcertain counterfactuals are true of you.)

1.3 Explanatory Direction

A final preliminary distinction between internalist views concernstheirdirection of explanation. As characterized thusfar, the various internalist theses merely posit a necessary connectionbetween the existence of reasons, on the one hand, and facts aboutmotivation or motivational states, on the other, and do not distinguishbetween competing ways of explaining this necessary connection.Do we have reasonsbecause we have (counterfactual or actual)motivation or desire, or do we have motivation or desirebecause we have reasons? (Or is there some third possibility?)The Humean Theory of Reasons is standardly understood to claim not onlythat we have reasonsonly if we have certain desires, butfurther that we have those reasonsbecause we have thosedesires. We interpret it accordingly in the rest of thisarticle.

HTR (revised): If there is a reason forsomeone to do something, then she must have some desire that would beserved by her doing it, which is the source of her reason.

It is natural to understand any Actual State internalist view asclaiming this direction of explanation. Since there surely can benormative reasons for an agent to act of which she is unaware, it isimplausible that a consideration could be a reason for her to act onlyif she has an actual motivating state because of it.

Counterfactual Motivation views, however, can adopt either directionof explanation, and a variety of philosophers insist that the existenceof reasons explains the relevant facts about motivation rather thanvice versa. Consider the popular thesis that if there is a reasonfor someone to do something, then necessarilyif she is fullyrational she will be motivated to do it. The most trivialaccount of this kind suggests that ‘fully rational’ simplymeansmotivated by all one’s reasons. If this is thetruth in internalism, however, it places no constraints whatsoever onwhat can and cannot be an agent’s practical reason; for this reason itis often called an externalist thesis. But the explanatorypriority of reasons over motivation can also yield a nontrivial versionof internalism. Consider again the thesis appealing to acondition of full rationality. If by ‘rationality’ wemean asubstantive psychological capacity involvingparticular desires or dispositions that enable us to respond toreasons, then we have a form of internalism that places substantiveconstraints on what can and cannot be a reason. For example,Christine Korsgaard (1986) advocates such a nontrivial version ofinternalism, taking the counterfactual about motivation under thecondition of rationality to be explained by a substantive (non-trivial)account of practical rationality. According to Korsgaard, anagent is only rational if she is consistently motivated in accordancewith some general principles that provide her conception of herpractical identity. Given this account of rationality, theinternalist thesis above tells us that only those considerations thatwould motivate such a principle-governed agent can be reasons for herto act.

2. Indirect, Theoretical Arguments

In evaluating whether any particular variety of internalism aboutreasons is true philosophers have brought many different kinds ofresources to bear. In sections 2.1–2.3 we look at indirect,theoretical arguments which bear one way or another. Then in part3 we consider more direct arguments, based on intuitive judgments aboutwhat reasons there are.

2.1 Motivational Arguments

A central consideration adduced in support of internalist theses isthe conceptual link between reasons andexplanation. Inan influential early discussion of reasons for action, Donald Davidson(1963) observed that a common form of explanation of why an agent actedas she did involves citing thereasons she had to act thatway. He argued that because actions are always to be explained interms of psychological states, we can identify reasons for actions withthe desire-belief pairs that cause them. Since Davidson’s concernwas with what explainsactual action, rather than with whatjustifiesprospective action, his discussion might seem toconcern motivating reasons rather than normative reasons. ButDavidson took his reasons to “rationalize” or justify aswell as to explain action, and many philosophers subsequently concludedthat the two kinds of reasons had to be closely, conceptually,connected.

A common and plausible view is that to be an agent’s motivatingreason for acting, a consideration has to be something which that agenttakes to be a normative reason for acting (Dancy 2000; see Setiya 2007for objections). At the very least, it seems that it must bepossible for an agent to be motivated by her normative reasons (Nagel1970). This possibility is in tension with the commonly drawndistinction between motivating reasons as psychological states andnormative reasons as facts or propositions (Smith 1994), which placesthese types of reasons in different ontological categories.

This view, which understands motivating or explanatory reasons interms of normative reasons, offers no obvious support to any version ofinternalism. It holds that if an agent has a motivating reasonfor acting, then she is motivated by something shetakes to bea normative reason. But it does not follow from this (and isoften denied by proponents of this view) that she has or thinks she hasa normative reason only if she is relevantly motivated, as internalismrequires. Views that rather understand normative reasons in termsof explanatory reasons, however, yield a distinct kind of argument forsome form of internalism. Bernard Williams advances just thiskind of argument in his classic but commonly misunderstood article‘Internal and External Reasons’. We first (section 2.1.1)sketch the Classical Argument, attributed to Williams on the standardreading of his article, and then (section 2.1.2) sketch an alternativeargument that Williams may have intended instead.

2.1.1 The Classical Argument

Williams claims that normative reasons have an ‘explanatorydimension’. On a standard reading what he means by this isthat a consideration can be a normative reason for some agent only ifit is possible (i.e. would under certain conditions be the case)that the agent be motivated to act for that reason, and for it therebyto be explanatory of his acting. This first premise of theclassical argument is, of course, just a statement of some version ofCounterfactual Motivation internalism. Here a CounterfactualMotivation form of internalism is assumed as a conceptual truth inorder to argue for an Actual State internalism; any argument proceedingfrom such a premise naturally has no force for those externalists whodeny even the Counterfactual Motivation internalist thesis. Thesecond premise of the argument is HTM, the Humean Theory ofMotivation. If the existence of reasons entails the possibilityof motivation, and the possibility of motivation entails the existenceof desire, then the existence of reasons entails the existence ofdesire—as the Humean Theory of Reasons maintains.

This argument, however, has many widely observed weaknesses.First, it depends on HTM, so it dismisses an idea that manyphilosophers have accepted; namely, that beliefs (either in general orof a specific kind, such as beliefs about reasons) can motivate actionby themselves and independently of desire (e.g. Nagel 1970;Darwall 1983; Dancy 2000).

A second problem arises about how to understand the relevant senseof ‘possibility of motivation’, which links the twopremises. To say that motivation ispossible isequivalent to saying that under certain conditions it would be actual.To understand the relevant sense of possibility, we thereforeneed to identify the relevant conditions under which, according to theargument, there would be motivation. The problem is that the twopremises seem to require for their plausibility different conditions,and therefore different senses of ‘possibility’. Inthe case of the first premise, connecting the existence of reasons withthe possibility of motivation, the existence of reasons plausiblyentails the ‘possibility’ of motivation in only a very weaksense: perhaps nothing stronger than that the agent would bemotivated if he were rational, or perhaps virtuous. In the caseof the second premise, linking the possibility of motivation with theexistence of desire, a much stronger sense of ‘possibility’is arguably needed: something like there being some conditionsunder which the agent with his actual psychological state would bemotivated.

If we were to read the former, weaker sense of the possibility ofmotivation into this second premise, we get the claim that a rational,or perhaps virtuous, version of the agent would only be motivated toact in some way if the actual agent has some actual desire that couldproduce that motivation. This premise would be false if agentscould be irrational or vicious precisely because they lack certaindesires, a common view we discussed in section 1.3. Suppose wetry instead to understand the first premise in terms of the strongersense of possibility suggested for the second premise. Thisyields the claim that an agent can have a reason to act in some wayonly if there are some possible conditions under which he would bemotivated to act in that way due to psychological attitudes that heactually has. Interpreted in this way the first premisebegs the question against Williams’ externalist opponent, becauseit seems already to be a statement of an Actual State version ofinternalism.

It seems that there is no interpretation of ‘possibility ofmotivation’ for which it is plausible that both premises are trueand avoid begging the question against externalism. The ClassicalArgument therefore seems to have either implausibly strong premises, aproblematic inference, or both.

2.1.2 An Argument from Explanation

But Williams may not have intended to offer this argument. Ona rival and unorthodox interpretation (Finlay 2009), Williams’ claim thatpractical reasons have an “explanatory dimension” isto be understood not simply as placing a constraint on what can be areason, but as providing the essential meaning of our thoughts andclaims about practical reasons. On this analysis the concept of a‘reason for action’ just is the concept of an explanationof action, following Davidson. To think that the fact that theAlcove serves onion rings the size of doughnuts is areasonfor Caroline to go there, is to think that the fact that the Alcoveserves such onion rings is anexplanation of Caroline’sgoing there.

As Williams observes, any view of this Davidsonian kind has toovercome an obvious problem. We can have reasons which do notmotivate us to act (e.g. if we are unaware of them), and we canact in ways for which we lack any actual practical reasons (e.g.if we are mistaken about what our reasons are). Identifying anagent’s practical reasons, it seems, neither entails nor isentailed by giving an explanation of her actions. On thisreading, Williams suggests that this problem arises simply due toagents’ error and ignorance, and he offers a way to fix theDavidsonian approach. To think that a fact is a reason for anagent to act is not to think it is an explanation of an action that sheactually performs, but rather it is to think it an explanationof an action that shewould have performed (or would have beensomewhat motivated towards performing) if not for her error orignorance. The concept of a practical reason must be the conceptof an explanation of counterfactual (motivation towards) action:action under the condition of full and valid reasoning and exercise ofimagination from a belief-set purged of error and ignorance(‘sound deliberation’). He claims that theidealization contained in this counterfactual condition is enough tomake these reasons normative and not merely explanatory.

From this understanding of the concept of a practical reason, Williams(on this interpretation) believes he can prove that all‘external reasons statements’ are false by considering thespecial case offirst personal reasons beliefs: an agent’sbeliefs about what considerations are reasons for himself. Thisargument requires a further assumption: thatR is a reasonfor an agent to doA only if he could, through sounddeliberation, come to recognize it as a reason for hisdoingA. This assumption seems reasonable given theconceptual premise, that the notion of a ‘reason foraction’ is just some notion of an explanation of action. A‘reason for an agent’ would then plausibly be anexplanationfor that agent, and it is plausible that what canbe an explanation for an agent is restricted to what the agent is ableto come to recognize as an explanation.

Williams is concerned with what the agent comes to believe when hecomes to believe that some considerationR is a reason forhim to doA. Granted the conceptual premise, an‘internal reasons statement’ is a claim that someconsideration is an explanation of whyby virtue of the contentsof the agent’s actual ‘motivational set’ he would bemotivated to doA under the conditions of sound deliberation,while an ‘external reasons statement’ is a claim that someconsideration is an explanation of whyindependently of thecontents of the agent’s actual motivational set he would bemotivated to doA under those conditions.

While Williams is commonly interpreted as challenging the possibilityof an agent being motivated to doA by the belief that he hasan external reasonR to doA, on this reading heexplicitlyaccepts that such motivation is possible; adisposition to be motivated by the belief that you have an externalreason could be an element of your motivational set, making the factthat you have an external reason itself aninternal reasonfor you to act. (It is an advantage of this interpretation that thisis what Williams actually says.)

Unfortunately, the fact that an agent’s belief thatR is anexternal reason to doA can motivate her to doAdoes not suffice to show thatR is a reason todoA. It only shows thatthe fact that R is a reason todo A is a reason to doA. That is because it does notshow thatR can explain the agent’s motivation to herself; itonly shows thatthe fact that R is a reason for her to do Acan explain her motivation to herself. So what Williams wants to knowis, how could it betrue thatR is a reason to doA? If it were true,realizing that it was could motivate—but what could make ittrue?

According to this reading, the problem Williams sees for externalreasons is the following. For there genuinely to be external reasons,he observes, it must be possible that some such external reasonsbeliefs aretrue. This requires that theconsiderationR which an agent accepts as his reason mustactually be a genuine explanation of his acting under the condition ofsound deliberation, independently of any facts about his motivationalset. But this condition cannot be met, because nothing could beexplanatory of an agent’s action independently of the contents of hismotivational set: his desires and dispositions. From this it follows(given the conceptual premise) that no motivationally‘external’ considerations could genuinely be practicalreasons for an agent.

Hence, while many writers have come to the defense of external reasonsby appealing to a disposition to be motivated by beliefs aboutreasons, if this interpretation is correct then Williams’ argument isdirectly aimed against this kind of solution. A disposition of thiskind could explain why a considerationR could motivate anagent once he believed that it was a reason to act, but it could notmake it the case thatR itself was a genuine explanation ofhis acting, and therefore a reason for him to act. To use Williams’own example, if Owen Wingrave comes to believe thatthe fact that military service is a family tradition is a reasonfor him to enlist, that belief may indeed motivate him to enlist,and explain his doing so. But if he has no desires ordispositions that would cause the belief thatmilitary service is afamily tradition itself to motivate him to enlist, then the factthat military service is a family tradition cannot itself be a genuineexplanation of his enlisting, and therefore his belief that it is areason for him to enlist is false.

Although Williams’ article is commonly seen as the classic defense ofHTR, on this reading it only restricts agents’ reasons to theirdispositions to be motivated, and not more narrowly to their actualdesires. This is because dispositions are sufficient, and actualdesires not necessary, in order to explain why somebody would bemotivated under counterfactual conditions. This argument is thereforestronger than the Classical Argument because of its independence fromHTM, which controversially claims that motivation requires desire. Butthe view supported by this argument is not a weak, CounterfactualMotivation version of internalism; rather it is a more general kind ofActual State view, claiming a connection between reasons and allpsychological states relevant to the explanation of action. Indeed,Williams’ skepticism about ‘external reasons’ would thenbe directed not against those who reject Counterfactual Motivationaccounts—he just assumes that his opponent agrees with him thatreasons must be able to motivate—but against many philosopherswho have championed some Counterfactual Motivation version ofinternalism, like Nagel (1970) and Darwall (1983). These philosophersargue that the order of explanation runs in the other direction: thatthe possibility of being motivated to doA can be explainedby the existence of a reason to doA, while Williams’ view isthat the existence of a reason to doA must be explained bythe possibility of being motivated to doA.

The weakest point in this version of Williams’ argument is probablyits fundamental, conceptual premise: that the concept of a practicalreason is the concept of an explanation of action under certainconditions. Even if we grant the controversial claim that the conceptof a practical reason is the concept of anexplanation we canstill resist this analysis. Suppose, for example, that the concept ofa reason to doA is the concept of an explanation ofwhyto do A, or ofwhy doing A is a good thing to do. To saythatR was the reason for which the agent didAwould then be to say thatR was the explanation of why todoA which motivated the agent to doA. This rivalaccount respects the conceptual relation between ‘reason’and ‘explanation’ on which Williams and Davidson insist,but doesn’t analyze practical reasons as any kind of explanation ofaction. If this is what our concept of practical reasonsis, then a different argument will be needed if we are to rule out thepossibility of external reasons.

2.1.3 Other Motivational Arguments

A different kind of argument specifically for the Humean Theory ofReasons tries to reason from some kind of Counterfactual Motivationinternalism by raising questions about the concepts of action andmotivation in play (Finlay 2007). Necessarily, a rational agentis motivated by recognition of her reasons. But this motivatedbehavior is not merely caused by her reasons; it is avoluntaryresponseto them. A rational agent respondsvoluntarily to her reasons.

A connection is then forged between voluntary behavior anddesire. Arguably, a behavior is only voluntary if it is caused bybeingaimed at. On one theory of desire, aiming atp entails desiring something (eitherp itself, orsomething to whichp is taken to be a means). It followsthat a rational agent’s recognition of a reason entails thepresence of a relevant desire. This does not yet rule outexternalism, which is compatible with this result if any of a number ofdifferent claims are true. The internalist can try to close offthese escapes, however. (i) One possible externalist solution isthat being rational involves having certain desires; the internalistcan argue in response that rationality is rather a procedural virtuewhich doesn’t necessarily involve having any particular desires.(ii) Another solution is to suggest that a rational agent’sability to recognize reasons is limited by her desires; the internalistcan plausibly respond that being (ideally) rational is, by definition,to be able to recognize all one’s reasons. (iii) Perhapsmost promisingly, an externalist can suggest that a rational agent canrespond voluntarily to her reasons by virtue of their causing her tohave a new desire (Darwall 1983). The internalist may counter byarguing that because we cannot desire at will, the causation of such adesire would be a nonvoluntary response to the recognition of a reason,and therefore any behavior motivated by that desire—even ifvoluntary—would not qualify as a voluntaryresponse to thereason.

This line of argument has not yet received much attention; opponentsmay reasonably question whether motivation by reasons must always bevoluntary (this seems implausible in the case oftheoreticalreasons, or reasons for belief, for example—see section 2.2below for this analogy), and also whether voluntary behavior must becaused by desire. For yet a different promising argument forinternalism on the basis of the connection between reasons andmotivational capacities, see section 4 of (Markovits 2011).

2.2 The Analogy to Theoretical Reason

Externalists often appeal to the parallels between practical reasons(reasons for action) andepistemic ortheoreticalreasons (or reasons for belief) to make their caseagainstcertain forms of internalism, particularly the Humean Theory of Reasons(Millgram 1996). They seem to be different species of the samegenus: while practical reasons are facts that support or justifycertain actions, theoretical reasons are facts that support or justifycertain beliefs. Both sorts of reasons are subsumable under theclass of normative reasons, orfacts that support certainbehaviors.

But externalists object that it is implausible that reasons forbelief entail or depend upon facts about desire or motivation.Rational belief is responsive only toevidence, andbeliefs formed on the basis of desires (like a husband’s wishfulbelief—in the face of all the evidence—that his wife is notcheating on him) are irrational. So notallnormative reasons are internal reasons. Internalism aboutpractical reasons might therefore seem arbitrary andunmotivated. Once we’ve allowed external reasons that count infavor of believing certain things, why not allow external reasons thatcount in favor of doing certain things? Elijah Millgram (1996) suggests thatjust as new experiences can reveal to us hitherto unknown reasons forbelief, so too new experiences (involving unexpected pleasures) canreveal to us reasons for action independent of our antecedent desiresand dispositions.

Internalists have two options here. They can deny that genuinereasons for belief can be external, extending their internalism totheoretical reasons, or they can seek to motivate differentialtreatment of the practical and the theoretical cases. To pursuethe former course, internalists might argue that we ascribe reasons forbelief on the assumption of a desire for knowledge or truth (see Kelly2003 for discussion). They can further argue that a person issimply not in the business of formingbeliefs if he does nothave something resembling a desire for truth (Velleman 2000).Alternatively, internalists might argue that we ascribe reasons forbelief on the assumption that whatever the contents of a person’sdesire-set, it will include some item that would be served by believingthat for which there is evidence.

The second strategy would involve identifying a relevant differencebetween practical and theoretical reasons to explain why internalismis true of reasons for action, but not of reasons for belief. Forexample, Markovits (2011) argues that the practical case is differentbecause there is no analogue to the plausible caseoffoundational beliefs in the epistemic case. A differentstrategy might focus on differences in the nature or aims ofaction andbelief. Suppose for example thatwhile believing by its nature aims at tracking the truth, acting by itsnature aims at satisfying some desire of the agent. We could thenreasonably maintain that practical but not theoretical reasons can onlybe internal.

2.3 Arguments from Reactive Attitudes

An important part of the debate about internal and external reasonshas centered on ‘reactive attitudes’, or attitudes that wehave towards agents in response to their behavior, of which blame isthe paradigm. Some have observed in defense of Moral Rationalism,for example, that if an agent does something we consider morally wrong,then we blame (or resent) her. But blame, these philosophersclaim, involves the judgment that the agent had reasons not to do whathe did. Consequently blame is unwarranted when such judgments areunwarranted (Nagel 1970, Smith 1994). Therefore, since moralwrongdoing is sufficient to warrant blame, moral obligations mustentail reasons. Furthermore, Moral Absolutism tells us that themoral wrongness of certain actions is independent of agents’ desiresand dispositions. Since wrongness entails the appropriateness ofblame, which in turn entails existence of reasons, we can conclude thatthere must be reasons that are independent of agents’ desires anddispositions: i.e. external reasons.

A difficulty for this argument comes from the fact that outside ofmorality we do not, in general, blame or resent people for failing tocomply with their practical reasons. If an agent does somethingfoolish or imprudent, for example, we might react with pity or scorn,but not with anything as strong as blame. It seems that theappropriateness of blame requires some condition other thannoncompliance with reasons. This does not show that noncompliancewith reasons is not one of the necessary conditions for blame, ofcourse, but it opens the possibility that once we identify the furthernecessary conditions we might find that they are also, by themselves,sufficient conditions for appropriate blame. The internalistmight suggest, for example, that the missing condition is partly thatthejudge have desires or concerns that are harmed by theresented behavior. Proponents of the argument from blame mayrespond that it is inappropriate to blame harmful non-agents (liketrees and tigers) and agents whose harms are unintentional.However it may be possible to excuse these from blame without acceptingthat noncompliance with reasons is a necessary condition forblameworthiness; for example, with the weaker condition that ablameworthy act stems from having a character from which certainconcerns or motivations are absent (Arpaly 2003). Trees andtigers don’t have a ‘character’ in the relevantsense, and harms that an agent causes unintentionally do not stem fromher character. If something like this is a sufficient conditionfor blameworthiness, then this argument from reactive attitudesfails.

Bernard Williams does not resist the claim that the appropriatenessof blame entails reasons, however, and offers a way of explaining theappropriateness of blame when an agent appears to have no relevantinternal reasons to act otherwise than she did. Blaming in thesecases functions as a ‘proleptic mechanism’: it itselfchanges the situation for the agent so that she now has an internalreason that she otherwise would have lacked (1989). This is areason she has in virtue of something like ‘a disposition to havethe respect of other people’. By blaming or being disposedto blame an agent for unethical behavior, we give her a reason to actethically. Note that this account understands the appropriatenessof blame as at least partly instrumental. Blaming is appropriateif it has some motivational grip on the agent. This view isresisted by many who see the question of the appropriateness of areactive attitude as primarily an issue of desert. Arguably,blame is appropriate only if it is deserved, and not if it is merelyeffective in influencing people’s behavior.

It is also possible to appeal to reactive attitudes in arguingagainst external reasons. Williams argues thatexternalism cannot accommodate the obscurity and indeterminacy in thepractice of blame: that is, the pattern predicted by hisinternalist account that blame sometimes responds to reasons and atother times tries to create them, and that its appropriateness turns onwhether the agent can be influenced psychologically in either of theseways.

Russ Shafer-Landau finds in Williams’ article the suggestion of afurther argument, turning on the fairness constraint on appropriateblame (2003: 181–2). Blame is only appropriate if it is fair, andit is only fair to blame someone for their behavior if they had thecapacity to act otherwise than they did. But an agent’s capacityto act is limited by her desires and dispositions, and therefore blameis only appropriate if an agent’s desires and dispositions gave her thecapacity to act otherwise. This is a challenge for externalismbecause of the suggested connection between blame and reasons wediscussed above: an agent is blameworthy for her action only ifin so acting she failed to obey her reasons.^[1]It follows that an agent’sreasons must be limited by her desires and dispositions; some form ofinternalism is true.

This argument can succeed only if supported by a plausible versionof the ‘ought implies can’ principle. But in basingan agent’s capacity to act on her desires and dispositions, theversion of the principle that the argument seems to presuppose treats‘ought’, or the fairness of blame, as depending on thepsychological capacity to act rather than on the merephysical capacity to act. Externalists would reject asimplausible the psychological version of the principle, and thereforeto assume it for purposes of an internalist argument would bequestion-begging against the externalist.

2.4 The Conditional Fallacy

(Nontrivial) Counterfactual Motivation versions of internalism aresometimes accused of committing a ‘conditionalfallacy’ (named by Shope (1978)). To commit this ‘fallacy’ is to claim thatit is necessary for an agent’s having a reason to doA thathe would be motivated under certain conditions to doA, whenthere are some reasons that the agent can have only if precisely thoseconditions do not obtain. For example, some versions of internalismappeal to counterfactuals involving full rationality, but sometimesagents have certain reasons precisely because they are not fullyrational. Smith (1994) offers the case, due to Gary Watson, of adefeated squash player who, because he is prone to irrational angerthat could cause him to smash his opponent’s face with his racquet,has a reason not to cross the court to shake the winner’s hand. Whenthe conditions specified by the relevant internalist thesis do obtain,the reason is then not present to motivate the agent, falsifying thecounterfactual. For example, were Watson’s squash player to be fullyrational, then it would no longer be true that if he crossed the courthe might hit his opponent, and therefore he wouldn’t be motivatedaccordingly not to cross the court. The relevant internalist thesisthen yields the false result that the irrational squash player has noreason not to cross the court.

In defense of his own internalist thesis, involving counterfactualmotivation under the condition of sound deliberation from fullinformation, Williams (1995) raises an objection of this kind againstMcDowell’s rival claim involving the condition offullvirtue. He observes that being less than fully virtuousgives agents reasons to act that they otherwise wouldn’t havehad and that therefore would not motivate a fully virtuous agent.Others object to Williams’ own counterfactuals involving sounddeliberation that there are reasons that agents have precisely becausethey are not capable of deliberating soundly, which his version ofinternalism therefore fails to accommodate.

It is plausible that objections of this kind will be effective againstany nontrivial Counterfactual Motivation version of internalism. Thisproblem has prompted some to switch from a Counterfactual Motivationmodel to a CounterfactualState model, and others to be morecareful about specifying just what state they have in mind. The ideais that an agentS has a reason to doA only if, were she in certain counterfactual circumstances,she would desireSin her actual circumstances todoA (Smith 1994). Michael Smith calls thistheadvice model (in contrast to theexample model),and it plausibly avoids the problems connected with the‘conditional fallacy’ because it builds in sensitivity tothe relevant conditions in the actual cases that generate thereasons. For example, if a fully rational version of Watson’s squashplayer were to contemplate the situation of his actual, less thanfully-rational self, he would be aware of his actual self’sdisposition to irrational anger, and would therefore want his actualself not to cross the court to shake the winner’s hand. The advicemodel may therefore yield the correct result that the actual playerhas a reason not cross the court. However, as Bedke (2010) emphasizes,this leaves an important puzzle about why each agent’s counterfactual,more fully rational self, would have desires about what her actualself does.

3. Direct, Extensional Arguments

Fortunately we do not ordinarily need to turn to a metaethical theoryto tell us what reasons we have. People have a robust set ofintuitions about what is and what is not a reason for a given agent toperform a given action. All nontrivial versions of reasons internalismand externalism have substantive implications concerning the extensionof agents’ reasons, and for the most part theory here is answerable tocommon sense and aims at accommodating it. Some of the mostsignificant and compelling arguments for and against versions ofinternalism are therefore extensional, that is to say, based on whatreasons agents actually have. An internalist account’s predictionsabout what is and what is not a reason for a particular agent can betested against our prior judgments about what reasons there are.

3.1 For Externalism

3.1.1 Undergeneration Arguments

We have already encountered one of the most powerful sources ofextensional opposition to nontrivial versions of reasons internalismin the form of the Central Problem. The Central Problem is that itseems that some actions are wrong for everyone no matter what they arelike, and that their wrongness for someone requires that that personhave a reason not to do them. But many kinds of internalism—inparticular Actual State views—say that an agent has a reasononly if she satisfies a certain condition, and hence that her reasondepends on what she is like. We can even frame the Central Problem bydivorcing it from Moral Rationalism and Moral Absolutism, and simplyinsisting that for at least some actions (perhaps paradigmatic wrongactions among them), there is a reason for anyone not to do thoseactions, no matter what she is like. This leads to a direct argumentagainst many forms of internalism: that theyundergenerate reasons, by providing negative verdicts in casesin which intuitively there really are reasons.

Because this sort of argument has not always gotten a grip on thoseskeptical about the objective authority of morality, one importantdevelopment since the 1970s is the observation that a similar sort ofproblem arises forprudential reasons (e.g. Nagel1970). If I am going to travel to Israel in six months’ time andwill regret not knowing any Hebrew once I get there, then I have areason to study Hebrewnow, even if I don’t now care about myfuture regrets or about whether I will know Hebrew while I am inIsrael. Yet internalist theses place constraints on what Inow have a reason to do, on the basis of what my actualpsychology is likenow, or on the basis of whatcounterfactuals are true of menow. So they appear tohave a problem in getting these intuitive judgments about reasonsright. This argument is thought to produce extra dialecticalleverage, because these intuitions about prudential reasons are thoughtto be harder to give up than corresponding intuitions about moralreasons.

3.1.2 Defenses Against Undergeneration Arguments

Two lines of response are open to the internalist here. One, proposedby Mark Schroeder (2007b) in defense of the Humean Theory of Reasons,denies that internalism is genuinely incompatible with theinescapability of some moral or prudential reasons. If there are someactions that would serve any possible desire (or, on an alternativeinternalist account, that any agent would be motivated towards underthe relevant counterfactual conditions), then the internalist canaccommodate reasons that any agent has no matter what they are like:such reasons aremassively overdetermined. In this way theinternalist can seek to reconcile Moral Rationalism with MoralAbsolutism (see section 1.2). The idea is that even if internalism istrue, it might still be the case that we all have reasons to avoidmoral wrongdoing, no matter what we are like—because reasons toavoid moral wrongdoing are generated from any set of desires ordispositions. While this solution is formally available, it remainsto be seen whether it can plausibly generate the robust set of moraland prudential reasons posited by ordinary intuitions, and it appearsreasonable to be pessimistic on this count; plausibly there are actualor possible sets of desires and dispositions that would not supportany reasons to avoid breaking promises made to those powerless toretaliate, or to confess to one’s crime for which somebody else hasalready been convicted, for example.

Generally, however, internalists bite the bullet and reject the dataof these ‘intuitions’. They might simply challenge whetherthose intuitions really exist or, more audaciously, maintain that theyare all false. It is not denied that speakersascribeexternal reasons to agents, and so internalists are compelled to offerdiagnoses of this practice. The bluntest is to adopt an errortheory, and suggest that these practices manifest a mistakenunderstanding of the kinds of reasons that there are. This forcesa confrontation between internalism and ordinary practice; mostinternalists dislike the odds in this matchup and seek to explain awaythe evidence.

A provocative diagnosis of external reasons claims is as abluff or a rhetorical device designed to influence thebehavior and attitudes of others (Williams 1979). On this viewexternal reasons claims are all false but stem from an attempt to applynonrational persuasion on others rather than from error; recently somephilosophers have argued that we either do (Kalderon 2005) or should(Joyce 2001) use moral claims as convenient fictions for thispurpose. In later work (1989), Williams proposes, moretemperately, that they may be ‘optimistic internal reasonsclaims’: likely false statements made in the hope that theymay become true through the intended audience’s contemplation ofthem.

A more conciliatory strategy is to claim ambiguity in the notion ofa ‘reason’. In one sense there are external reasons;we might call them ‘institutional’ or‘pseudo’-reasons (Mackie 1977; Joyce 2001). But thespirit of internalism is preserved in the claim that these are notgenuine practical reasons, about which an internalist thesis iscorrect. Recognizing the legitimacy of ascribing these otherkinds of reasons may suggest softening the distinction between internaland external reasons even further; it has been proposed that whatcounts as a ‘genuine reason’ is determined by the concernscharacterizing the context of discourse (Finlay 2006). So, forexample, we may appropriately judge that the pain a certain actionwould cause is areason for a sadist not to perform theaction, because the salient concern in the context isourcompassion for others. This view would prompt us to abandonexistence internalism about practical ‘reasons’ (reasons claimsare made relative to the concerns salient in the conversation, and notnecessarily to the motivations of the agent). On this view ofreasons, however, an agent can have reasons that count as genuine in agiven context, but that he can ignore without irrationality. Sucha view can preserve the spirit of internalism by claiming that therational force of these reasons for any agent depends upon his desiresor motivations.

These strategies aim to reconcile internalism, as much as possible,with the apparently externalist tendencies in ordinary practices ofascribing reasons. Externalists claim they are unsuccessful;ordinary practice is committed to genuine (and genuinely authoritative)external reasons, and rightly so. But internalists remainoptimistic. The issue is very much unresolved.

3.1.3 Overgeneration Arguments

The literature is also full of extensional arguments againsttheories which resemble internalism, but on the grounds that theyovergenerate, rather than undergenerate, reasons. Many famousand colorful examples—about people who want to eat saucers ofmud, or count blades of grass, or who have a disposition to turn onradios—are offered to show that not every desire or motivationis of the right kind to generate practical reasons (Anscombe 1959,Quinn 1993). Strictly speaking, however, such cases only createobjections to views which postulate asufficient condition for the existence of reasons, andinternalism itself postulates onlynecessary conditions, andno such sufficient condition, as Bernard Williams makes clear (1989),for example.

There may, of course, be philosophical reasons why many theoristswho accept some version of internalism as a necessary condition onreasons are also inclined to accept a sufficient condition of thiskind, and we will consider one such philosophical reason in the nextsection. So these may end up being goodindirectarguments against internalism. But no sufficient condition ispart of internalism by itself, so there are no direct overgenerationarguments against internalism.

3.2 For Internalism

3.2.1 The Significance of Apparent Internal Reasons

So far we have considered extensional arguments againstinternalism. But there are also extensional arguments infavor of internalist theses. Setting aside peculiarlymoral reasons, common sense suggests thatordinary practicalreasons exhibit a high degree of agent-relativity. It is alsonatural to think that in at least many cases, different agents havedifferent reasons because theywant different things. IfA desires chocolate ice cream, andB desiresstrawberry ice cream, then intuitivelyA has a reason topurchase the chocolate, andB has a reason to purchase thestrawberry. Many have thought that the Humean Theory of Reasons ismore than suggested by this sort of extensional data.

The idea behind this reasoning is that if we have to agree thatsome reasons depend on desires, then we should give seriousconsideration to the theory according to whichall reasons do,as being simpler and more explanatory than the theory according towhich some reasons derive from our desires but others do not.This may even provide a promising analytical hypothesis about whatclaims about reasons mean, or reductive hypothesis about what reasonsare. This kind of argument is anticipated by Williams’ claim thatthe issue is whether there are both internal and external reasons, orinternal reasons only (1979; see also Schroeder 2007b). We nowdiscuss three kinds of externalist objection to this argument.

3.2.2 Three Objections

One line of objection holds thatno reasons derive from ourdesires. It seems plausible that they do only because desire isclosely connected to something else, which oftenis a sourceof reasons: something likepleasure orenjoyment (Bond 1983, Millgram 1997, Scanlon 1998).Reasons that seem to derive from desires can arguably be more plausiblyexplained by pleasure, which can also serve to explain reasons thatdesire cannot explain: reasons deriving from pleasures that theagent does not actually desire. It may therefore be a better andmore explanatory hypothesis that something likepleasuregrounds our agent-relative reasons. However proponents of thiskind of objection often take hedonic states like pleasure to be merelyone instance of somethingpossessing intrinsic value, andoffer as rivals to HTR theories of reasons as based on intrinsic value(see the entry onintrinsic vs. extrinsic value).

In response, Humeans can observe that in ordinary cases agentswant pleasure, and that thereby HTR can accommodate suchreasons. This line of objection needs a case in which an agenthas a reason to do not just something that she does not already desireto do, but something that would not serve any desire whatsoever thatshe already has. Since any given action may serve many differentpossible desires, and agents who do not desire (e.g.) pleasure are rareand peculiar, it is difficult to control for these kinds offactors. Externalists can claim that an agent would have a reasonto do what is pleasurable even in the absence of any such generaldesire, but this is something that an internalist may be able to denywithout absurdity—although here intuitions seem to differradically.

A related objection consists in the complaint that agents can havedesires that clearly do not generate any practical reasons because theyare for worthless objects. Prominent examples in the literatureinclude a desire to drink a saucer of mud or a can of paint, and adisposition to turn on radios whenever they are off. As noted insection 3.1.3, these examples can’t provide direct counterexamples toany sort of reasons internalism, because reasons internalism itselfplaces only a necessary condition on reasons and not a sufficientcondition, and these examples are proposed counterexamples to asufficient condition. But they are highly relevant to thetheoretical argument for internalism that is our concern in thissection. If we advance as our case for internalism theexplanatory power of the thesis that reasons depend on desire ormotivation, then it is a significant problem if this relation isn’tconsistent and desire or motivation don’t always generatereasons. Some explanation of this inconsistency is needed, andwhen we find it we may find that it reveals that something other thandesire or motivation is the genuine source of our reasons.

These cases are taken to show that desires are only connected withreasons if they are also connected with something else, for exampleintrinsic value, and they do not yield reasons otherwise. Againstthis the internalist can again challenge intuitions and defend theconsistency of the connection, by insisting (e.g.) that a desire todrink a saucer of mud is sufficient for having a reason to do so.Such a reason need not be a good or strong one, after all, and thepeculiarity of claiming that there is such a reason may be explainedaway as being merely pragmatic. In cases in which the reasons foran action are dwarfed by the considerations against it, it is usual toreport that there is no reason for the action at all; ‘there is areason to doA’ typically communicates that there is arelatively weighty reason to doA. Whether or not agentshave desire-based reasons in these circumstances remains a contestedissue.

A different version of this same sort of objection works by grantinga special connection between reasons and desire but suggesting thatthis exists because desires involve judgments or perceptions thatsomething is a reason (e.g. Anscombe 1963, Stampe 1987, Quinn1993, Millgram 1997, Scanlon 1998). Scanlon labels these‘desires in the directed-attention sense’; on this view,(apparent) reasons are explanatory of desires, and not thereverse. This hypothesis would explain why agents tend to haverelevant desires whenever theybelieve themselves to havereasons, but it does not seem well-placed to explain why agents wouldhave these desires whenever theyactually have reasons.If we are disposed to ascribe reasons toothers incorrespondence with their desires, the Humean hypothesis is better.

A third kind of objection (Hampton 1998) insists that though it istrue that some reasons derive from our desires, this is only because ofmore fundamental reasons which themselves do not derive from ourdesires. Proponents of this view hold that there is a fundamentalreason to do what you desire and that changes in what you desire simplyaffect what you need to do in order to go about doing so. Thisview admits that our desires can sometimes affect our reasons butinsists that they only do so because there is a further reason, whichdoes not depend on any desire. Philosophers who accept this vieware unmoved by the argument that Actual State forms of reasoninternalism can provide a more unified explanation of reasons.They don’t deny the existence of ‘internal’ reasons (whichdo derive from desires), but do hold that internal reasons are simplyderivative from and hence are explained by a special case of externalreasons (which do not derive from or depend on desires at all). Asimilar dialectic goes for Actual State views which appeal to a moregeneral kind of state than ‘desire’.

3.3 Relative Explanatory Power

Any evaluation of whether Actual State reasons internalism issimpler, more elegant, or explanatorily more powerful than any possibleexternalist view will have to turn on an evaluation of this kind ofexternalist explanatory strategy. If internal reasons could besimply derivative from external reasons, and external reasons could beindependently explained, then Actual State reasons internalism willhave very little traction on these grounds. If the derivation ofinternal reasons from external reasons turns out to be unsuccessful,however, or external reasons themselves are difficult to explain, thenActual State reasons internalism will gain traction as an explanatoryhypothesis. Schroeder (2007b) attacks the derivation of internalreasons from external reasons; here we can go on to consider whetherexternal reasons are themselves harder to explain than internalones.

Many philosophers have held that external reasons are, in fact,harder to explain than internal ones; even some who were no skepticsabout external reasons, like Immanuel Kant (see the entry onKant’s moral philosophy.) So what makes external reasons so puzzling? Oneidea is that they are puzzling because they leave so little on thebasis of which to explain why they are reasons for the people for whomthey are reasons. Internal reasons are shared only by certainpeople—people with the requisite desires. So Max’s desirescan be used to explain why he has the internal reasons that hehas. But categorical external reasons like those Kant wasconcerned about (and which are required in order to reconcile MoralRationalism with Moral Absolutism) are supposed to be reasons for anyagent, no matter what she is like. So the only thing to which wecan appeal in order to explain why Max has these reasons is the factthat Max is anagent. Some philosophers have accordinglyinvested great energy in developing robust enough accounts of agency tobe able to explain moral reasons. For example, ChristineKorsgaard (1996) maintains that reasons derive from the demands ofautonomy, or being regulated by stable principles that defineones’ self, which she identifies as a necessary condition foracting at all.

However, even accounts that derive reasons from the nature of agencymay ultimately vindicate some form of internalism. David Velleman(1996), for example, argues that agency is characterized by aparticular higher-order inclination—to ‘behave in, and outof, a knowledge of what you’re doing.’ Although this is akind of desire, it is distinct from the contingent desires that mightbe satisfied by particular actions and which internalists usuallyidentify as the source of our reasons. Velleman accordinglydescribes his view as a ‘fainthearted externalism’, but itremains a form of internalism according to the scheme presentedhere.

Some advocates of various forms of internalism have complained thatadvocacy of external reasons amounts to nothing more than‘bluff’ (Williams 1979). A natural way to understandthis idea is as the complaint that external reasons theorists leave uswith too few constraints on what reasons could be, and hence are ableto make whatever claims about reasons they want (so long as theyendorse them in a serious enough tone of voice, perhaps), with noindependent way of checking their plausibility. This complaintcould be a fair one against externalists who are willing to offer nogeneral theory about or constraints on reasons, but it is unfair ingeneral. Externalists may simply look for discipline and unity intheir views about reasons from a source distinct from facts aboutmotivation or motivational psychology. Value-based theorists, forexample, tie their claims about reasons to commitments about what isvaluable. So their claims about what we have reasons to do arechecked by the plausibility of the corresponding theses about what isvaluable.

4. The Debate Today

The debate over internal and external reasons is very much alivetoday, open on nearly all of the fronts that we have considered in thisarticle. Or more accurately, we should say that thedebates over internal and external reasons are very much alivetoday. As we saw, there are important differences between Stateand Motivation forms of internalism, between Counterfactual and Actualforms of internalism, and between versions that give rise to theCentral Problem and those that do not. There are also importantfurther differences in precisely how to formulate any given version ofreasons internalism, and we have not precisely formulated any singleversion in this article.

What is clear is that there are two main varieties of internalistview, each of which faces its own class of problems. Mostinternalist views encounter the Central Problem, and hence havedifficulty in allowing for some of the important reasons that wepre-theoretically are inclined to think that there are. Thoughother arguments have been offered against them, this challenge is atthe heart of their difficulties. We saw that some Counterfactualversions of internalism avoid the Central Problem, by claiming that therelevant counterfactuals are not grounded in any features of agents’actual psychologies, but rather are explained in some other way.The challenge facing these views is to provide such an explanationwithout collapsing into triviality, as with the view that the relevantcounterfactual condition is ‘that the agent is motivated by allof her reasons’.

Externalist views, on the other hand, avoid the Central Problem andhence do well with moral reasons, but critics worry that externalreasons are more mysterious, and that such theories cannot provide asattractive an explanation of whysome reasonsdoappear to be internal. An attractive way forward may have to showentrenched parties how to achieve some of the important advantages ofeach side of the debate.

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Other Important Works

• Anomaly, J., 2007. “An Argument Against ExternalReasons,”Sorites, 18: 56–9.
• Arkonovitch, S., 2014. “Varieties of Reasons/Motives Internalism,”Philosophy Compass, 8: 210–219.
• Bjornsson, G., Strandberg, C., Francen Olinder, R., Eriksson, J.,and Bjorklund, F., 2015.Motivational Internalism, Oxford:Oxford University Press.
• Brady, M., 2000. “How to Understand Internalism,”Philosophical Quarterly, 50: 91–7.
• Brewer, T., 2002. “The Real Problem with Internalismabout Reasons,”Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 32:443–74.
• Brunero, J., 2003. “Practical Reason and MotivationalImperfection,”Philosophical Inquiry, 25: 219–28.
• –––, 2008. “McDowell on ExternalReasons,”European Journal of Philosophy, 16 (1):22–42.
• Cohon, R., 1986. “Are External Reasons Impossible?”Ethics, 96: 545–56.
• –––, 1993. “Internalism about Reasons forAction,”Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 74: 265–88.
• Copp, D., 2001. “Against Internalism aboutReasons-Gert’s Rational Options,”Philosophy and PhenomenologicalResearch, 62: 455–61.
• Cowley, C., 2005. “A New Defence of Williams’sReasons-Internalism,”Philosophical Investigations, 28:346–68.
• Fitzpatrick, W., 2004. “Reasons, Value, and ParticularAgents: Normative Relevance without Motivational Internalism,”Mind, 113: 285–318.
• Gert, J., 2001. “Skepticism about Practical ReasonsInternalism,”Southern Journal of Philosophy, 39:59–77.
• –––, 2002. “Avoiding the Conditional Fallacy,”Philosophical Quarterly, 52: 88–95.
• –––, 2003. “Internalism and Different Kinds ofReasons,”Philosophical Forum, 34: 53–72.
• Gibbard, A., 2003. “Reasons Thick and Thin,”Journalof Philosophy, 100: 288–304.
• Goldman, A., 2005. “Reason Internalism,”Philosophyand Phenomenological Research, 71: 505–32.
• –––, 2006. “Desire Based Reasons and Reasons forDesires,”Southern Journal of Philosophy, 44:469–88.
• Hajdin, M., 1992. “External Reasons and the Foundationsof Morality: Mother Theresa versus Thrasymachus,”Journal ofValue Inquiry, 26: 433–41.
• Heathwood, C., 2011, “Desire-Based Theories of Reasons,Pleasure, and Welfare,” in Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.),OxfordStudies in Metaethics (Volume 6), Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.
• Heuer, U., 2004. “Reasons for Action and Desires,”Philosophical Studies, 121: 43–63.
• –––, 2012, “Thick Concepts and Internal Reasons,”in U. Heuer & G. Lang (eds.) 2012.
• Heuer, U. and G. Lang (eds.), 2012.Luck, Value, and Commitment:Themes from the Ethics of Bernard Williams, Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.
• Hooker, B., 1987 “Williams’ Argument Against ExternalReasons,”Analysis, 47: 42–4.
• Hurley, S., 2001. “Reason and Motivation: TheWrong Distinction?”Analysis 61: 151–5.
• Hurtig, K. I., 2006. “Internalism and Accidie,”Philosophical Studies, 129: 517–43.
• Hyun, A., 2015. “Internalism, Ideal Advisors, and the Conditional Fallacy,”Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 1–7.
• Johnson, R., 1997. “Reasons and Advice for thePractically Rational,”Philosophy and PhenomenologicalResearch, 57: 619–25.
• –––, 1999. “Internal Reasons and the ConditionalFallacy,”Philosophical Quarterly, 49: 53–71.
• –––, 2003. “Internal Reasons: Reply toBrady, Van Roojen and Gert,”Philosophical Quarterly, 53:573–80.
• Kriegel, U., 1999. “Normativity and Rationality:Bernard Williams on Reasons for Action,”Iyyun, 48:281–92.
• Lillehammer, H., 2000. “The Doctrine of InternalReasons,”Journal of Value Inquiry, 34: 507–16.
• Lin, E., 2015. “Prudence, Morality, and the Humean Theory ofReasons,”Philosophical Quarterly, 65:220–40.
• Lubin, D., 2009, “ExternalReasons,”Metaphilosophy, 40: 273–291.
• Manne, K., 2015, “Internalism About Reasons: Sad ButTrue?,”Philosophical Studies, 167: 89–117.
• Mason, C., 2006. “Internal Reasons and Practical Limitson Rational Deliberation,”Philosophical Explorations, 9:163–77.
• Mele, A., 2003.Motivation and Agency,New York: Oxford University Press.
• Moreau, S., 2005. “Reasons and Character,”Ethics, 115: 272–305.
• Parfit, D., 1984.Reasons and Persons,New York: Oxford University Press.
• –––, 1997. “Reason and Motivation,”Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume71: 99–130.
• Price, T., 1999. “Are Williams’s Reasons ProblematicallyExternal After All?”Southern Journal of Philosophy, 37:461–78.
• Robertson, J., 1986. “Internalism about Moral Reasons,”Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 67: 124–35.
• Robertson, T., 2003. “Internalism, (Super)fragile Reasons,and the Conditional Fallacy,”Philosophical Papers, 32:171–84.
• Schroeder, M., 2007a. “Reasons and Agent-Neutrality,”Philosophical Studies, 135: 279–306.
• Setiya, K., 2004. “AgainstInternalism,”Noûs, 38: 266–98.
• Setiya, K. and H. Paakkunainen, 2012,Internal Reasons:Contemporary Readings, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Shackle, N., 2014. “Still Waiting for a Plausible HumeanTheory of Reasons”Philosophical Studies, 167:607–33.
• Shelton, M., 2004. “What is Wrong with ExternalReasons?”Philosophical Studies, 117: 365–94.
• Sinclair, N., 2016. “On the Connection Between NormativeReasons and the Possibility of Acting For ThoseReasons”Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 19:1211–23.
• –––, 2016. “Reasons, Inescapability, andPersuasion”Philosophical Studies, 173:2823–44.
• Skorupski, J., 2007. “Internal Reasons and the Scope ofBlame,” in A. Thomas (ed.)Bernard Williams,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 73–103.
• Smit, H., 2003. “Internalism and the Origin of RationalMotivation,”Journal of Ethics, 7: 183–231.
• –––, 1995. “InternalReasons,”Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 60:109–131.
• –––, 2012, “A Puzzle about InternalReasons,” in U. Heuer & G. Lang (eds.) 2012.
• Sobel, D., 2001a. “Subjective Accounts of Reasons forAction,”Ethics, 111: 461–92.
• –––, 2001b. “Explanation, Internalism, andReasons for Action,”Social Philosophy & Policy,18: 218–35.
• –––, 2003. “Reply toRobertson,”Philosophical Papers, 32:185–91.
• Strandberg, C., 2017. “A Puzzle about Reasons and Rationality,”Journal of Ethics, 21: 63–88.
• Tiffany, E., 2003. “Alienation and Internal Reasons forAction,”Social Theory and Practice, 29: 387–418.
• Tilley, J., 1997. “Motivation and Practical Reasons,”Erkenntnis, 47: 105–27.
• Tubert, A., 2016. “Sound Advice and InternalReasons”Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 97:181–99.
• Thomas, A., 2002. “Internal Reasons and ContractualistImpartiality,”Utilitas, 14: 135–54.
• Thorpe, C., 2006. “A New Worry for the HumeanInstrumentalist,”Philosophical Studies, 131:393–417.
• Wallace, R. J., 1990. “How to Argue AboutPractical Reason,”Mind, 99: 355–85.
• –––, 1999. “Three Conceptions of RationalAgency,”Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 2:217–42.
• Way, J., and D. Whiting, 2017. “Perspectivism and theArgument from Guidance,”Ethical Theory and MoralPractice, 20: 361–74.
• Williams, B., 1985.Ethics and the Limits ofPhilosophy, Cambridge MA: Harvard UniversityPress.
• –––, 2001. “Postscript: Some FurtherNotes on Internal and External Reasons,” in E. Millgram (ed.)Varieties of Practical Reasoning, Cambridge MA:MIT Press, 91–7.
• Wong, D., 2006. “Moral Reasons: Internal andExternal,”Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,72: 536–58.
• Worship, A., 2016. “Moral Reasons, Epistemic Reasons, andRationality”Philosophical Quarterly, 66:341–61.

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