engleski

Against the Amoralist

It is often claimed that there is a link between moral judgments and motivation. If someone claims that Φ is morally right, he will also be motivated to Φ . This thesis is known as internalism about motivation, and it is equivalent to the claim that motivation is internal to moral judgment. Externalists about motivation, on the other hand, argue that it is possible that an agent judges that a certain act is morally right, but remains unmotivated to do it. Externalists usually invoke the figure of an amoralist, a person who recognizes his moral obligations, but fails to be motivated by them.I argue that the amoralist objection can be dealt with only if we properly formulate the thesis of internalism about motivation. I think that the adequate formulation of this theses enables an internalist to easily cope with some counterexamples, and also helps one to see what the amoralist objection really amounts to. In the second part, I defend Michael Smith’ s argument for internalism against several objections, and argue that the amoralist is no threat to internalism since amoralists do not make moral judgments.

amoralist; motivational internalism; motivation de re; motivation de dicto

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