Practical reason and the requirements of internalism
Abstract
The present state of the traditional empiricist/rationalist debate in ethics takes as its main focus the motivational capacity of practical reason. There are two groups of views on the issue. On one side, there are Humean naturalists, who argue that only beliefs and desires are sufficient for motivation, and on the other, Kantian rationalists, who claim that rationality as such is capable of motivating morally. I discuss critically a particular rationalist proposal, namely, Christine Korsgaard's influential formulation of what she calls ‘the internalism requirement,’ according to which practical reasons are motivating only for agents who are appropriately rational. Korsgaard and others argue that the internalism requirement, when interpreted in constructivist Kantian terms, implies the inadequacy of the empiricist view of practical rationality. I argue that this interpretation of the internalism requirement begs important questions against the Humean about key issues related to concepts of ‘rationality’ and ‘normativity.’ I consider two groups of criticism of the Humean view—based on the concepts of irrationality and of categorical reasons—derived from constructivist interpretations of the internalism requirement. Neither of the two groups of criticisms, I argue, provide grounds for a decisive argument against the Humean view of practical rationality. Consequently, rationalist accounts of the practicality of reason that take as fundamental the internalism requirement fail to respond to the Humean position on the relation between moral motivation and practical reason. The alternatives are thus either to present a rationalist interpretation of the internalism requirement that jettisons the constructivist interpretation of Kant as its source, or to present an interpretation of the Humean empiricist position that satisfies some plausible interpretation of that requirement. I advance a proposal for the latter.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
McBride, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Philosophy
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