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Deontology, Internalism, Externalism and the Conceptual Impossibility of a Moralist

Proponents of the deontological ethics put special stress on the motives of moral action ; moral action, in order to be really moral, must be motivated by moral reasons ; my action X can be moral only if it is motivated by my insight that I have to do X. According to this picture, the bare insight that I have to do X is what motivates me to do X ; my belief that I have to do X ipso facto is a motive for me to do X. This is the reason why this position is called internalism about moral motivation ; motive for doing X is embedded in the belief that that I have to do X ; moral motive is internal part of moral belief. The main problem for this position is that it is not clear how beliefs, taken by itself, can be motives for doing anything ; what is needed to move us to action are desires or wishes. Beliefs and desires are two completely different sorts of mental states ; the essence of a belief is that it corresponds to the world, while the essence of the desire is that the world corresponds to it ; they have opposite "direction of fit" ; beliefs are directed from world to us, while desires are directed from us to the world. It is often said that beliefs are cognitive states, while desires are conative states. Therefore externalists about moral motivation hold that moral belief can not be a motive for moral action and that we can be moved only by desire, that is, something that is external to a belief, that's why their position is called externalism. The point of externalist critique of internalism is simple and clear ; what motivates me to take an aspirin is not a belief that aspirin stops a pain but a desire that pain stops ; what motivates me to stop a fire is not a belief that my house is on fire but my desire to preserve my house ; etc. The same holds in morality ; bare belief that I have to help to a man in a trouble is not sufficient to motivate me to really help him, what is needed is a desire to help him. Generally, a mere belief that X is a right thing to do is not sufficient to motivate me to do X, what is needed to do X is the desire to do X. After all, who does X because he thinks he has to do X? Only one who desires to do X! If this is so, then we should reject all moral theories based on the cognitive states and stick only to those based on the conative states. Generally speaking, this critique should show that ethics can not be based on the reason and that it should be based on the emotions or some other non-cognitive foundation. Talking in Kantian terms, this critique is supposed to show that action out of duty is not possible and that only action in accordance with duty is possible ; that morality is not possible but only legality ; that the autonomous ethics is not possible but only the heteronomous one. Therefore, this critique, if correct, destroys the very foundation of a Kantian ethics. The opposition of internalism and externalism about moral motivation is often formulated on the case of the amoralist – a person completely unmotivated by moral reasons. Amoralist is a completely rational person who knows what is right and what wrong, but does not see any reason to do what is right and avoid what is wrong. He asks himself: Why should I be moral? He is a completely rational person who will act morally only if somebody gives him good reason to act morally. In his behavior, amoralist follows his own interest, he does not care whether his actions are right or wrong, good or bad, allowed or forbidden ; etc. In principle, he is ready to correct his behavior but he asks for a reason to do it. Being aware of the distinction between right and wrong for him is not a ground for acting. He shares our moral convictions, but they just do not motivate him. Of course, the amoralist is a fictious character, a theoretical construction invented for testing our ethical intuitions. However, the relevant question is not whether the amoralist really exists or not, the relevant question is whether he can exists at all. Namely, the consequence of internalism is that amoralist is conceptually impossible ; how can somebody know what is right and wrong and not act accordingly? If he does not act rightly, it means that he does not know what is right, for if he really knew what is right, he would do it. He simply does not have moral beliefs, for if he really had them he would act according to these beliefs. The best illustration for this intuition are cases in which we condemn hypocrisy or inconsistency. We do not trust people whose behavior is not consistent with the values they proclaim. Even if they swear to those values we do not believe them if they do not follow these values in their actions ; for if they really believed in these values, they would act according to these values. If it turns out that a politician who publicly condemned corruption was in fact bribed, we would not believe that he really believed what he said. If it turns out that a proclaimed patriot who claimed that everybody has a duty to join the army in the case of war, actually sent his sons to a foreign country until the end of the war, we would not believe that he really believed that everybody has a has that duty. We have such intuitions because we tacitly hold that the motive to do X is embedded in the belief that X is a right thing to do ; one who really believes that he ought to do X will automatically be motivated to do X. On the other hand, externalists hold that motives are not embedded into the beliefs and that therefore amoralist is conceptually possible. Since they hold that moral motives are not internal parts of moral beliefs, they see nothing problematic in the assumption that somebody has moral beliefs and that he is not motivated by these beliefs. Intrenalists hold that amoralist can have moral beliefs in the inverted commas sense, that is, in the sense that he knows what is usually regarded right and wrong by other people but not in the sense that he really believes in it ; for if he himself believed it, he would act accordingly. Of course, externalist do not accept this answer, they believe that amoralist can sincerely believe that X is right without being motivated to do X. Internalists can limit their thesis to the normal people, that is, claim that their thesis does not hold for people with serious psychological disturbances: psychopaths, sociopaths, people with broken personality, etc. Externalist do not accept such a proviso, they believe that it is possible for normal people to have moral beliefs without having motives for corresponding actions. What do you think, is amoralist conceptually possible or not? If you think it is not, your intuitions are internalistic ; if you think that it is possible, your intuitions are more inclined toward externalism. What do you think, can we know what is good without doing it? Externalists hold that the conceptual impossibility of the amoralist is an absurd consequence of the internalism and that therefore we should reject internalism and accept externalism. However, just as the conceptual impossibility of the amoralist is a consequence of the internalism, the conceptual impossibility of the moralist is a consequence of the externalism ; if beliefs can not move to action, then it is impossible that anybody does X just because he beliefs he has to do X. The consequence of the externalism is not only that moral beliefs are sometimes not sufficient for moral acting, but that they are never sufficient for moral acting. Therefore, the mere logical possibility that the moralist exists is sufficient to show that externalism is untenable. However, it seems not only that the moralist is a conceptual possibility, but that in fact there are innumerable cases of a moralism. Every day we do things just because we believe we have to do them ; not because we want to do them, neither because we have natural inclination to do them, nor because we are used to do them, but just because we believe we have to do them, just because we believe it is up to us to do them, no matter whether we like them or not. We do many things although no introspection can help us find any special desire or wish to do these things. We rarely wake up with a desire to go to work ; people mostly go to work because they believe they have to go to work. Parents who drive their children three times a week to a sport or to a music school generally do that because they believe they have to do it, not because they feel a desire to do it. People who change diapers to their old and paralyzed parents do not have a desire to do that. It is obvious that we do many things because we believe we have to do them, no matter whether we desire to do them or not. Doctor on a vacation does not need a desire to help a man who has a heart attack ; policeman does not need a desire to prevent a disorder ; professor does not need a desire to give a C ; etc, they all do that because they believe they have to do it. It would be nice that our desires always coincide with what we have to do, however, unfortunately that is often not so. Hence, no matter whether the amoralist is conceptually possible or not, acting out of duty is in fact very widespread and the internalist model of the moral motivation is in fact true. It is a further question whether that model should be a raw model for building ethical theory, that is, should insight of one's own duty be the only relevant basis for ethical theory or we should rely on desires, emotions, character traits and other non-cognitive states and properties.

Moral Norm; Reason; Motive; Internalism; Externalism; Deontology; Amoralist

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