Abstract

Internalism about rationality, a widely accepted view about the nature of justifying reasons for action, is the thesis that justifying reasons depend on the motivational states of the agent whose reasons they are. According to the Humean version of this view, reasoning about facts is not sufficient to motivate action; thus, Humeans assert what I call "the priority thesis": reasoning only produces motivation by engaging desires that the agent has prior to deliberation. Kantian internalists deny the priority thesis, and assert that rational deliberation about facts can itself generate a motive in the agent. ;I argue that both the priority thesis itself and the arguments in favor of it are implausible. I then examine the Kantian alternative to it, and I argue that the best explanation of the plausibility of the Kantian emphasis on rationally produced motives is itself inconsistent with Kantian internalism. ;I then sketch and argue for an externalist account of reasons: reasons are facts that reveal an act as choiceworthy in virtue of realizing an intrinsic value. I provide an account of moral motivation which explains why we cannot be indifferent to what we regard as a reason to act: motivation is the mechanism whereby I represent a reason as mine. I connect this view of normative psychology to my account of reasons by suggesting that I care about making a reason my own because I believe my reasons are the right reasons to have