Weakness of will and motivational internalism

Abstract

The unconditional version of motivational internalism says that if an agent sincerely judges that to φ in circumstances C is the best option available to her, then, as a matter of conceptual necessity, she will be motivated to φ in C. This position faces a powerful counterargument according to which it is possible for various cases of practical irrationality to completely defeat an agent's moral motivation while, at the same time, leaving her appreciation of her moral reasons intact. In this paper, I will argue that weakness of will, as the paradigmatic case of practical irrationality, and all other cases of practical irrationality that feature in standard formulations of this argument do not represent genuine counterexamples to this version of motivational internalism. In this sense, the main aim of this paper is to show that proponents of this internalist position are well justified in their denial of the claim that there are people who are completely unmotivated by their judgments about what is the best option available to them.

The Challenge of Amoralism

“…(Mele, , p. 26)In order to avoid these and similar difficulties, researchers in experimental social psychology typically assess motivation in terms of the speed, strength, and perseverance with which people perform actions (Toure‐Tillery & Fishbach, ). Yet, when we take into account that all of these factors essentially depend on an agent's committing an action, it is highly unlikely that they could be of any use in conclusively determining the complete absence of her motivation , especially given the fact that motivation need not ultimately lead to action (see Milevski, , p. 49).…”

“…Third, and most importantly, note that the formulation of unconditional motivational internalism provides us with a very clear description of the conditions that an agent would have to simultaneously satisfy in order to represent a genuine case of amoralism, and, consequently, a credible threat to this version of internalism. There seem to be three such conditions (see Milevski, , pp. 48–49): (a)An agent would have to make a sincere moral judgement. (b)An agent would have to be a competent speaker with regard to moral concepts. (c)An agent would have to be completely unmoved to act in accordance with her own moral judgement. The claim that I intend to defend here is that any combination of the above three conditions amounts to epistemic inconsistency and that, therefore, the challenge of amoralism does not succeed in posing a legitimate threat to unconditional motivational internalism.…”