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Judgement internalism is the metaethical view that there is an internal or conceptual connection between practical normative (usually read moral) judgement and motivation. Judgement externalists deny this, claiming instead that the connection is non-conceptual because external and contingent. This paper argues that whether the connection in question is conceptual or not is wholly underdetermined by resources internal to the debate, and that the debate therefore fails to clarify the deeper issues at hand.
According to the strong internalist, it is a conceptual truth that, if A judges he ought to x in circumstances C then, necessarily, A is motivated to x in C. Strong internalism is false if one takes seriously practical irrationality (e.g. akrasia, accidie). To accommodate such phenomena, the internalist weakens his claim so that the connection between judgement and motivation, though conceptual, is defeasible: if A judges he ought to x then, ceteris paribus (i.e. so long as A is practically rational), A is motivated to x. The externalist denies even this weaker claim: an amoralist might judge he ought to x but lack any such motivation. The internalist denies that the amoralist is conceptually possible (I explain why) and thus preserves the conceptual claim on the additional proviso (which he can insert into the ceteris paribus clause) that A's judgement must also be sincere.
The remainder of the paper offers a number of further counterexamples (three in all) to the internalist's conceptual claim. The internalist can nonetheless accommodate such examples by continuing to expand his ceteris paribus clause. Doing so, however, brings with it certain costs - namely an unfalsifiable thesis. I argue that, at the limit, internalism will amount to the claim that, if A judges he ought to x then, so long as nothing prevents judgement from producing motivation, A is motivated to x. I then argue that the remaining difference between the weak internalist and the externalist is that the internalist describes the connection as a conceptual though defeasible connection, whereas the externalist, agreeing over what makes that connection defeasible, describes it as non-conceptual. In effect, the internalist strategy deprives the debate of any further resources by which to adjudicate between the two positions, so that the debate between weak internalists and externalists cannot be resolved from within.
In conclusion, I examine what motivates the debate but argue that the debate does not cast light on the issues it was originally meant to illuminate, namely realist-antirealist metaethical disputes. For while, traditionally, moral realists were externalists, this is no longer so - many realists are internalists and certain forms of moral antirealism are compatible with externalism.
The debate, I conclude (though not the issues around which it revolves), is not very important.
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(Visits since 27 Apr 2005)
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