Anscombe, Obligation and Moral Motivation

Abstract

Introduction Internalists and externalists disagree over the source and nature of moral motivation. Internalists believe that motivation necessarily accompanies moral judgments and so is internal to moral judgment. Externalists deny any such necessary connection. While the argument for either side can be made on strictly metaethical grounds, normative intuitions have also become part of the debate. Externalists appeal to the intuition that an amoralist is possible: someone who can sincerely make a moral judgment and yet have no motivation to act upon it. Through the work of Michael Smith, internalists have appealed to two normative issues of their own. First, the motivation of good and strong-willed agents reliably tracks changes in moral belief. Second, good moral agents do not act out of a desire for rightness-as-such but for the sake of the values that underwrite moral status. Transforming these two intuitions into constraints on metaethical theories, Smith launches a dilemma for externalism. So far neither side has prevailed in this debate and it stands at an impasse. Problem The normative intuitions used by the internalists and externalists seem to be at odds as they are used to support contradictory positions. This appearance of inconsistency indicates we do not fully understand these intuitions, revealing a gap in our understanding of moral practice. This appearance of inconsistency indicates either that the inconsistency is actual and so some of these normative intuitions are false, or that there is some missing piece of knowledge that reconciles them. A good metaethical theory should resolve this tension and uncertainty and either show that some intuitions are false, or show that all can be reconciled. Method Many moral philosophers have attempted to either explain away the other side’s intuitions or reconcile them, but none have been successful. This dissertation applies a different tactic: appropriating the work of G.E.M. Anscombe on obligation. Anscombe’s work distinguishes between two kinds of necessity at work in obligation. One kind of necessity is the necessity of an act for some good, she credits Aristotle with identifying in Metaphysics. The other sort of necessity is a conventional kind operative in the rules of language, as discussed by Wittgenstein. Conclusion Anscombe’s own work on obligation can be used to reconcile the normative intuitions used by both internalists and externalists. We will see that the intuitions can be reconciled when we recognize that some of the intuitions apply to the Aristotelian necessity and others to the conventional kind of necessity. Thus, we can render the intuitions consistent with a deeper excavation of the sort of necessity at work in obligation.