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To exercise practical reason is to engage in reasoning relating to our practical (e.g., moral) actions. In “Skepticism about Practical Reason,” Korsgaard explores the nature of practical reason and analyzes skeptical claims regarding reason’s ability to guide action. Her article defends two interwoven theses. First, that motivational skepticism depends on content skepticism, and second, that a properly construed internalist view is defensible. For the sake of clarity, I will discuss these two theses separately and then offer a critique of the second thesis. More specifically, I believe an internalist view is defensible, but I think Korsgaard’s development of the view is mistaken in characterizing the motivation coming from reason as being “blocked” instead of overpowered. I also do not think that her position avoids making moral action conditional on a person’s prior passions and so it threatens to undermine moral responsibility. Thus, while offering a promising alternative to Hume’s theory of motivation, it is in need of revision and should be rejected as it stands. However, her first thesis does appear to be correct and so her main point in the paper should be accepted.
The first and main thesis that Korsgaard defends is that “motivational skepticism must always be based on content skepticism” (6). By motivational skepticism Korsgaard means skepticism or doubt about the extent to which reason can provide a motive for action, particularly moral action (5). In contrast, content skepticism is doubt about the nature of reasoning and what it can say about the relationship between choice and action (7). Thus, Korsgaard claims that any view regarding whether reason can provide a motive for action will necessarily presuppose a broader view regarding the nature of reasoning. It is this broader view that determines whether reason can provide a motive for action, and so motivational skepticism necessarily depends on content skepticism.
In order to demonstrate this claim, Korsgaard explains Hume’s view concerning the nature of reason. For Hume, reason analyzes the relations of ideas (e.g., logic and math) and the relations of objects (e.g., cause and effect). With respect to moral action, reason merely discerns the means to a desired end, which ultimately is rooted in a passion and is sought to satisfy that passion. These passions are the root of morality: good actions bring about positive sentiments while bad actions lead to negative sentiments. However, reason cannot judge the sentiments in themselves, for they are what they are and are not subject to rational evaluation. Reason merely tells us how to satisfy our desires and so it is used by our passions to find the means to do so.
By defining the role of reason in this way, it is clear that reason cannot provide a motive for action nor oppose any passion. It merely analyzes relationships and as such has no motivational force of its own. But this, Korsgaard notices, is simply a consequence of Hume’s view of reason itself: “his motivational skepticism… is entirely dependent upon his content skepticism” (7). Hume clarifies his view with respect to moral motivation by asserting (1) that if reason does have any motive force, then it must be tied to or based in a passion. However, this is based on his prior view that reason is only concerned with the relations of objects and ideas and therefore only passions can have motivational influence. Similarly, Hume believes (2) that a reason joined by a passion “must proceed to the means to satisfy that passion, that being the only operation of reason that transmits motivational force” (8). However, this claim depends entirely on the view that reasoning is completely characterized by discerning the means to achieving an end. Once again, this assertion follows from Hume’s broader view about the nature of reason and as such it is not an independent view about motivation.
On both points, Korsgaard believes that one can challenge Hume. Kantians challenge both points, since reason provides a motivation of its own and is not solely characterized by discerning means-end relations. Nor are these points inseparable as a person can affirm one but deny the other. For example, Bernard Williams agrees with the first point but denies the second. On William’s view, if a person has a motive to do an action, this will be an internal reason for doing that action. Any reason that does not have a motive force is an external reason. Williams believes that external reasons are not really reasons at all since they have no motive force for an individual and cannot therefore explain an action. Up to this point, Williams is in agreement with Hume. However, Williams suggests that one can act for reasons of principle as opposed to acting in order to achieve an end by some means. One can apply a principle that is in one’s subjective motivational set to the situation at hand and act accordingly. This process, Korsgaard claims, is not purely means/end reasoning (21). Thus, it is clear that one’s view with respect to reason’s ability to motivate action is dependent on one’s view of reason itself, and so Korsgaard’s first thesis is correct.
To set up her second thesis, Korsgaard criticizes Hume’s view of reasoning and motivation on two grounds. The first concerns the inability of a person to act irrationally. Hume believes that passions can only be considered “unreasonable” if they are tied to a false belief. For example, the passion may be based on an object that does not exist or it may be motivating a mistaken means-end relation. However, in neither case can the passion be called “unreasonable” or the resulting action called “irrational” because with respect to the false belief, the passion and the action are both “reasonable.” Thus, Hume’s view precludes the possibility of true irrationality with regard to action. That is, one cannot fail “to respond appropriately to an available reason” by, for example, choosing insufficient means to achieve an end while knowing the complete truth about a means-end relation (12). If one did so, this would suggest that one did not really have this end (16). However, Korsgaard believes that a theory of reason and motivation should allow for this possibility. She asserts that “it is perfectly possible to imagine a sort of being who could engage in causal reasoning and who could, therefore, engage in reasoning that would point out the means to her ends, but who was not motivated by it” (13). If this is a genuine possibility, then Hume’s account is wrong.
Korsgaard’s second objection is that Hume’s account suggests that practical reasons may be conditional. For example, on Hume’s account, motivation to act springs from passions that an agent already has. Consequently, a practical reason for one individual may not be a practical reason for another individual due to their differing passions. According to Korsgaard, Williams’s view also lends itself to this interpretation. For Williams, internal reasons relate to one’s “subjective motivational set” (19). This set contains beliefs, desires, passions, and principles, and it is by deliberating about the contents of this set that one generates internal reasons for action. Reasons that are external to the subjective motivational set (including judgments of practical reason) cannot produce a motive for action and hence are not, according to Williams, properly called reasons at all.
Rejecting Hume’s view of reasoning and motivation (and Williams’s as well), Korsgaard offers an alternative that is framed within the internalist/externalist debate. By internalism, Korsgaard means the theory that “the knowledge (or the truth or the acceptance) of a moral judgment implies the existence of a motive (not necessarily overriding) for acting on that judgment” (8). There is a necessary connection between the judgment and the motivation such that simply by coming to a moral judgment about an action one has a motivation to act in accordance with that moral judgment. In contrast, an externalist theory of moral motivation asserts that “a conjunction of moral comprehension and total unmotivatedness is perfectly possible” (9). That is, one can make a moral judgment and lack any motivation for acting in accordance with that judgment; the judgment provides no motivation for action.
Seeking to defend the internalist view, Korsgaard lays out a requirement that must be satisfied if an internalist picture of moral motivation is to be possibly true. This internalism requirement states that “practical-reason claims, if they are really to present us with reasons for action, must be capable of motivating rational persons” (11). The key word is rational. Consider again the case of irrationality in which a person discerns the means to some end yet remains unmotivated to engage in those means. Korsgaard believes that in this case, the person is somehow incapable of “transmitting motive force” from reasons to action because something has blocked that transmission (13). Korsgaard cites rage, passion, depression, and illness (physical or mental) as things that could interfere with reason’s ability to motivate an action (13). Indifference, rationalization, and self-deception could also interfere with this process.
But this does not imply that reason itself is incapable of providing a motivation. As Korsgaard states, “the necessity, or the compellingness, of rational considerations lies in those considerations themselves, not in us” (13-4). Reason necessarily provides a motive for action, but it does not follow that we will necessarily act on that motive since this motive may be blocked. In this case, we will act on other motives related to our passions. However, we will act on that motive when there is no obstacle blocking it, that is, when we are rationally disposed. The internalist requirement only needs reason to “be capable of convincing us [or motivating us] – insofar as we are rational” (14-5). Reasons must convince and motivate a rational person to the extent that he or she recognizes a reason as such and the motivation coming from that reason is not blocked.
Consequently, it may not be possible to persuade someone to act rationally. Korsgaard believes that there is “a gap between understanding a reason and being motivated by it” (17). A reason may be intrinsically motivating but may fail to motivate us to act due to some interference in transferring the motivation from the reason to our action. The fault lies not in the reason itself, but in us. Not everyone is capable of being motivated to act by merely perceiving a connection between a reason and a moral action (18). Only those who are properly disposed to reason and responsive to reason will in fact be motivated by reason to act.
Against the concern that practical reasons would be conditional on her account, Korsgaard affirms that “reason could yield conclusions that every rational being must acknowledge and be capable of being motivated by” (22). In fact, on Williams’s view, suppose that a principle in the subjective motivational set is discovered and accepted through reasoning. Then prima facie it is plausible to suggest that every rational person could have or in fact does have this principle. If this is true, then Korsgaard believes that the internalism requirement is satisfied, “for all rational persons could be brought to see that they have reason to act in the way required by the principle, and this is all that the internalism requirement requires” (22).
In sum, Korsgaard believes that motivational skepticism cannot provide evidence for skepticism about practical reasons since one’s conception of the role of reason will determine exactly the role that practical reasons can play in motivating an individual. Furthermore, Korsgaard believes that the failure of a reason to cause an action demonstrates nothing about that that reason’s ability to motivate in itself. This only provides evidence for the lack of rationality in the individual who has failed to be sufficiently motivated to act. Thus, the internalism requirement is satisfied and internalism itself is not refuted.
I agree with Korsgaard’s first thesis that motivational skepticism depends on content skepticism. However, I do not quite agree with the view that she has given as an alternative to Hume’s theory of motivation. First, her assertion that a motive can be blocked is a bit confusing. Although it is difficult to tell, she seems to be using the word ‘motive’ in two ways. The first refers to the phenomenal force that a reason exerts on us while the second refers to the reason which explains our action. The first kind of motive cannot be blocked if Korsgaard is to be an internalist since there must be a necessary connection between recognizing a reason to act and feeling somewhat compelled to do so. So it must be the second kind of motive that is blocked, that is, one may feel like one should act in a certain way as the result of recognizing a reason to do so, but one will not in fact act in that way because the transmission of the motive force is blocked from moving one to action.
However, ‘blocked’ does not seem like the correct word to use here. In the instance in which I do not act in accordance with a moral judgment and the motive it gives, I feel torn as to what I should do. My motive to act in accordance with reason is not so much blocked as it is overpowered by other concerns and desires. This overpowering can become so great that it feels as though I have absolutely no motive force at all to act in accordance with a reason, even though I must on the internalist picture. Also, it does seem that the motive force is transmitted to my will which determines my action. Even when I do act contrary to reason, that motive influences my action to a certain degree (e.g., I do my action with a sense of guilt, I make a compromise). It seems that it must necessarily do so, for I cannot understand how I could feel a motive to act and yet not have my act be affected in some way by it. However, my action can still be called properly called “irrational” because my action does not exclusively or primarily come from the motive given by reason; I do not act in accordance with reason’s motive and hence not in accordance with reason.
A second difficulty is that Korsgaard’s view seems to make action conditional on a person’s prior disposition to respond to reasons, and this seems to undermine moral responsibility. She asserts that reason will motivate someone who is capable of being motivated and this capability depends on that person’s level of rationality. Presumably, a more rational person will have fewer passions that can block the transmission of the motive force to the action. But suppose that a person is so disposed that no motivational force from a judgment of reason can be transmitted since it is always blocked. Then on Korsgaard’s view, reason has no influence whatsoever on the action that ensues. Indeed, the motivational force that comes from reason seems to be held hostage to the passions. If Korsgaard’s view is correct, couldn’t one simply claim that one’s passions got in the way and they (and not the agent) are to blame for blocking an action in accordance with reason? Again, it seems better to say that the motivation that comes from reason may be overridden by contrary desires and concerns, though it cannot be completely overridden. Thus, it still does have the ability to influence action and so we can be held morally responsible with respect to it.
In conclusion, if I have understood Korsgaard correctly, then I believe that her view concerning the transmission of moral motivation to action is false. The motive force that reason gives is not blocked but overpowered. In any case, Korsgaard’s main thesis appears to be correct, and thus one should conclude that motivational skepticism does depend on content skepticism as she claims.
Works
Cited
Korsgaard,
Christine. “Skepticism about Practical Reasons.”
The Journal of Philosophy 83.1 (1986):
5-25. JSTOR. Web. 26 February 2011.
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