McLarnon 1

Robert McLarnon
Professor Moyar
Practical Reason
8 October 2014
Are all Reasons Internal?
When we consider the reason somebody has for taking an action, this can either serve as
a statement about the beliefs of the person alone leading to the action, or as a statement that the
person had both the belief and the desire to do so. Bernard Williams argues that only the latter is
true because no action can be taken as a product of beliefs without some desire to accept or act
on those beliefs. This argument sparked much debate about the possibility of practical reasoning
and the existence of a pure practical reason, a reason for an action that motivates all agents
necessarily. Korsgaard claims Williams preclude external reasons, so his conclusion that only
internal reasons exist is circular, but her arguments rely upon the unjustified claim that a pure
practical reason could exist. Wallaces practical syllogism serves as a justification of Korsgaard,
but his teleology leads to the unacceptable conclusion of a brute fact. Williams internalism
provides a comprehensive model of motivation and withstands arguments against it.
In Bernard Williams essay, Internal and External Reasons, he begins by outlining two
basic models of human motivation. He defines them in their simplest and most abstract form by
setting criteria for when an agent, A, has a reason to take some action . In the internalist view,
A has reason to if and only if A has some desire, D, which -ing will satisfy. The externalist
holds that the sentence A has reason to s truth value is independent of any motive of A.
Humes position is that only internal reasons can exist. To support this claim, he gives a detailed

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outline of his criteria for an internal reason before providing different conceptions of what
external reasons and why they cannot exist.
Williams strengthens his argument by setting out clear criteria for an internal reason. He
first defines the subjective motivational set. This is the set of all desires an agent holds that can
give rise to an internal reason statement. For an internal reason statement to be true it must
necessarily correspond to some element in S. Returning to the abstract terms internal reasons
were defined with, A has a reason to if and only if some element of S is furthered by -ing.
Williams also bases the truth of a reason statement on the truth of the beliefs contributing to the
reason; one cannot claim an agent has a reason to take an action if that reason is based on false
beliefs. Williams illustrates this with the case of a man mistaking the contents of a drink. He
supposes of a man with the desire to make a gin who has a substance he believes is gin in front
of him. This belief is mistaken, and the substance is in fact petrol. If the man drinks the petrol,
we can easily enough explain why he did, but this does not make a rational reason for him to
have done so. He does not have a reason to drink the petrol; he just mistakenly believes that he
does. Williams claims that through enough deliberation, an agent can realize the presence of any
false belief. With this in mind, acting on a false belief is not rational; it is irrational in that is a
failure to fully exercise ones rationality. He states this in rule form as A has a reason for -ing if
and only if there is some element of S, D, which he correctly believes will be furthered by -ing
and the existence of D is not based on a false belief. With these rules for when a reason statement
is true, Williams continues by clarifying the nature of the subjective motivational set.
The subjective motivational set is dynamic in character with both the addition and
removal of elements possible. Elements of the set can also exist unknown to the agent and be
discovered. Unknown elements of S have a nuanced connection to the actions of A. Even if D is

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not known to S, the statement A has reason to , if an only if A has some corresponding D which
will be furthered by -ing must be fulfilled. A then had a reason to despite being unaware of
the reason. The deliberative process for discovering, adding, and subtracting elements of S must
start at some element of S, and, through logical consideration of the agents beliefs and other
elements of S, make some conclusion that changes S. Williams definition of what makes an
element of S is not very restrictive. He says, S can contain such things as dispositions of
evaluation, patterns of emotional reaction, personal loyalties, and various projects, as they may
be abstractly called, embodying commitments of the agent. With his internalist model defined,
Williams sets about dismantling possible externalist descriptions of motivation.
Williams attack on the externalist model focuses primarily on the contradiction of one
who has a reason for an action and not taking that action. His basic argument is that any external
reason statement that might be used to convince an agent to do something must correspond to
something in that agents S, or the action wont be taken. This is clearly illustrated in the Owen
Wingrave case. Wingraves family has a tradition of military service, and he is expected to
follow in that tradition. This tradition, Wingraves family would claim, gives reason for Owen to
join the military. Despite this, Owen has no desire to join the military, and his familys appeals to
duty fail to motivate him. In Williams model, this is easily explained as Owen lacking a proper
element in S. The externalist claims that A has a reason to s truth is independent of S. To
explain Owens actions, the externalist must either claim that what the family provided is not a
reason, or that Owen is being irrational. Both of these prove problematic to the externalist. It is
difficult to conceive of a definition of a reason that excludes duty but retains any force. Even if
Owen is convinced by the external reason statement, it is now difficult to provide an explanation
for Owen taking the action. The external reason statement cannot fulfill this need because its

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truth is independent of Owens motivations and actions. If acceptance of an external reason

implies a reason to act on it, there must be some mechanism for that acceptance. This acceptance
cannot be based solely on the soundness of the argument. The arguments of Owens family are
clearly sound, but still unmoving. The specifics of this mechanism are not important to Williams
argument, but it could be a psychological one. Williams claims that this mechanism serves the
role of S. While the reasons for accepting an external reason remain ambiguous, if it has passed
the mechanism, then we can now make an internal reason statement about the agent such that he
had some element in S that allowed him to accept the purported external reason. With this in
mind, he claims that external reason statements are essentially internal reasons in disguise, and
thus that external reason statements do not exist.
In her paper, Skepticism about Practical Reason, Korsgaard defends pure practical
reasons against the arguments of multiple moral philosophers including Williams. She separates
skepticism about practical reasoning into content and motivational skepticism. Content
skepticism is doubt about whether formal principles are capable of yielding substantive
conclusions. Motivational skepticism questions the ability of reason to motivate action. She does
not address content skepticism, but claims that motivational skepticism, including the skepticism
posed by Williams is actually content skepticism. A pure practical reason drives an agent to
action independent of any agent dependent characteristics. These often include appeals to what
are often considered universal principles. Her arguments are based around the overlap of the
internalism requirement and the notion of a pure practical reason. In her conception, a reason is
only a reason if it is clear that it motivates. In any other case it is not a reason. For a reason to
motivate a given agent A, it must correspond to some element of As motivational set. A pure
practical reason must motivate any agent, and for that to be the case, it must correspond to

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something in that agents subjective motivational set. If a pure practical reason exists, the ability
to accept it must be in every agents subjective motivational set. Korsgaard claims that the
motivational set must be more than just ends and desires because of the existence of types of
reasoning other than that of the means end variety. The motivational sets potential contents must
allow for all types of reasoning. Williams does not paint a broad enough picture of motivation
and the motivational set to satisfy this. She then claims that the conclusions of Williams
arguments are presupposed by his assumptions about the content of practical reason since it is his
assumption that reasons alone cannot be motivators that leads to the need for the subjective
motivational set to be discussed.
Korsgaards attack on Williams is dependent on her own assumptions about content and a
misrepresentation of his argument. She claims that Williams' assumption that practical reasons
do not exist leads to his conclusions, but her argument rests on a practical reasons possibility.
While each makes an assumption, their assumptions differ in a crucial way. Williams
assumption is a negative while Korsgaards is a positive. There is no burden of proof on
Williams negative claim, while Korsgaard has and does not fulfill this burden. The existence of
a reason that motivates necessarily is certainly not intuitive or self-evident, so it should be
discarded. Even if we allow this assumption, Korsgaard straw-mans Williams argument by
broadening its already massive scope. Williams discusses practical reasoning in his conception
of the subjective motivational set. All of the reasoning Williams discusses is concerned with
what one should do, and being relative to motivation, is of the means end variety. Korsgaard
claims that there are other forms of reasoning, so the motivational set must account for this.
While there certainly are types of reasoning beyond that of the means-end variety, they are the

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concern of theoretical and not practical reasoning. They then have no bearing on the subjective
motivational set, and Williams conclusions are preserved.
Wallaces practical syllogism in his paper How to Argue about Practical Reason can be
extended to fulfill Korsgaards burden of proof about the possibility of a pure practical reason.
He first draws a distinction between types of desire. An unmotivated desire is an animal urge. It
is a state that overtakes an agent and drives him to action. A motivated desire is one the agent
arrives upon through conscious reflection and is rationalized by other propositional attitudes.
Without explicitly stating it, previous essays in practical reason have concerned themselves
primarily with motivated desires. He equates motivational desires with evaluative beliefs, for
example if an agent wants to eat, he must believe food is good. For any motivation, there must be
some rationalizing explanation. These explanations often take the form of evaluative beliefs
which must have further explanations. This could be extended back ad infinitum, but every
causal chain must have a start which is a universal principal. This practical syllogism could
theoretically arrive upon a general principle of motivation. If such a principal could be
discovered, a deductive argument starting at it would constitute a true external reason.
Wallace claims that the conclusion of his practical syllogism is a universal principle
without any justification of its universality. If we examine the chain of rationalizing beliefs an
agent has extended back from a motivation, we find increasingly general rules about his
motivational set. These are still internal to him. The jump to the first step in this chain does not
have any apparent privilege that would cause it to be external. It would simply be the most
fundamental component of his S. This could be the product of upbringing and habituation and
would thus vary from person to person. In fact, it is incredibly difficult to explain how such a
fundamental component of S could be a part of every motivational set. Even if this fundamental

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component of S is written into our DNA, it would be subject to the changes of mutation and
time. Such a thing cannot be called universal. Humanity and agency do not exist necessarily, so a
concept dependent on them can hardly be universal. If the fundamental component arrived at by
Wallaces practical syllogism is not universal to all agents, it cannot support the burden of proof
of Korsgaards arguments, and arguments against Williams thesis that only internal reasons
exist once again fall through.
The only possible recovery for Williams detractors is that the universality of the
fundamental component of S is a brute fact, a fact requiring and having no further explanation.
Acceptance of the existence of pure practical reasoning accepts the existence of brute facts.
Brute facts are epistemically strange and intuitively seem to be impossible. The existence of such
facts sets a definite capacity on our exercises of rationality that is unacceptable to most
philosophers. It is much easier to sacrifice the existence of pure practical reasons, of which there
is great room for skepticism in the first place, and accept Williams thesis that the only true
reasons are internal ones.