Smith on Moral Fetishism

Abstract

According to internalism about moral judgements there is an interesting conceptual connection between an agent's making a moral judgement and that agent's motivation. The externalist denies this and claims that any interesting connection between moral judgements and motivation is contingent.1 The resolution of this dispute has important consequences. For whereas the internalist can construe moral judgements either as noncognitive states like desire or as cognitive states like belief, the externalist is committed to construe moral judgements as cognitive states like belief.2 A vindication of externalism would therefore lend support to those who believe in the possibility of some kind of moral reality. In his book The Moral Problem and in a recent issue of this journal, Michael Smith claims to refute any theory which construes the relationship between moral judgements and motivation as contingent and rationally optional. He claims that no such theory is able to account for the platitude that a good and strong-willed person is reliably motivated in accordance with her moral judgements.3 More specifically, the claim is that although the externalist may provide a reliable link between the moral judgements and motivations of some individual, the only link at his disposal is a basic moral motive to do what is right, where this is read de dicto. But, so Smith argues, we can read off from the platitudes that are definitional of moral discourse that this self-consciously moral motive makes for moral fetishism and not for moral goodness.4 Good people care about what is right, where this is read de re, not de dicto. He calls this a reductio of externalism.