The Journal of Value Inquiry 20:63-69 (1986). �9 Martinus Nifhoff Publishers, Dordreeht. Printed in the Netherlands.

INTERNALISM AND MORAL TRAINING

BYRON L. HAINES Philosophy Department, Portland State University, Portland, OR 97207

There is a distinction between having a reason for an action such as to justify that action and being motivated to do that action. Thus if I am driving at a high rate of speed through a school zone at recess time, I have good reason to slow down. That reason has to do with the safety of the children. Ordinarily, for most persons of even small compassion, recognition that one's driving speed is such as to en- danger the lives of innocent children will be sufficient to motivate slowing down. No doubt for some persons on all occasions, and perhaps for most persons on some occasions, recognition that there is a good reason for behaving in a certain way - in this case slowing down - will not be sufficient to motivate. One may need such further thoughts as that the street is carefully patrolled by the police, that speeding in such areas carries a mandatory jail sentence, or that one's insurance rates will double if one has the misfortune to mangle a child! Indeed, there might conceiv- ably be beings biologically like ourselves - whether or not they are to be con- sidered persons is something else - who not only can be motivated only by such considerations as the latter ones, but who fail to recognize that one's driving is such as to endanger the lives of the children, as such, provides any reason for slowing down. However, one's driving so as to endanger the lives of the children is not made reasonable - is not provided with reason such as to justify -- by the fact that one might not, on a given occasion or always, be motivated to act out of con- cern for their lives, or by the fact that one was a being of a sort not to care at all about such matters (though, to be sure, in the latter type of case, we would be dealing with a being who could not be affected by moral criticism). Indeed, it is, presumably, our be- lief that there is good reason to drive carefully in school zones - for anyone to do so - that would lead us to pass laws against speeding and attach penalties to those laws, hoping to move those who can't be moved by a concern for the lives of children.

The distinction between justification and motivation is not a technical, phi- losophical one (although the abstract language may be encountered particularly within philosophical contexts). That it is not a technical distinction can be con- firmed by noting the ease with which it is grasped and accepted by students when presented with clear cases (which is not to deny that there may sometimes be con- fusions within complex and messy moral arguments), One encounters not at all

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the resistance that one encounters when, say, trying to persuade students that an argument with inconsistent premises may be valid.

In spite of this distinction, the doctrine of internalism 1 remains a live one among ethical theorists. Internalism is, put simply, a view to the effect that one can have a reason for an action such as to justify that action only if one is motivated to do that action. Among contemporary philosophers of some influence the view was once advanced by Gilbert Harman. 2 No doubt a review of recent ethics literature would reveal many more adherents. While it is possible that somewhere in the ethics literature one could find arguments for the view, in general it seems to be a view that is less likely "to be argued for (unless arguments against particular externalist theories might be considered as arguments for this view) than it is a view that simply strikes some philosophers as true. In defending internalism it is common to argue against, or at least assert opposition to, Kant and to assert agree- ment with Hume. Harman, for example, says "Here I simply assume that the Kant- ian approach is wrong". The Kantian approach which he rejects is one "which sees a possible source of motivation in reason itself." Presumably, although it is not stated, Harman's agreement with Hume is with the famous passage where Hume says that reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions. However, this is hardly an argument for the view since it is, in Hume's colorful language, simply a state- ment of it.

It would be, no doubt, folly to suppose that a view so persistently held by com- petent philosophers could be decisively, and, once and for all, refuted - shown to be false by deducing a contradiction from the view itself. Nonetheless, I think there are serious considerations against the view. These considerations are such as to show that, if internalism is true, not only are a few philosophers (i.e. externalists) mis- taken, but also the vast majority of humankind, including internalists themselves when they are not philosophizing, concerning important features of morality. While I think that there are a number of such considerations (including, impor- tantly, ones having to do with the nature of moral disagreement and argument), the ones to which I will draw attention here have to do with moral training - i.e. the teaching and learning of moral concepts and basic moral beliefs. The points I shall make involve, for critical consideration, matters of psychology as much as of logic; however, they are not matters requiring sophisticated observation and testing but only those kinds of matters that are accessible to observant parents, teachers, and, for that matter, children. What is called for here, if our understanding is to be improved, is not the advancement and defense of complex theories, either phi- losophical or psychological, concerning moral learning but a careful and honest consideration of cases.

With regards to moral training, I wish to draw attention to two kinds of cases. The first is where the small child, having not yet the understanding of the moral practice in question, can have no relevant motives at all, and, so, if internalism is true, can be given and understand no reasons for behaving in a certain way. The second kind of case is where the child may have motives for behaving in a cer- tain way, but, reflective parents may feel, there is good reason for the child to behave differently, and may hope, through getting the child to recognize

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the reasons for behaving differently, the child will be motivated to act differently. As an example of the first type of case I wish to consider promising. As an example of the second type of case I wish to consider racist behavior.

Promising is a sophisticated moral practice. While I do not know the precise point at which a child acquires a concept of promising, and of the obligation which the making of a promise creates, and suspect that there is, from child to child, considerable variation, we may safely assume that there is a time when the child has no such concept, and, hence, has no motives for either keeping or breaking promises. An assumption here, though an assumption difficult to dispute, is that having a motive to do or not to do such and such involves knowing what such and such is. What is it that the child comes to understand when the child comes to understand what a promise is? No doubt there are many things, but centrally and importantly the child must come to understand that in promising one creates an obligation to a person, and hence acquires reason for treating that person in ways that one might not have in the absence of the promise.3 To say this is not to sub- scribe to a position, sometimes called Kantian, to the effect that one ought to keep promises no matter what the circumstances. There are promises and promises, some being considerably less weighty than others, and, additionally, promises do not occur in a moral vacuum but within a moral context in which the obligations created by promises may compete with various other moral considerations. The sophisticated adult moral agent is not only aware of these matters, but also is understanding of the variety of ways - e.g. apologies, the making of explanations, the making of amends, etc. - in which moral relations are sustained when promise obligations, as well as other obligations, cannot be perfectly met, and is, ideally, blessed with the imagination for dealing with competing obligations in ways that least violate, or do not violate at all, the various person to whom one may be obliged. No doubt it is the rare child who, in coming to understand the obligation created by a promise comes at the same time to understand these complex matters. No doubt moral wisdom, if it is acquired at all, is typically acquired much later in life. However, the child or the parrot who has learned to mimic the sounds "I promise", and who has acquired no sense of having thereby conferred a right to the promised party, and having incurred on one's own part an obligation, and hence acquired reason to treat the promised party in certain ways, could not be said to understand what a promise is. In coming to understand that, having prom- ised, there is now reason to treat the promisee in certain ways, the child may or may not acquire incentive to do so; however if, as is likely, the child does acquire such incentive it will be as a result of coming to grasp that in promising one ac- quires reason for treating the promisee in those ways. The concerned parent may, of course, need and attempt both making clearer the nature of the promise obliga- tion, and instilling and reinforcing motives, by telling the child such things as that in promising one gives one's word, that others come to depend upon one's doing the promised act, etc. No doubt for such talk to be to any degree effective the child must have already acquired some empathy with and caring for his or her fellow persons, and some sense of responsibility for his or her own acts; however,

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to take note of such matters is only to take note of certain necessary conditions for moral agency and not to say anything about specific reasons or motives for action. Having a capacity for, for example, empathy is no more having a motive for an action than having a capacity to run is having a motive to train for the mara- thon.

Given the above-indicated relation between the recognition that one has reason for an action and having a motive, it is difficult to see how internalism can be main- tained. Note that it won' t do, simply, to claim that the child's reason for keeping the promise is that of gaining parental approval - a motive that the child might be presumed to have. No doubt children who keep their promises frequently gain the approval and avoid the disapproval of morally concerned parents - although con- scientious and thoughtful parents are careful to express their approvals in such ways as to make clear to the child that the point of moral behavior is not to gain parental approval, recognizing that such verbal devices as "Mommy won't like you if you do that" are not only confusing but notoriously ineffective as moral teaching tools: however, in this kind of case, in order to gain the parental approval, the child must understand promising, and understanding promising involves under- standing that, in promising, an obligation to another person is created, and that, hence, there is reason to treat that person in certain ways.

Note also that it won' t do as a defense of internalism to claim that one can keep a promise, or do any other action, only if one has some desire to do the action. Perhaps such a claim can be understood in such a way that it is true, and even truistic. Certainly there is a common philosophical picture of human action in which, whenever persons act, they act in accordance with the strongest desire (though one suspects that the picture is compelling because the strongest desire is taken to be, by definition, the desire from which one acts). However, interesting and important as these matters may be, it is not necessary to pursue them here, for even if one who keeps a promise must have a desire to do so, the desire to keep a promise must be the desire to do that which one understands that one has reason to do. The desire to keep a promise then presupposes a reason of a sort that justifies and which is independent of that desire.

I wish now to consider another kind of case, where the child may have a motive for behaving in a particular way but where the concerned parent may feel that there is good reason for behaving differently. Let us imagine a child who, perhaps partly from ignorance, partly from a desire for peer approval, comes to treat some other children in a manner that we would regard as racist. To keep matters simple, let it involve not subtly racist behavior (which most of us in our kind of society find difficult to identify), but racist behavior of a crude sort - racial slurs, taunting, urLequal treatment in games, ostracism, etc. Let us suppose that such behavior comes to the attention of the morally concerned parent. 4 For the parent unfortu- nate enough to have encountered such a situation, I do not, unfortunately, have a foolproof method for dealing with it, and suspect that with moral training as with mathematical training or scientific training, there are no foolproof methods. No doubt a variety of factors - e.g., the diverse social influences - create even more

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obstacles in the case of morals. However, the lack of a foolproof method notwith- standing, certain kinds of approaches seem to the point while certain others do not. It won't do for the parent to appeal to the motives which the child actually has with regards to the behavior in question, for the child's motive (e.g. gaining peer approval) may be precisely what is leading to the morally questionable racist be- havior. Nor can this type of moral case be assimilated to the kind of case where the parent may, in effect, pretend that the child has motives that the child does not now have, in the hope that such pretense, perhaps combined with parental approvals or disapprovals, will contribute to bringing about the motives, s Perhaps there are cases where such a strategy may be to the point. Thus a parent may say to a child, "See, you really do like spinach after all," or to a third party, "Little Johnny sure loves spinach," or "Daddy is so proud of his little girl for the way she eats her spinach." I have no idea about the likelihood of success for such a strategy; however, where spinach is concerned, if all else fails, it is perhaps worth a try - at least for the parent who could make such efforts without excessive embarrassment. However, in the kind of moral case we are considering no comparable strategy will be to the point, for even if it were successful in its own way - i.e. the immediate behavior were altered - it will not have achieved its moral purpose, for the child will not have acquired an understanding of the reasons why the racist behavior is unreasonable and immoral. While I profess no expertise as to the precise things that should be said, whatever they are, they will surely be such as to draw attention to those facts about persons which, independently of anyone's motives, show ra- cism to be unreasonable. The parent may, for example, point out that persons have the skin color that they have as a result of genetics and not as a result of voluntary choices. The parent may point out that children, regardless of race, suffer in the ways characteristic of all human children when taunted or ostracized. No doubt there are much more imaginative things to be said, and no doubt the sensitive parent will be able to tailor his or her remarks to the abilities and needs of the specific child. The parent may or may not succeed in producing the understanding that he or she seeks to produce, and, even if the parent succeeds, the child may or may not be sufficiently motivated to alter his or her behavior. No doubt the degree of success will depend in part on the degree to which the child has already ac- quired such capacities as that for empathy, a sense of fairness, etc. It seems highly likely that moral learning, whether of the sort involved in this kind of case, or the sort involved in coming to understand the nature of the promise obligation, pre- supposes a variety of such capacities, just as mathematical learning presupposes a variety of capacities (e.g. a capacity to distinguish discrete objects and count them). However, to repeat a point made earlier, the capacities which may be necessary conditions for moral learning and moral agency are not to be confused with either motives or justifications.

My conclusion is that careful attention to the details of moral training will provide good reason for thinking internalism false and externalism true. Moral considerations are the moral considerations that they are independently of whether anyone is moved to act on them. No doubt Kantianism, a common target of inter-

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nalists, is defective in a variety of ways familiar to internalists and externalists

alike, and I have no desire to defend a Kantian view as to the nature o f moral

reasoning. As Frankena poin ted out, 6 at the end of his influential paper, large

issues are at stake here, requiring large scale inquiries. In a sense they go beyond

ethics, at least narrowly conceived, and into issues of ontology. What sorts o f

beings are there in the world? More specifically, what is the nature of persons?

More specifically still, what is involved in the claim, surely true, that it is o f the

nature o f persons to be rational beings? While it is impor tan t to see the issue

be tween internalists and externalists within this larger f ramework, it is also im-

por tan t no t to see that issue as hinging on the deve lopment and defense of a general

theory concerning the nature o f persons or the nature of moral reasoning. Whatever

a general theory concerning such matters should look like, the dis t inct ion be tween

just i f icat ion and mot iva t ion - a dis t inct ion blurred by internalism - should be re-

garded as one o f the data for moral theorizing, no t a conclusion to be asserted or

denied on the basis o f a general theory.

NOTES

1. The terms "internalism" and "externalism" seem to have come into common philosophi- cal usage as a result of William Franken~'s article, "Obligation and Motivation in Recent Moral Philosophy," first appearing in A.I. Melden (Ed.), Essays in Moral Philosophy (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1958), pp. 40-81. Frankena credits W.D. Falk, " 'Ought' and 'Motivation' ", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, N.S. XLVIII (1947- 48), 137, for the terms. Externalism, as the name suggests, is a view to the effect that a motive for an action is, in the logical sense, external to the action's being justified. Some- times the issue between internalists and externalists is put in terms of what the word "ought" means, but, for reasons that I will not discuss, I do not consider that the best approach.

2. Gilbert Harman, "Moral Relativism Defended," The Philosophical Review 84 (1975), 3-22.

3. The best and most credible account of the nature of a promise of which I am aware is found in Ch. II of A.I. Melden's Rights and Persons (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Universi- ty of California Press, 1977). While I do not agree with every detail in Melden's account I am in complete agreement with everything that is relevant here.

4. I should say here, incidentally, that my own limited experience suggests that, charac- teristicaUy, it is racist behavior rather than non-racist behavior that has to be learned from adults. It is sufficient to my purpose that such a case as I describe could, and occa- sionally does, arise. I choose this type of case in order to avoid certain complications

- not altering my story but involving long-winded explanations - that might arise if one were to consider, for example, cases involving such things as sexual morality. There, it might plausibly be maintained that a variety of different practices are equally reason- able, depending, no doubt, in part upon circumstances, but also upon the desires and interests of the parties. It should go without saying that there are no circumstances in which it could be plausibly maintained that racist behavior is reasonable.

5. See Harman, P.R., p. 8. Although Harman does not himself consider cases, there is some hint that he would attempt to deal with moral training in this way in his remark that "A speaker may pretend that someone is susceptible to certain moral considerations in an effort to make that person or others susceptible to those considerations. Inner judg-

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6.

ments about one's children sometimes have this function." The term "inner judgment", as used by Harman, is a technical one, which would not be to the point to try to explain fully here. However, roughly, subject to some qualifications, it is a judgment to the effect that a person ought or ought not do a thing. It is these judgments that Harman thinks are relative. Melden, Essays in Moral Philosophy, p. 80.