Judgment Internalism

While Judgment Internalism is the standard name for the thesis that Smith calls the Practicality Requirement, Judgment Externalism is its opposite - the idea that Judgment Internalism is false. So judgment externalists hold that when we are motivated to do what we judge is the right thing to do, there is always some desire that is doing the motivation, and it would be possible to have the same moral judgment without having this desire.

David Brink

At the time when Smith was first starting to write his book, judgment externalism was a very unusual position. The most prominent judgment externalist who Smith cites is the philosophy Philippa Foot, who we will read later in the semester, when it will be easier to understand what she is arguing and why. Probably the best thing to read about judgment externalism is by the philosopher Sigrun Svavarsdottir of Tufts University, but it is a very long and more difficult piece of writing. So I’m assigning an article by David Brink. Brink is a professor at UCSD, and in the late 1980’s was thinking about very similar issues to Smith at the same time as Smith was - so his article is a very good representative of what externalists were thinking at that time.

Reading

Our reading for today’s class is Brink’s article, “Externalist Moral Realism”. As you read, ask yourself: does Brink believe that judgment externalism is true because that is a more palatable solution to the moral problem than giving up on objectivity or the Humean Theory of Motivation? Or does he have an independent argument that judgment externalism is true? Are you convinced? If not, why not?