Bernard Williams's Internalism: A New Interpretation

Abstract

There has been significant and continued debate over the nature and truth of Bernard Williams’s internalism. My aim is to resolve much of the dispute over both of those issues by providing a new interpretation of his internalism--the reasonsH interpretation. To explain the new interpretation I make a distinction between there being a reason to perform an action (a reasonE) and an agent having a reason to perform an action (a reasonH). For an agent to have a reason to perform an action, it must be within the agent’s capacity to perform the action for that reason. According to the reasonsH interpretation, internalism is the claim that in order for an agent to have a reason, it must be within the agent’s capacity to be motivated to perform the action. An important consequence of this interpretation is that externalists with respect to the previous interpretations can consistently accept the truth of internalism on the reasonsH interpretation. To support the accuracy of this new interpretation of Williams’s internalism, in Chapter 1 I argue that the predominant interpretations are problematic because they inconsistent with one of two claims which are most likely essential to a correct interpretation. In Chapter 2 I then provide a detailed explanation of the reasonsH interpretation as well as three considerations which together strongly support the plausibility of it as a correct interpretation. Chapter 3 completes the argument that the reasonsH interpretation is the most charitable interpretation with respect to Williams's argument against external reasons. In Chapter 4 I defend the truth of internalism against various objections that have been raised against the doctrine. Lastly, in Chapter 5 I will show that the same concern which underlies Williams's explanation and defense of internalism is the same concern which is the basis for his rejection of the “morality system”--a particular conception of morality which he addresses in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy.