Reasons for action

Williams's insistence that morality is about people and their real lives, and that acting out of rational self-interest and even selfishness are not contrary to moral action, is illustrated in his "internal reasons for action" argument, part of what philosophers call the "internal/external reasons" debate. Philosophers have tried to argue that moral agents can have "external reasons" for performing a moral act; that is, they are able to act for reasons that are independent of their inner mental states. Williams argued that this is meaningless. For something to be a "reason to act," it must be "magnetic"; that is, it must move people to action. Williams argued that something entirely external to us – for example, the proposition that X is good – cannot do this, because cognition (belief) is not magnetic; a person must feel something before they are moved to act. He argued that reasons for action are always internal – that is, they always boil down to desire

| Bernard Williams