Irene Bosco

_Abstract_: The aim of this paper is to challenge Michael Smith’s influential “fetishism charge” against motivational externalism – the view that moral judgments motivate only in the presence of a distinct conative state. Smith argues that externalists must explain the reliable connection between moral judgment and moral motivation by attributing to the morally good agent a de dicto desire to “do whatever is right”, a desire he regards as morally defective or fetishistic. On the other hand, the virtuous agent, according to Smith, responds directly to the right-making features of actions, such as charity, kindness, or fairness. If the externalist is indeed committed to portraying good agents as moved primarily by the abstract status of rightness, then externalism yields an implausible moral psychology and should be rejected. I argue that Smith’s central assumption – what I call the fetishist platitude, the claim that de dicto motivation is intuitively vicious – is far less secure than he suggests. After outlining the internalism/externalism debate and surveying responses to Smith from Svavarsdottir, Olson, Dreier, Miller, and others, I offer two novel objections. First, I show that in non-moral normative domains (such as prudence or health), de dicto motivation is not normally regarded as fetishistic; thus, Smith’s purported conceptual truth about virtue cannot be taken for granted. Second, I present cases in which a de dicto moral motivation is precisely what enables an agent to act rightly in the face of conflicting non-moral reasons. In such scenarios, it is counterintuitive to describe the agent as vicious or morally flawed. Taken together, these objections weaken Smith’s claim that de dicto motivation is inherently defective and therefore challenge his reductio of externalism. If de dicto motivation can be permissible – or even admirable – then externalists can avoid the fetishism charge without losing a plausible account of moral psychology. _Keywords_: Moral Motivation; Fetichism; Externalism; Internalism; De Dicto _ La motivazione “de dicto” è manifestamente inutile? _ _Riassunto_: L o scopo di questo articolo è mettere in discussione l’influente “accusa di feticismo” di Michael Smith contro l’esternalismo motivazionale — la posizione secondo cui i giudizi morali motivano solo in presenza di un preciso stato conativo. Smith sostiene che gli esternalisti devono spiegare la connessione affidabile esistente tra giudizio morale e motivazione morale, attribuendo all’agente moralmente buono un desiderio di “fare ciò che è giusto” _de dicto_, desiderio che egli considera moralmente difettoso o feticista. L’agente virtuoso, ribadisce Smith, risponde direttamente alle caratteristiche che rendono giuste le azioni, come, per esempio, la bontà, la gentilezza o l’equità. L’esternalismo dovrebbe quindi essere respinto, poiché richiede di rappresentare l’agente moralmente buono come mosso principalmente dallo status astratto del bene, descrivendo una psicologia morale inverosimile. Sostengo che l’assunto centrale di Smith – ciò che chiamo la “banalità feticista”, ovvero l’affermazione che la motivazione _de dicto_ è intuitivamente viziosa – sia molto meno ovvio di quanto egli suggerisca. Dopo aver delineato il dibattito tra internalismo ed esternalismo e aver esaminato le risposte a Smith di Svavarsdottir, Olson, Dreier, Miller e altri, propongo due obiezioni originali. In primo luogo, discuto come, nei domini normativi non morali (come la prudenza o la salute individuale), la motivazione _de dicto_ non è normalmente considerata feticista. In secondo luogo, presento casi in cui una motivazione morale _de dicto_ è esattamente ciò che consente a un agente di agire moralmente, quando vi è un conflitto di motivazioni non morali. In tali scenari, è controintuitivo descrivere l'agente come vizioso o moralmente imperfetto. _Parole chiave_: Motivazione Morale; Feticismo; Esternalismo; Internalismo; De Dicto.

Human epistemic subjects cannot but employ imperfect and limited tools to gain knowledge. Even in the seemingly simple business of acquiring knowledge of the value of a physical quantity, what the instrument reads or perception tells more often that not does not correspond to real value. However, even though both our perceptual apparatus and measuring instruments are sensible to background noise, under certain conditions, collecting more information of the same quantity using the same tools leads to an improvement of the subject's epistemic condition. The aim of this paper is to formalize this intuition employing a model which extends Williamson (2013) on the arising of Gettier cases in epistemic logic. From a model where each world is univocally represented by the pair r, a defined by the real value and the apparent one, I will be considering a scenario wherein the subject has collected n appearances of the real parameter, so that each world is identified by a n + 1-tuple. On the assumptions that the n data are all independent and regarded by the subject as equally reliable, a plausible model should be able to describe three phenomena. First of all, the more coherent and closer to represent the real value the set of n appearances is, the more knowledge of the real value is gained. Secondly, the more the subject goes on acquiring "good" data, the more she knows. Thirdly, the world where the n apparent values and the real one match is the best world for the subject. Following Williamson, I shall put forth a system for multiple appearances in epistemic logic that aims at modeling these phenomena by describing the interval within which the real value is known to lie.