According to moral internalism, what follows if a person genuinely believes 'I ought to keep this promise' but feels no motivation at all to do so?
AThe person is acting irrationally but still holds a genuine moral belief
BThe person does not sincerely hold the moral belief, on the internalist view
CThe person has a genuine moral belief but weakness of will is overriding it
DThe person is an externalist about morality
Internalism holds that genuine moral judgment necessarily produces motivation (barring weakness of will). If there is *no* motivational residue whatsoever — not even a suppressed pull — the internalist concludes the person is not sincerely making the moral judgment. They may be parroting words, making a non-committal descriptive claim, or engaging in moral talk without moral endorsement. Weakness of will is an exception internalists usually allow — it requires that some motivation exists but is overpowered by competing desires.
Question 2 True / False
An externalist about moral motivation would say that recognizing a moral obligation is sufficient by itself to motivate action.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
This is the internalist claim, not the externalist one. Externalism holds that recognizing a moral obligation and being motivated to act on it are two separate things. Motivation requires a further element — typically a desire or other conative state — that is not guaranteed by moral recognition alone. You can, on the externalist view, be a fully informed moral judge who remains entirely unmoved.