This paper has recently had the honor of being accepted to the main program of the Pacific APA’s upcoming 2013 meeting. Any feedback that might help me prepare for presenting this one is greatly appreciated.

The abstract:

The debate between judgment internalists and judgment externalists is fought over whether moral judgments are necessarily motivating, or only contingently so. I argue that formulations of the judgment internalist position have never clearly defined what it means to be motivated. As a result of this, the “practically irrational” defeater (and others like it) included in conditional forms of judgment internalism do too much work for the judgment internalist’s claim. Using a partial working definition of motivation, I explore a few unusual cases for the judgment internalist, and examine what kind of impact this definition has on their claim. I argue that the judgment internalist should accept this view of motivation which will allow them to respond to many standard critiques against their position. This move will also allow the judgment internalist to defend judgment internalism in its strong form, sans conditionals. I then examine one particular critique of the strong form of judgment internalism on empirical, rather than a priori, grounds, and determine the consequences for the judgment internalist position.

Does the Judgment Internalist’s Claim Depend on a Particular View of Motivation