Abstract

John Hare’s central objections to secular theories of motivation arise via his ‘hateful nephew’ example, which, I argue, obscures important issues of scope:Who must be motivated (some/all)?How frequently must they be motivated (most/all of the time)?What is the extent of their motivation (act/tend to act)?Hare must adopt the stronger readings of these questions if his case against secular accounts of motivation is to succeed. But holding any account of motivationto such standards is misguided. Furthermore, Hare’s own theistic account of motivation cannot meet the standards he applies to his primary secular interlocutor. This study opens into wider terrain as I (i) identify which of myriad moral gaps an account of motivation is alleged to bridge; (ii) explain how the dialectic between Hare and Shelly Kagan depends upon unarticulated assumptions about judgment externalism and judgment internalism; and (iii) criticize appeals to motivational versions of ‘ought implies can’ principles.