Externalism for Internalists

Abstract

This paper discusses the relation between meta-ethics and meta-epistemology and attempts to move forward on both fronts at once. Internalism claims that only facts believed by the agent are relevant to justification. An extreme externalism allows that facts of which the agent has no inkling can be relevant to justification. An extreme internalism maintains that only matters internal to the believer’s perspective are relevant to questions of justification. Less extreme forms of these views are introduced, e.g. Alston’s internalistic externalism. Eventually progress is supposed possible only if we distinguish between reasons/justifiers and enablers, and between motivating reasons and states which enable those considerations to motivate. These distinctions enable our meta-ethics and our meta-epistemology to come together