The Wikipedia article concerning Bernard Williams claims that "Williams did not propose any systematic philosophical theory; indeed, he was suspicious of any such attempt." This is true, but it is also still possible to elaborate a system from what Williams has left behind for us. Many of his works are rather fragmentary, arriving at conclusions which clearly require further elaboration. Williams himself repeatedly acknowledges the need for more work in many of his own writings. This is not so much a weakness of Williams as a nice illustration of his character as a thinker. Some thinkers are good at "honing in" on one specific problem - often fundamental to human thinking as such - and then developing a system out of it. Others, including Williams, are good at criticizing past views on various issues in order to make additional space for future thought. Now there are of course exceptional thinkers who can do both in one work. Plato and Aristotle are obviously in this last list, and I would also add Kant, Hegel, and Collingwood.
In "An Essay on Philosophical Method" Collingwood presents a method of philosophy - more specifically, of logic - which is essentially a type of writing which illustrates - both descriptively and prescriptively, depending on the context - the "scale of forms" of a given concept. What is this scale? It is, according to Collingwood, a set of different interpretations of a concept. To turn this aggregate into a neatly ordered "scale," one must only compare the different interpretations and construct a hierarchy based on how well each interpretation captures the range of things which can possibly fall under that concept. So, for example, the concept "good" can mean "useful," "right," "just," etc. To say that something is "right" may also include the claim that that thing is "useful" for some purpose, in which case "right" will come higher on the scale. But, at the same time, there is something unique in the notion of usefulness which is unintelligible if we start straight away from "right." Thus, even if "right" has the potential of including, and thus being higher than, the "useful," we must nonetheless, and precisely for this reason, start from the lower "good," namely the "useful." Here, the process by which Collingwood's "scale of forms" is to be constructed is dialectic, and each interpretation is "sublated" in the next, in the sense that the "useful" is subsumed under the "right" while the former nonetheless remains a necessary moment for the transition to the latter as the higher form of the good.
Williams' essay "Internal and External Reasons" follows this methodology, perhaps unconsciously. He starts with the simply formulated question: what can an agent's reason to perform an action be like? Williams then divides all such reasons into two classes. One, which he calls "internal," includes all reasons which the agent himself takes to be his own reasons. The other, which is "external," are reasons not held by the agent himself. So far so good. Williams emphasizes that internal reasons can become external reasons and vice versa without altering the ground or content of such reasons. For example, to say that "I am going to college because I want to" is an internal reason, while a friend telling you that "you went to college because you wanted to" is an external reason, since it is still unclear whether or not the agent in question endorses this line of reasoning.
Williams' essay "Internal and External Reasons" follows this methodology, perhaps unconsciously. He starts with the simply formulated question: what can an agent's reason to perform an action be like? Williams then divides all such reasons into two classes. One, which he calls "internal," includes all reasons which the agent himself takes to be his own reasons. The other, which is "external," are reasons not held by the agent himself. So far so good. Williams emphasizes that internal reasons can become external reasons and vice versa without altering the ground or content of such reasons. For example, to say that "I am going to college because I want to" is an internal reason, while a friend telling you that "you went to college because you wanted to" is an external reason, since it is still unclear whether or not the agent in question endorses this line of reasoning.
Based on this distinction, Williams argues quite convincingly that all reasons for action must ultimately be internal. This claim, however, does not amount to agent-relativism or solipsism concerning ethics and history. The whim of the agent is only one among many reasons for the agent acting in a certain way. That is to say, one could say that "I am doing this just because I decided to do this" without implying in any way that all agents must always act according to his or her mere whim. In fact, being able to justify one's actions in non-whimsical terms often works to everybody's advantage. Moreover, since the cases of internal and external reasons overlap, it is possible for an agent to first encounter a novel rationality as "external," and then, in the deliberative process, subsequently come to "internalize" this same thought as his own. This dynamic aspect of ethical reasoning is also noted succinctly in the essay by Williams.
The essay concludes abruptly with an allusion to the "free riders problem." This is where Williams gives the most detailed defense of his own view against those who might claim that "internal reasons" are nothing more than egoistic claims limited by the agent's epistemic conditions. Williams shows that this is too simplistic an approach to internal reasons, and, by showing that cases of external reason can be internalized, also shows that an agent can be naturally motivated to act according to the common good whenever the occasion necessitates such a decision.
The strength of Williams' approach is that it takes into account the most common yet difficult fact in ethics, namely, that no purely external reason can motivate an agent to act. There is a gap between how one ought to act, and how one actually acts, and such a gap can be quite persistent even if the actor knows fully well and moreover fully believes the reasons for his having to act in a certain way. To criticize or ridicule this weakness in a person as "disavowal" or "cowardice" or whatever other name is merely to evade the more difficult and real issue of how to get the person to act in accordance with his own beliefs. Admittedly, Williams himself has almost nothing to say on the practical side of how to do this. But he does lay out a nice foundation by rigorously showing that what counts, in the end, are internal reasons alone.
This insight, simple and common-sensical though it may appear at first, is very useful for removing a whole lot of anxiety and burden off the chest of the ethical thinker. I have in mind those - including my past self - who, after learning the "horrors" of the social reality in the contemporary world, try to imagine, even fantasize, a course of the future in which "things make progress" towards a more ethical state of affairs. Certain Marxists who crudely insist on the end of exploitation, or certain Rawlsians who dream of a Just Society, or uncritical Kantians who imagine a Kingdom of Ends, are all occupied with phantoms, with problems which, on their own, are not properly ethical at all, since they make no reference to the actual, current motivations in concretely existing human beings. Of course it is important to speculate on the Ethical Ideal, but at the same time it is also crucial to incorporate how this can become reality. And unless these two sides are brought into one theory, each speculation, on its own, has hardly any philosophical value. Williams is very aware of this, and this is why he, from the very beginning of his essay, announces that his main concern is not purely logical, but also political.
Now the other nice implication of Williams' account is that it lays down the foundation for an empirical program in ethics. Perhaps, contemporary so-called "experimental philosophy" can profit from coordinating their research according to Williams' framework of internal versus external reasons. Empirical research can show the various patterns in which a person can internalize or externalize ethical reasons. Also, Williams' approach encourages the compilation of descriptive accounts of what each of us actually take to be our own reasons behind our actions, since such a data-set can then be contrasted to how others might interpret our internal motivations. This comparison will bring the gap between internal and external reasons to light, and moreover it will open up the possibilities for different ways to rationalize and act. Finally, such research can be applied at the level of daily conversations, where we can converse more openly about what motivates us to act in the way we do at present. This last point is particularly important. It is perhaps one of the few practical resistance programs which withstands the criticisms of ideology.
