of affairs at which it aims. If an act has an end, success in that act includes success in
bringing about the intended end. The world must cooperate not only with our beliefs but
also with our intended ends if our acts are to be successful. Because it is possible that
success in reaching our ends is systematically thwarted, a form of skepticism threatens
the point of our acts. Our acts could fail, not because of evil demons or brains in vats, but
because the world simply does not cooperate with our intentions. For example, if I am
motivated by compassion, I desire that others be comforted in their suffering and I am
motivated to bring about states of affairs in which I bring comfort to the suffering. I am
then led to form intentions to act in specific ways that I judge will have that effect. But
the guarantee that my acts will have such an effect is even less than the guarantee that my
rational or justified beliefs are true on the epistemological skeptical hypotheses. After all,
if an evil genius can systematically thwart my attempts at getting the truth, it would take
a lesser genius to systematically thwart my attempts at alleviating the suffering of others.
So it could happen that every time I attempt to act in a compassionate way, I increase the
suffering of others rather than alleviate it. And, of course, this problem could occur not
only for the motivation of compassion, but for the motivations of justice, fairness,
gratitude, courage, kindness, generosity, and many others. It is possible that every time I
try to act fairly, my act produces an unfair state of affairs; every time I try to show
gratitude, my act conveys the opposite
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message; every time I try to be generous, my giving goes to the wrong persons or to
nobody at all, and so on. And it is possible that I can never discover my failure.
Motivation skepticism is a worry that our desires, emotions, and purposes fail in a way
that cannot be discovered. The fear that failure may be undiscoverable entails that
motivation skepticism includes the worry that we have false beliefs, but the object of the
skepticism in motivation skepticism is not the falsehood of beliefs. The fear that the
world may systematically fail to cooperate with my choices is not a fear that certain
beliefs are false. The fear that I may desire the undesirable is not a fear that my belief that
what I desire is desirable is false. The fear that my emotion is inappropriate to the
circumstances is not a fear that my belief that it is appropriate is false. Of course, in each
case, I may also have the corresponding belief and fear that it is false, and when I fear
that my failure in each case is undiscoverable, I fear a failure to know. But skepticism
threatens the motive to act not only on the level of failure in belief, but also on the level
of failure in desire and purpose. Belief skepticism and motivation skepticism combine to
threaten the moral life—in fact, practical life in general, with possible paralysis.
Assuming that paralysis cannot be rational, there must be a rational way to avoid it or to
get beyond it. The argument below is a form of the latter. It is an antiskeptical argument
that argues that morality obligates only if there is a God. The argument has features of
Kant's transcendental argument against belief skepticism as well as his moral
transcendental argument for the existence of God.
An Antiskeptical Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God
(1) We have no option but to engage in the moral life. Morality obligates us, no matter
what we think or believe and no matter what we feel or choose. Morality obligates us
unconditionally.