Abstract
The moral problem presented by Michael Smith in his seminal book with the
same name consists of three claims that are intuitively plausible when considered
separately, but seem incompatible when combined: moral judgments express beliefs
about objective moral facts, moral judgments are practical in being motivational, and
beliefs are unable to motivate by themselves. An essential aspect of Smith’s solution
to the moral problem is the contention that moral judgments are both motivating for
rational agents and objective. In this paper, I take a close look at Smith’s arguments
by considering his characterizations of rationality understood as coherence between
attitudes. It is suggested that on this understanding of rationality and coherence, it
has not been clearly shown that moral judgments are both practical and objective.