 This line of thought does echo a pattern of argument that is found in many ethicists, from Plato’s Republic to Philippa Foot’s “Moral Beliefs”. However, it does not ward off the threat to ethical rationalism. The threat still lurks in the “if”. We have suggested that the bank-robber will have internal reason not to rob banks, if he shares in certain normal human social motivations. But what if he doesn’t share in these? The problem is not merely that, if he doesn’t, then we won’t know what to say to him. The problem is that the applicability of moral reasons is still conditional on people’s actual motivations, and local to those people who have the right motivations. But it seems to be a central thought about moral reasons, as they have traditionally been understood, that they should be unconditionally and universally overriding: that it should not be possible even in principle for any rational agent to stand outside their reach, or to elude them simply by saying “Sorry, but I just don’t care about morality”. On the present line of thought, this possibility remains open; and so the internal reasons thesis remains a threat to ethical rationalism.