  A final preliminary distinction between internalist views concerns their direction of explanation. As characterized thus far, the various internalist theses merely posit a necessary connection between the existence of reasons, on the one hand, and facts about motivation or motivational states, on the other, and do not distinguish between competing ways of explaining this necessary connection. Do we have reasons because we have (counterfactual or actual) motivation or desire, or do we have motivation or desire because we have reasons? (Or is there some third possibility?) The Humean Theory of Reasons is standardly understood to claim not only that we have reasons only if we have certain desires, but further that we have those reasons because we have those desires. We interpret it accordingly in the rest of this article.