 The thesis that directly opposes motivational judgment internalism, motivational externalism, or just externalism, denies that it is a conceptual platitude that necessarily moral judgments motivate. According to externalism, any connection that exists between moral judgment and motivation is purely contingent, though it may turn out to rest on deep features of human  nature.[9]  Moral motivation occurs when a moral judgment combines with a desire, and the content of the judgment is related to the content of the desire so as to rationalize the action. The foregoing argument in favor of internalism in effect denies that externalism can adequately explain the basic phenomenon of moral motivation and, in particular, the seemingly reliable shifting of moral motivation to match changes in moral judgment. But why think externalism will be explanatorily inadequate? Once we have the internalist thesis about the necessary connection between moral judgment and motivation, it seems we have, as it were, the whole story: if an individual makes a moral judgment, she is, ceteris paribus, motivated; if she is not motivated, she was not making a sincere and competent moral judgment at all, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. Because the externalist denies the existence of a necessary connection between moral judgment and motivation, the externalist thesis leaves us in need of an independent explanation of moral motivation. The internalist maintains that any such explanation will fall short—call this the “internist challenge” to externalism.