one thing, they do not think of the passions in the same way that Hume did. Nonetheless, Humeans take their inspiration from Hume in claiming that reason alone is insufficient to motivate us to act. Often this claim is expressed in terms of beliefs and desires, and it is claimed that beliefs are mental states that are insufficient for motivation. Smith gives an analysis of action whereby in order for anything to count as an action at all, it must be explicable in terms of a belief-desire pair. He defends this account against objections by appeal to a dispositional conception of desire. Moral realism In later work, Smith gives an anti-Humean account of normative reasons. He thus claims to solve the moral problem by giving an account of moral judgments in terms of what one would desire if one were fully rational. As such, he attempts to maintain a form of moral realism while still accounting for the motivational force of moral judgments. Publications A partial list of publications by Smith: Books (1994) The Moral Problem (Wiley-Blackwell). (2004) Ethics and the A Priori: Selected Essays on Moral Psychology and Meta-Ethics (Cambridge University Press) (2004) Mind, Morality, and Explanation: Selected Collaborations (with Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit) (Oxford University Press) Articles "The Humean Theory of Motivation" (1987), Mind, Vol. 96, No. 381, (Jan.) pp. 36–61. JSTOR Notes External links Smith's web page - at Princeton. The Best of Michael Smith - Constantine Sandis' review of 'Ethics and the A Priori' 1954 births 20th-century Australian philosophers 21st-century Australian philosophers Alumni of the University of Oxford Analytic philosophers Australian ethicists Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Living people Monash University alumni Monash University faculty Moral psychologists Moral realists Philosophers of education Philosophers of language Philosophers of mind Philosophers of psychology Philosophy academics Political philosophers Princeton University faculty