Harry Frankfurt has claimed that some of our desires are
‘internal’, i.e., our own in a special sense. I defend the idea
that a desire's being internal matters in a normative, reasons-
involving sense, and offer an explanation for this fact. The
explanation is Kantian in spirit. We have reason to respect the
desires of persons in so far as respecting them is a way to
respect the persons who have them (in some cases, ourselves).
But if desires matter normatively in so far as they belong to
persons, then it matters whether they really do belong to the
persons who have them. Thus Kantian considerations explain why
identification (or internality) is a normatively relevant
category. This account is superior to others, and does not lead
to reasons bootstrapping or a self-centred conception of
deliberation.