Cashing Duty in Interest: The Grice Manoeuvre

My mentor in matters ethical is Grce and J. Baker, and they think that

(1) John ought to kill her.

amounts to:

(2) John _wants_ to kill her.
(3) John wants to _want_ to kill her
(4) John wants to _want_ to _want_ to kill her.
(5) John wants to _want_ to _want_ to _want_ to kill her.

And so on, Grice/Baker add, "ad infinitum".

"We should understand the connection between
obligations and motivations in the following way: if John thinks he ought
to do some action _a_, then that requires that _either_ John _wants_ to do
_a_, or that he thinks that the _ought_ to _want_ to _a_. Since this idea
of a _disjunction_ between _wanting_ and the _judgement_ that one ought to
want can be regressively applied, if John wants to want to _a_, then that
requires that either he wants to want to _a_ or he thins that he ought to
want to do _a_. In principle there is no end to such a regressive analysis.
But the idea is that, at some point, _real_ people _will_ come to a stop,
and the original judgement of obligation will be cashed out in a desire.
But there is no guarante at _what_ level. This [fits] our intuition we have
that someone who geuinely believes herself obliged to be motivated must
want to do something,while recognising that there are everyday lapses of
sensitivity which may prevent one who thinks she ought to act from
_wanting_ to act. In advance we do not know _how far_ we may be from a
_ground floor_ desire to _act_. But what we _will_ demand is SOME want, and
so some _chain_ that leads to action. On this account, we can say equally
well of the individual who acts on a second or third order volition to do
what is morally required that she acts from the thought that she ought. And
what one would expect of an individual who wants to _want_ to do something
is precisely a _search_ for (first-order) motivation to perform the action"

Baker, in the Grice festschrift,
Do One's Motives Have To Be Pure?' In R Grandy & R Warner, _Philosophical
Grounds of Rationality: Intentions, Categories, Ends_. Clarendon, p.472.