motive |
Working Definition:
Motives are the conditions upon which persons' actions are dependent. These are usually believed to be of two sorts: mental states and reasons. As a mental state, a motive is a "tension within an individual that arouses, maintains, and directs behavior toward a goal" [Chaplin 85]
Disciplinary Definitions:
"Motives are frequently divided into (a) physiological, primary, or organic motives, such as hunger, thirst, and need to sleep, and (b) personal, social, or secondary motives, such as affiliation, competition, and individual interests and goals. An important distinction must also be drawn between internal motivating forces and external factors, such as reqards or punishments, that can encourage or discourage certain behaviors." APA
Comments:
motives comprise both "self-enactment" and "self-disclosure" [Oakshott, On Human Conduct], or -- to use a more common distinction -- both "attitude" & "competence." Motivation has as its conditions that persons not only feel they can or should do or think someting but also that they believe themselves capable of the change and have reasons for it.
Alistair MacIntyre (After Virtue) makes a distinction between "personality" and "role" that parallels Oakeshott's between self-enactment and self-disclosure, (29). "In some views, an ethical person is one in whom personality [personal beliefs/self enactments?] and roles [self-disclosures] are fused. They are perceived as, not consistent (that is, not logically compatible) but as coherent." In discussing Kierkegaard, MacIntyre writes: "The ethical is presented as that realm in which principles have authority over us independently of our attitudes, preferences and feelings. How I feel at a given moment is irrelevant to the question of how I must live." (41)
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last revised:
June 13, 2007
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