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There is no end to possible theories of motivation, with their corresponding ways of defining and classifying motives. Our hero can do what he does because he is of some particular religion, race, nationality, social class, historical tradition, occupation, personality type, or glandular makeup or has been psychologically wounded in one or another of the ways specified by the various competing experts. If we say that he did as he did because of the situation in which he was placed, there can be endless variation in our terms for what he did; and the situation in which he did it can be interpreted in terms of varying scope, ranging from a view of his act as done against a background of one or many gods more or less actively concerned with his conduct or against a purely secular background of “nature” (“environment” variously interpreted); or we may place his act with reference to the most minutely particular of circumstances, as when explaining exactly why Mr. Q., Republican, retired, Yale graduate, wearing glasses, and just having quarreled with his wife, turned his car exactly as he did in the particular combination of factors that made up one particular traffic accident. In view of such a motivational jungle, a good basic proposition to have in mind when contemplating the study of motives would be: Anybody can do anything for any reason.
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- Copyright © 1958 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)
References
1. Modern Philosophies and Education: The Fifty-fourth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part I. Prepared by the Yearbook Committee, John S. Brubacher, Chairman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955.
2. The Folklore of Capitalism (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1937).
3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922.
4. Aristotle's Politics is built primarily around his list of political systems. But at two point he offers lists of what he considers the "necessary parts" of a state. The earlier list (iv. iii. 1290b 21-1291b 14) contains eight "parts": (I) farmers, (2) craftsmen, (3) traders, (4) manual labor ers, (5) warriors, (6) councilors and judges for litigation, (7) the rich, and (8) public servants. His first four classes would fall primarily under our second category: "Serve (provide for materially)," as would his seventh. His fifth would be our third ("Defend"). His sixth would probably fit best under our heading of "Govern," and similarly with his eighth (in their ad ministrative role they are perhaps the beginnings of what we would now call a "civil service" or "government bureaucracy"). Aristotle also notes that these various offices may be per formed by the same person. Indeed, in what looks to me like a solemn academic wisecrack, he notes that all men incline to think themselves capable of carrying on most offices, except that they cannot be both rich and poor (hence the stress he lays upon wealth as the main mark of class distinction).
Our last four categories ("Teach," "Entertain," "Cure," "Pontificate") are omitted. However, in his later and shorter list of occupations, "parts" or erga (vii. vii. 1328b 4-1328b 24), he adds the priestly function. According to this list, the state's indispensable needs are: (I) food; (2) handicrafts; (3) arms; (4) money; (5) (or, as he puts it, "fifth and first") religious service; (6) ("most necessary of all") machinery for dealing with questions of citizens' rights and interests. Here, by condensing, he has covered more ground under fewer heads. But "Teach," "Entertain," and "Cure" are still omitted.
Perhaps such modern institutions as publicly supported hospitals and "socialized" or semi-socialized medicine now sharpen our notion of "Cure" as a "civic" function. Also, of course, whereas Aristotle was thinking of the "necessary" offices of a city specifically, our list is more broadly conceived (in terms of what people do for one another socially). And perhaps our long familiarity with compulsory education (including "propaganda" and "indoctrination") sharpens our awareness of ‘Teach" as a basic "office." But it is surprising that he has omitted "Entertainment" as a function of his city, in view of what he has written on the "catharsis" supplied by music and poetry and in view of the fact that the Athenian stage was a civic institution.
However, the occupations that are omitted from these two lists are duly considered in the Politics as a whole, as they were also in Plato's Republic (about Book ii of which Aristotle's dis cussion in connection with his first list gives a somewhat misleading idea). There Socrates gradually builds up a state by beginning with a minimum of indispensable social functions for dealing with man s sheerly bodily needs. Drawing an analogy between the person and the state, Aristotle holds that Plato's view of primary functions stresses the soma at the expense of the psyche. Hence, according to Aristotle, even more important than considerations of ma terial utility would be such spiritual parts as the judicial, the deliberative, and the military.
5. To round out the pattern, we might add: "and just having received news of a legacy."
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