Mindmap-Book Summary-ToFlourishOrDestruct

Mindmap-Book Summary-ToFlourishOrDestruct

• About To Flourish or Destruct
  • Date Read: Novemeber 28, 2015
  • Author: Christian Smith
  • ISBN: 978- 0- 226- 23200- 3
  • 353 pages
  • MyRating: 5 Stars
• Introduction
  • 1. What basic motivations andinterests generate and direct human action?

    2. What is by nature good forhuman beings— that is what are real human goods ?

    3. How should weunderstand and explain the lack of goodness— sometimes even the defi nitedestructiveness and evil— that are so prevalent and damaging in human life?

    4. Why do people do anything they do?

    5. What moves or compels peopleto action?

    6. What does anyone do when they wake up from sleeping and why dothey do that and not something else?

    Motivating This Inquiry

    4 Standard Accounts and a Fifth Upstart

    • 1. dependent norm- followers
      • This approach which takes a macroperspective assumes that the primary fact of social life is “society ” on which individualpeople are dependent through socialization for the cultural and institutionalnorms values and meanings that govern their goals choices and behaviors

        People are the cultural products of their societies

    • 2. materialist group- interest seekers
      • This approach6 i n t roduc t ionalso takes a macroperspective assuming a kind of rational egoism in partialsolidarity operating at the group level which produces collectivities that allywith and vie against each other in order to increase their mostly material shared advantages. 681 6

        This view emphasizes objective material interests that dividehuman social groups social institutions as fi elds of struggle on which arewaged the confl icts of contending groups to realize their interests and unstablesituations of domination oppression subordination and exploitationthat result. -131 6

    • 3. rationallyacquisitive individuals.
      • This approach shifts down from the macro- to themicroview.

        the primary unit of human life is the autonomous selfinterested rational individual choice maker who spends his or her life engagedin strategic decision making and actions designed to increase materialwell- being power security domination of others and social status

        “Society”here is the aggregate of relatively stable sets of social exchanges thatarise from individual actions.

    • 4. communicative interactingmeaning- makers 321 6
      • This approach largely rejects the previous models emphasizinginstead the continuous fl ow of microinteractions among purposive symbol- wielding agents who are most basically seeking to construct andsustain meaningful defi nitions of reality identities and respectable relationshipsin their lives.

        “Society” here is the aggregation of empirical patternsof interactions among meaning- constructing actors

    • 5. evolved neuro- genetic- biochemical behavers
      • In this approach humans areassumed to be nothing more than biological organisms that happen to embodymore highly evolved (that is more complex and capable) functionscompared to other biological organisms.

        Those organisms and their functionsare best understood and explained by reducing their complexity to theirmost elementary genetic neural and chemical parts and processes 26 6

        Reproductivefi tness in processes of evolutionary natural selection determines andexplains the nature and behavior of all living organisms including humansand their social lives. 26 6

        People and their societies are the complex products ofbiologically grounded forces of natural selection 26 6

    The Personalist Alternative 6

    • Personalist theory claims that all adequate understandings of human lifemust take seriously the fact that human beings are persons and not somethingelse.

      This requires that we understand what persons are what distinguishesthem from nonpersonal entities 6

      It is not enough to know something abouthuman bodies or genetics or social interactions. We need to understand moreof the fullness of what it means to be a person. Only by understanding thepersonhood of human beings will we adequately be able to understand andexplain people and their social relations because humans cannot be properlyunderstood apart from their personhood. 6

    Personalism’s Promise

    Other Theoretical Resources

    critical realism

    • Critical realism believes in ontological realism epistemic perspectivalism and judgmental rationality all held together

    ontological realism

    • that human knowledge aboutreality is always historically and socially situated and conceptually mediated

    epistemic perspectivalism

    • it is nonetheless normally possible forhumans over time to improve their knowledge about the real to adjudicaterival accounts and so to make justifi ed truth claims about reality

    Human Nature?

    • “human nature” is anantiquated term for many often associated with illegitimately essentialistviews of humanity if not archaic religious doctrines of human sin or optimistic

      “essentialistic

      Human beings are not exempt from these regularities. We humansinvolve and function through and up to certain natural characteristics capacities tendencies and limitations that do not depend for existence on humanbeliefs and cultural practices— which by contrast we should think ofas “mind dependent” and “constructed.” 29 4 6

      Humans have a nature a humannature as I mean that here. It is human nature for instance to tend stronglyto seek to avoid death (except under the pathological condition of severe depression) just as it is natural for human bodies to seek to repel threats tohealth and to heal themselves when infected or injured. 29 4 6

      The fi tting response to a certaintruth being abused is not to deny the truth wholesale but to condemn andreject that abusive use to stop abusing it now and to be more careful to understandand use it properly. 29 140 6

    The Purpose of Theory

    Why Ontology? 33

    Final Thoughts 34 22 6

    • Social science’s greatest value rather is to serve as a mediumof self- refl exivity for human persons and societies. We humans are not onlythe subjects of our actions but also often the objects of our own knowledge refl ection and evaluation. We not only think and evaluate as selves we alsothink about and evaluate ourselves as selves 34 6
• Chapter-1. Critical Realist Personalism—Some Basics
  • The center and touchstone of personalist social theory is the human person.

    The Reality of the Person -94 6

    • The most basic belief underlying personalist theory is that human personsare real entities with ontological being that exist in nature -94 6

      Persons and personhoodare not mere names we give to gesture toward something that seemsreal but in fact is a mere appearance or fabrication. By calling ourselves “persons”we are not simply evoking a fi ction of folk psychology that has no substantialreferent. 4 6

      The word “persons” refers to real entities that which wehumans ontologically are. 4 6

      Personhood is a real thing what philosophers calla “natural kind.” 4 6

      Persons have being naturally as a particular kind of entitywith characteristic capacities features and tendencies that are distinct fromnonpersonal entities. 4 6

      Persons are one particular part of the larger order ofreality in the nature of things. 4 6

      They are not human cultural constructions(although our theories about them which is different from the “them” aboutwhich we have theories are human constructions 4 6

      the personhoodof persons cannot be disaggregated in a reductionistic operation tosome lesser or simpler collection of parts without a loss of ontological essentials 4 6

      The personhood of persons is irreducible.3 So when we ponder what relatedto human social life might be real what actually exists what belongs toa human social ontology human persons are among them as primary facts 6

      Human life never could be constructed and lived in some places or times ina way in which personhood was absent. Where there are living humans wefi nd persons.4 That is because personhood is a particular natural and centralaspect of human being 6

    The Centrality of Persons

    A Realist View of Reality

    • The real
      • The real as noted above is what exists— material nonmaterial andsocial entities that have structures and capacities. The real exists whether weknow or understand it. It possesses objective being apart from human awarenessof it even when parts of it are not expressed in existential actuality
    • Theactual
      • Theactual by contrast is what happens as events in the world when entities thatbelong to the real activate their powers and capacities. The actual happensin time and space whether any person experiences it or not.
    • The empirical
      • The empirical by contrast again consists of what we humans experience or observe eitherdirectly or indirectly. By defi nition empirical matters are actualities that areobserved or felt. Thus what we observe (the empirical) is not identical to allthat happens (the actual).

        The actual comprises much more than the empirical.And neither the actual nor the empirical are identical to all that hasexistence (the real).

    The empirical is always a subset of the actual and the actual is the outcome ofoperations of entities that belong to the real. The three must not be confl atedor else we fall into problems 11 -1

    level of personhood

    • bodies
    • organs
    • cells
    • molecules
    • atoms

    personhood

    • own nature
    • capacities
    • tendencies
    • persons also interact andoperate

    entity 1 -1

    • An entity is simply something that has existence that has beingand so is and exists. The word “entity” derives from the Latin word ens meaning being. 1 -1

    The Ontology of Personhood – -1

    What are humans? -96 -1

    • humans are most importantly persons -96 -1

    What is a person? -96 -1

    • What are the important components capabilities tendencies goods purposes and limitations of persons?

      To be a personis to possess and experience qualities of depth multiplicity and intricacythat could never be fully transparent or fathomed. – -1

      The personhood of humansentails so many dimensions powers goods interests activities enigmas and paradoxes that persons can never be fully described determined orcontrolled. – -1

      Human personhood cannot therefore be compacted down to oneor a few key features that could supposedly represent the essence or simplicityor resolution of persons – -1

      By “person” I mean the particular kind of being thatunder proper conditions is capable of developing into (or has developedinto) a conscious refl exive embodied self- transcending center of subjectiveexperience durable identity moral commitment and social communication who— as the effi cient cause of his or her responsible actions andinteractions— exercises complex capacities for agency and intersubjectivityin order to develop and sustain his or her own incommunicable self in lovingrelationships with other personal selves and with the nonpersonal world 140 -1

    What does human social life consist?

    What are its key component parts?

    How arethey ordered and disordered?

    What causal powers do different kinds of socialentities possess?

    What consequences in human life do they produce?

    The Emergence of Personhood

    Emergence involves the following

    • 1. two or more entities that exist at a “lower” level interact or combine

      2. that interaction or combination serves as the basis of some new realentity that has existence at a “higher” level.

      3. the existence of the newhigher- level entity is fully dependent upon the two or more lower- level entitiesinteracting or combining as they have and could not exist without themdoing so.

      4. the new higher- level entity nevertheless possesses characteristicqualities (for example structures qualities capacities textures powers)that cannot be reduced to those of the lower- level entities that gave riseto the new entity possessing them

    Personhood is emergent

    The personal nature of human beings is notsome discrete substance residing somewhere inside the human body that inprinciple could be spatially located in some organ or other bodily area

    Nor ispersonhood an independent being or spirit that could be separated from theliving body.

    The best surgeon could not locate and remove the personhoodfrom humans.

    The best exorcist could not “cast out” the person from a humanbeing or body even assuming that exorcisms happen

    Personhood is anemergent fact of human existence “arising” emergently from living activehuman bodies and in each case infusing and partially governing living human bodies. 622 -1

    Living humans therefore do not “have” persons somewhere insideof them.

    Living humans are persons

    Their own vital life principles presentin and as bodies from the very start proactively develop bodily groundedcapacities and functions that give rise through emergence to full expressionsof personhood

    The emergent nature of personhood means that persons cannot beequated directly with the various human capacities and functions thatthrough emergence give rise to them

    Personhood cannot be reduced forexample to human capacities for rational thought language use or meaningmaking.

    Personhood instead is that which proactively brings the latter capacitiesinto being and function. Just as the characteristic features and capacitiesof water (liquidity capacity to dissolve salt ability to extinguish fi res and soon) cannot be properly explained by merely looking at hydrogen and oxygenas individual substances human personhood cannot be understood as themere collection of certain human capacities

    Personhood emerges as its ownontological reality sui generis in relation to those capacities and the empiricalrealization and expression of personhood depends on their unfolding andexercise. But personhood cannot be reduced to those capacities

    two ways emergenceoperates

    proactive

    • With proactive emergence the emergent entity involves some governing agency and power to cause thedevelopment and behavior of the relationally interacting parts on which theemergent entity is dependent for being. 133 -1

      With responsive emergence by comparison some agent other than the emergent entity causes parts to interactrelationally which then constitutes the emergent entity 133 -1

      A simple example ofresponsive emergence is an inkjet or laser printer. The printer is an emergentreality consisting of more than the sum of its printer parts and possessingcausal powers to effect changes in the world such as printing clean words ona page. But the emergent printer was not the agent that caused the printerto create itself. The agent was the printer manufacturer. The printer existsthrough emergence because another agent the manufacturer designed andassembled printer parts in such a way to produce an emergent printer that itknew would be a printer and print. Emergence here is responsive insofar as itexists as a response to the operations another’s agency achieves. Responsivelyemergent entities are thus the objects of emergent processes and outcomescaused and guided by another agent. 327 -1

    responsive

    • proactive emergence involves cases in which the agency of the emergent operations resides in or is the emergent entity itself -48

      Here theemergent entities are the subjects of the emergent processes and outcomeson which they depend. -161 -1

      for example the emergent bodily life of a tiger.The tiger’s bodily organism as a single whole is in fact emergent from therelation of its various body parts and could not exist apart from them. Butthose body parts were developed and coordinated in the fi rst place by thetiger’s life organism. Before the parts ever existed the tiger existed at fi rst asa single- cell organism. The whole of its unifi ed life precedes and producesthe parts. And that organism contained within itself the capacity as a selfgoverningand self- developing agent of life of its own life to draw on nourishment develop its parts and coordinate them together in such a way asto produce emergently the normal mature tiger organism it becomes.

    Human persons are proactively— not responsively— emergent realities

    • Persons are not subsequent products of purely physical processes the fi naloutcomes of a temporal series of events governed by other agents at the endof which persons emerge.

    Against Reductionism

    • Reductionism is a ruinous move many thinkers in various sciences make.Its approach is to claim that an emergent entity can be best understood andexplained by reducing it to its lower- level component parts from which theentity came through emergence into being and then proposing a descriptionor explanation only with reference to those parts and not the emergentnew whole.

      reductionism asserts that an emergent reality is in factnothing but the parts from which the reality emergently came into being andcan only be explained in terms of them— an act of radical and unacceptablecompaction.

      What does reductionism look like when applied to humans?

      Humanbeings one version of reductionism says are nothing but the material elements(carbon hydrogen and such) that compose them.

      Human minds anotherasserts are nothing but packs of neurons and neurotransmitters. Onereductionist sees nothing in the experience of human love but the operationof hormones and pleasure neurotransmitters at work –

      Another sees little elsein human behavior than selected- upon genes pushing people to act in certainways. –

      another claims that human morality amounts to nothing but culturalinventions designed to promote domination and social control –

      Otherreductionist approaches argue that human social relationships are simplymeans by which resources fl ow through social networks or that all apparentacts of kindness altruism and generosity are nothing but self- interestedstrategies to indirectly maximize pleasure or reproductive fi tness. –

      Reductionist claims take this standard form:

      • “I know that you and otherpeople normally think that P is really a complex matter of A B C . . . X Y and Z. But I as a scientist who knows the real truth of the matter tell youinstead that P is really nothing but e” (or k or s or whatever other oversimplified idea).

        Reductionism squashes complicated emergent complexity intoits simple preemergent components and then thinks that its account betterdescribes and explains reality.

        Reductionism’s fatal move is to fail to see all ofthe new properties capacities and tendencies that come into being at higherlevels of reality through processes of emergence which do not exist at thelower levels of reality from which the higher comes emergently into being

        Reductionism proceeds as if emergence simply does not happen— and inignoring emergence it misrepresents reality. It says in its most ridiculousform that water is really “nothing but” H and O for instance. 289

        But doing thatfails to see one of the most important factors at work in the way things actuallyare which produces the kind of reality we have 289

        In the case of water itfails to see that the covalent bonding of H2 and O bring into being an entirelynew substance— water— with properties capacities tendencies and limitationsof its own that do not exist at the level of H and O. 483

      It takes a world that is multidimensionally differentiated complex and stratifi ed and turns it into a simple fact or operation. It takes beingsthat are absolutely invaluable and turns them into $4.50 worth of material

      Personalism

      • Personalism insists that “nothing- but” reductionism is unacceptable becauseit mis- recognizes the way reality is put together and mis- describes the very realityit claims to illuminate and explain

        It pronounces on reality with a stunningobliviousness to emergence and falsifi es everything important that emergenceproduces.

        When applied to persons reductionism must especially beresisted and denounced because it inevitably depersonalizes human beings

        personalism says is not only bad science but also a moral crime

      Personal Centers with Purpose

      • Persons are by nature “centers with purpose.”

        To be a person that is reasonablywell developed in existential expression is to exist and operate as a governingcenter of consciousness and action oriented toward pursuing certainpurposes.

        The centeredness of persons is what enables us to coordinate andintegrate the immense number of sensory cognitive affective volitional andother inputs experiences and outlooks into relatively unifi ed singular livesand life projects.

        centeredness of persons

        • sensory
        • cognitive
        • affective
        • volitional
        • experiences
        • outlooks into relatively unifi ed
        • singular livesand life projects

        persons are centers means

        • That persons are centers means that they are not mere conglomerations inventories or compilations of diverse features. There is at the core of theperson a centering interior focal point of personal being consciousness andactivity.

          Persons exhibit structures of internal organization that provide a hubor nucleus of coherence and continuity of awareness and action.

          It is notthat persons are perfectly unifi ed harmonized or consistent internally. Weare not.

          Personal being involves certain degrees of internal disconnection disjuncture and lack of integration among parts

          People’s structures of beliefand patterns of behavior for example do not always consistently add up.

          The normally developed person by contrast operates primarilyout of a deep single centered nucleus of being self- governance andself- direction. -25

        Personal centers also have natural purposes 40

        • unfashionable theidea might be in science today personalism holds that personal human lifereally involves natural purposes real teleological ends that properly belong topersons by nature. 40

          many people’s purposes in life are culturallylearned and so vary across social contexts— one person purposes to be arock star another to fulfi ll their life in the untouchable caste 40

          They are alsomore basic than the kinds of purposes just noted (see chapter 5). Sometimespeople think and behave in ways that deny or violate these real natural anduniversal human purposes. But that itself does not make them unreal unnatural or nonuniversal. 235

          It simply means that those people are thinking andliving in denial or violation of the real nature of their personhood. That (livingin denial of reality) too is a real capacity of human personal being whichis sometimes actualized empirically 235

        Ontological Being and Existential Realization 557

        Ontology

        • Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being becoming existence or reality as well as the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or may be said to exist and how such entities may be grouped related within a hierarchy and subdivided according to similarities and differences. Although ontology as a philosophical enterprise is highly theoretical it also has practical application in information science and technology such as ontology engineering.

        Personalism insists that all living human beings are ontologically persons fully and completely with all of the implications the status of personhoodentails.

        Personal being in fact is what develops through the maturing humanbody from the start of life toward its own greater actualization and expression moving through proactive emergence toward realizing and enacting itsessential nature in human development over the life course.

        What varies in human life -318

        • What varies in ehuman life then is not the being of personhood which belongs to the realand exists either completely or not at all. What varies rather is the extent towhich that real personhood is actualized realized and expressed somethingthat concerns not the real but the actual and empirical. -318

        Real personhood example 4

        • Real personhood can in some abnormal instances remain signifi cantlyunrealized in the realm of the actual although below a certain threshold ofrealization life stops and personhood perishes 4

          A fetus that because of geneticanomalies stops growing properly for example will encounter severe limitsto the actualization of his or her real personal being and may die as a resultof body dysfunctions. 4

          A severely physically and mentally disabled child maylive much longer but will also face profound limits on his or her potentialto bring to full actualization his or her ontologically real personhood 4

          Thedisabled child is fully a person but the degree of actual realization and expressionof that real personhood will be constrained. 4

          real personhoodthat has already been signifi cantly realized in life experience can alsolater become severely damaged or deteriorated in the extent of its actualizationand expression. 4

          brilliant “renaissance woman” who is a scholar anartist and an athlete for example may as a result of an automobile accidentfall into a coma. As a living human she remains 100 percent a person evenwhile in a coma but the realization and expression of her personhood inactuality has become radically damaged and may never return

          the 100 percent

          • In most lives the 100 percent ontologically real personhood of living humans fi nds itself more or less ableto signifi cantly develop realize express and enjoy his or herself in actuality.The more that is able to happen the better it is and the more the humangood is potentially achieved

          flourishing persons 105 34

          • human persons— unlessthey are radically damaged— naturally possess within the province of theirgiven personhood all of the necessary “equipment” to become and live asfl ourishing persons. 105 34

            Persons normally come into being in the world naturallyequipped with all of the necessary potential systems capacities andteleological orientation to develop into fully realized persons 105 34

            The componentsand powers required for persons to develop the full realization of theirpersonhood come innate with the person from the start— although thosepowers are sometimes diminished in cases of persons who are radically damaged. 168 34

            Persons do not need subsequent to their conception anything from theoutside that is necessary and essential for their personhood per se. All dimensionsof human personhood come “fully installed ” so to speak in inconceivablycompact and dense potencies given from the fi rst hour of life. 34

            Nothingsubstantively new to personhood per se needs to be added from outside.What persons need from the outside are humanly and materially nurturingenvironments in which their natural innate capacities for personhood candevelop grow in health mature and thrive 34

          degree of the empirical development and realization 34

          • 1. absolute real being 34
          • 2. variable empirical actualization and expression of that being 34

          nurturing contexts

          • Personhood comes already provided in full and completebeing- in- potential bundled in unimaginable density in the natural componentsof the human body

            Personhood comes once fi rst established as inherent“equipment” that only needs in the course of natural developmentto unfold evolve and become mature and shaped well by the right kind ofhuman and material environments.

            What persons crucially need from theoutside then are nurturing contexts to foster the greater realization of personhood.In short human personhood per se once conceived is ontologicallyself- given self- existent self- carrying and self- developing even thoughcontextually and developmentally persons are extraordinarily dependent onexternal environments for proper nurture love and training

      Persons in Social Relations

      nurturing human

      • love
      • protection
      • nourishment
      • teaching
      • development
      • recognition
      • affi rmation
      • direction
      • discipline

    humans are social animals

    • 1. humans are dependently social creatures.
      • They are necessarily social in this sense becausefrom the start of life to its end humans depend on other humans for sustenance nurturance protection fellowship

        people are dependenton other people simply to survive and grow

        Without any social relationshipsfrom the start human persons would wither and die 522 34

        Sociality is thus a functionalrequirement of survival and health for the kind of embodied animalthat humans are. 522 34

    • 2. human are constitutionally social 651 34
      • living in social relationshipswith other persons expresses what persons are. -96 34

        Social relationships are notsimply instrumental means to sustain life and health. They are that too butthey are much more. -96 34

        It is not the case that if only people could be materiallyself- suffi cient then they would not need other people to be persons -96 34

        To be aperson is constitutionally in part “to develop and sustain one’s own incommunicableself in loving relationships with other personal selves.” -96 34

    personal social relationships

    • family
    • clan
    • kin
    • neighborhood
    • village
    • town
    • school
    • team

    persons are the products of their societies 34

    • people acquire their personhood through their social relationships 34

      People’spersonhood in its ontological reality is a natural fact of their human being from start to end. 34

      all living human beings are persons. This being thecase it is impossible for society to be the source of our personhood 34

      Socialrelationships and institutions do not confer create or construct persons anymore than they do brains 34

      Persons are a natural kind of ontological realityoriginating in innate human being at the start of life and developmentallyunfolding in time- space existence. So the standard sociological mantra that“people are social constructions” is wrongheaded 34

    Causal Realism 196 34

    Critical realist personalism is causally realist 34

    That means believing thatcauses of states of affairs and events exist even when we cannot see them 34

• Chapter-2. Rethinking Motivations for Action
  • Human motivations questions 3
    • Why does any person do anything? 3

      When people wake up from sleep what dothey do with the hours ahead of them and why? 3

      By “do” I mean a wide rangeof activities in which humans engage extending from somewhat mindlesshabitual motions to purposeful determined actions. Is what people do coordinatedtoward any larger ends? 3

      Are humans trying to accomplish somethingparticular with the spending of their lives? 3

      Or are people’s activities random disorganized or arbitrary? 3

  • Human actions are motivated 3
  • Do Motivations Matter? 3 395 34
  • What makes people act the way they do? 4 – 34
  • Causal Examples 4
    • Events happen in reality because forces exerted by real entities that havethe causal capacities and powers to bring about those events cause them 4

      All of these events arecaused. 4 34

      Atoxic vapor is given off by ammonia because chlorine added to it produces achemical reaction that releases chloramine. 4

      A door breaks open because thepolice kick it in. 4

      A savings and loan bank goes bankrupt because its depositorsmake a rush on the bank to withdraw their money 4

  • Expenditure of energy 4
    • Events happen because some entities possess the causal capacities toproduce the events capacities that various environmental conditions trigger 4

      Understanding the entities in reality and how their causal powers produceevents is what science is about. Furthermore the causal production of eventsrequires the ongoing expenditure of energy to sustain them 4

  • order to disorder 4
    • Nature tends to move from order to disorder in any isolated system 4

      maintaining order structure process or action requires the ongoing conversionand expenditure of energy from some contributing system. Thingsdo not simply happen. 4

      All movements are moved. Events require energyactivatedeffi cient causes to bring them about 4 335 34

  • What are Events 4 46
    • Human actions practices and habits are events 4 46

      They are not uncaused but are caused by something or other 4 46

      If we wish to understand and explainthem we need to understand what causes them. 4 46

      Involves identifyingthe specifi c sources and types of energy expended that function as the efficient causes of people’s actions practices or habits. 4 46

  • producingthe action 5 -282 34
    • Some seem to believe that social forces cause human actions in ways that do not require motivations as causes. Theidea of motivated human action by contrast says that some important process or force operating within actors— some capacity to exert causal powersto generate action that operate by or within human subjective consciousnessand intention— provides the energy that plays an important role in producingthe action.3 5 -282 34
  • features of human subjectivity 5
    • desires 5
    • beliefs 5
    • emotions 5
  • Motivated actions 5
    • are movements that are caused by expenditures of energyderived from systems internal to conscious human beings and governedin some way by human subjective capacities 5
  • 4 Motivation Skeptics Theory 5
    • 1. social determinism 5
      • actions are not caused by internal or subjective personal motives but rather by macro- or microsituational social forces impingingupon people from the outside 5
    • 2. hermeneutical purism 5
      • Others might say that when it comes to human life (as opposed to nonhumanobjects) identifying causes is simply the wrong and inappropriate form of explanation that human life is really about meaningful symbols and interpretationsand interactions not actions that are “mechanically” caused in the way chemical reactions are caused. 5
    • 3. empirical pessimism 5
      • Other skeptics say that the vast majority of what people do in life is not obviously ends- oriented that people do not seem to pay much direct attention to what they are doing that human doings are more like simple happenings than goal- driven undertakings and that people are often terrible at discerning the optimal means to attain desired ends and explaining the reasons fortheir actions to others 5
    • 4. doubtful decoupling 5 333 34
      • others keptics about motivations point to weak associations between what people say they value believe and desire and the ways they actually behave when itcomes to matters that should be influenced by those same values beliefs and desires. Let us label this view “doubtful decoupling.” 5 333 34
  • Objection to Motivation Skeptics 5 526 32
    • 1. Social determinism 5 526 32
      • The firstobjection to motivation (social determinism) presupposes a false dichotomyand unnecessary zero- sum opposition between personal and social causes ofaction 5 526 32

        It fails to recognize that social causal forces normally work in conjunctionwith and through processes of personal motivations 5 526 32

        Causal infl uencesof social contexts provide or confront actors with opportunities constraints information incentives norms expectations routines costs benefi ts pubre t h i n k i ng mot ivat ion s for ac t ion 65lic moralities and the like which are normally processed by human agentsalso engaged in motivated action. 5 656 32

        So structure and agency are not mutuallyexclusive competing forces in social life. 5 656 32

        Social structure is the emergentproduct of acting persons engaged in ongoing (usually) motivated activity.8Social determinism gives us no good reason to doubt that people’s motivationsoften cause their actions 5 656 32

    • 2. Hermeneutical purism 6 -93 32
      • Hermeneutical purism assumes a false distinction between how explanationworks in human and nonhuman realms 6 4 32

        Hermeneutical purists confusethe idea that certain important explanation- relevant aspects of human lifediffer from nonhuman life (which is true) with the more comprehensive andindefensible claim that human actions cannot be causally explained 6 4 32

        Thatrelates to a false dichotomy between symbolic meanings and causal forces 6 11 32

        Human beliefs desires purposes and cultural meanings are causally powerfulforces in personal and social life 6 11 32

        Among humans meanings have causalpowers to help generate action. 6 140 32

        A causal social science does not need to be and should not be mechanistic(in a bad sense) deterministic materialistic or scientistic 6 140 32

        Causation andhuman agency are not zero- sum rivals but when understood properly notonly coexist but also require each other for action and explanation 6 140 32

    • 3. Empirical pessimism 6 463 32
      • The third possible objection empirical pessimism appeals to observationsthat are often true about human action yet which do not tell us thatmotivations do not cause actions 6 528 32

        That conclusion does not follow from theempirical evidence. People are indeed often distracted confused ineffi cient and inarticulate when it comes to their activities 6 528 32

        Sometimes people’s behaviorsdo not seem very purposive instrumental or rationally deliberated. Sowhat? That does not eliminate motivated human actions. 6 528 32

        It only tells us that our theory of motivations must account for the dimensions of motivatedaction that are habituated uneconomical and operating below discursiveconsciousness 7 – 32

    • 4. Doubtful decoupling 7 6 32
      • the doubtful decoupling view also rightly notes a recurring fact ofhuman life: people’s verbal professions seem often to not closely match theiractions. 7 6 32

        People often say that they value X but then fail to act in ways thatwould accomplish X 7 6 32

        Again however that does not make motivations irrelevantto action. 7 6 32

        It merely tells us that the processes involved are more complexthan a simple “motive ? action” model would suggest 7 6 32

        The skepticism ofdoubtful decoupling also often begins by expecting a strong relationship betweensocial survey and interview measures of “values” or “beliefs” and people’sreal motivations— an often- unwarranted assumption 7 6 32

        Sometimes theseeming disconnect between people’s professions and actions is not becausethese are not connected in people’s lives but because social scientists’ methodsare often poor at identifying and measuring people’s real motivations 7 6 32

  • human life iscomplicated 7 168 32
    • research overdecades has shown moderate associations between professed values and intentionsand people’s actions.14 But even when the claims are not overstated there are good reasons— having to do with multiplicity and complexity—why people’s actions may not closely match their professed values beliefs and goals. People are usually trying to negotiate the implications of myriadvalues beliefs and goals (not just the one that a survey asked about) whichoften creates confl icting purposes and compromises decision making. Thatdoes not mean that actions are not motivated but simply that human life iscomplicated 7 168 32
  • The Reality of Motivated Action 7 32
    • Human behavior and action come in a variety of types and expressions. Someof it like sneezing snoring having seizures tics surges of adrenalin nocturnalemissions obsessive- compulsive disorders and (in certain circumstances)screaming in fright is essentially involuntary 7 622 32

      motivations 8 390 32

      • causal energy and direction the organized patterning of people’s desires beliefs and emotions provide that move people to choose initiate andoften persist in particular actions or general strategies in specifi c contexts 8 390 32

      3 Components of motivated action 8 390 32

      • G = Goal Intention 8 390 32

        P = Person 8 390 32

        A = Action 8 390 32

        The desire to employ the means of A cause P to do A 8 390

        1. There is some goal G that person P affectively desires or intends to bring about 8 390 32

        2. Person P believes that by performing action A he or she will likely help achieve G 8 650 32

        3. this (i) emotionallyladen desire or intention for G (ii) belief in the causal effects of A regardingG and (iii) desire to employ the means of A cause P to do A. 8 650 32

      What then are“reasons? 9 –

      • Reasons are considerations that justify or explain certain actions to actors and others 9 –

      Two Types of Reasons 9

      • normative 9
        • Motivated actions can be thought of as actions that are carried out by actorswho can in principle provide normative reasons for them 9

          The reasonsgiven thus provide an account for why an actor acted as he or she did insofaras the reasons tell why the actor thought certain considerations counted infavor of the action 9

      • explanatory 9
        • consist of an account of the explanatory reasons making theactions intelligible 9

      The Ontology of Motivations 9

      • Human motivations for action are real and important. But what are they? Ofwhat do they consist? The human capacity to engage in motivated action isgrounded in the real multiple and interacting natural powers and tendenciesof normal human personhood 9 76

        Human persons naturally possess the capacitiesthat interact and combine to produce the causal mechanisms by whichmotivations produce actions 9 76

        The ability tendency even inevitability of humansto act on the basis of action- generating motivations is thus a natural inbuilt feature of the nature of normal human persons 9

        Persons conceivedas “centers with purpose” require and give rise to motivated action. 9

      Warning on Motivations 9 333

      • Motivations are real routinely experienced and acted upon by all normal human actors they cannot be observed by others and emprically accessible outside of one’s own experience. 9 333

        Nobody can directly look at touch hear or taste other people’s motivations per se.28 They existat a “deep” level of reality within the subjectivity of persons.29 9 333

        Motivations can also beindirectly observed and measured by their observable effects and by the (admittedlyfallible) reports of human agents 80 -91

        Social scientists can furthermorebelieve in the existence and power of motivations for action by means of“inference to the best explanation” (IBE) considering all of the relevant factorsinvolved 80 -91

      Human motivations to action consist of combinations of 3 Items 9 333

      • Beliefs 9 333
        • a premise or proposition that people consciously or tacitly regard to be true 80 39

          beliefs are mentalattitudes of a certain kind directed toward premises or propositions specifi -cally those that are taken to be true 80 39

          Beliefs concern what is traditionallylabeled the cognitive aspect of mental life 80 39

          “Beliefs” arecommonly thought to be something like “propositional ideas that people activelyconsider adopt refl ect upon and readily express when questioned”—the sort of thing one might expect as a confession of faith by an educated committed Protestant. But that is only one possible kind of human belief and an unusual one at that. 80

          In fact beliefs come in a broad range of forms.32Philosophy provides a helpful hint here. When philosophers use the word“beliefs ” they simply mean the specifi c kind of mental attitude toward thingspeople regard as true 80

          Those beliefs may be mindful or thoughtless vehementlydefended or taken for granted as obvious refl ected upon or acceptedwithout consideration and objectively veritable or false 80

      • Desires 81 2
        • Human desires encompass a wide range of personal subjectiveorientations to objects conditions and experiences 81 2

          astate of embodied mind or “pro attitude” that combines attraction and willtoward some object state of being or experience 81 2

          Desires concern what wastraditionally labeled the “conative” aspect of mental life 81 2

          We must for anadequate theory of motivated human action understand human “desires” ina broad enough way to account for the actual range of kinds of them thatpeople have and the different ways those desires enter into the motivationalprocess 81 2

          Clearly desires (at least those of which we are aware) are subjectivelyfelt states yet they are also grounded in the biological substrate of thebody and brain. 81 2

          For some people “desires” means something like pressingyearnings cravings longings or passions that exist in conscious awarenessand that can be expressed in words if necessary 81 2

          Examples 81 2

          • “I really want to buy a newcar” 81 2
          • “I cannot resist ordering the chocolate cheesecake” 81 2

          Many desiresoperate in people’s lives without their conscious awareness immediaterefl ection or capacity to be communicated with words. 81 131

          Sometimes peoplehave desires that are literally unconscious that have roots in relationshipsand experiences far beyond the access of normal memory or refl ection (suchas for example the un- self- refl ective knee- jerk reaction of resisting all authorityfi gures). 81 131

          Sometimes people have signifi cant desires that operate farin the background of their fi eld of focused awareness that are rarely if everrecognized in the course of ordinary life yet in principle are susceptible toretrieval inspection evaluation and revision (such as people’s cravings forrecognition and status or physical affection) 81

          Then again people often havemany diffuse unfocused or generalized (though not strictly unconscious)desires that can nonetheless prove to be causally powerful in life (such as aninterest in novelty and unconventional experiences or the general wish tobanish all insecurity and disorder in relationships). 81

          Desires too can be selfishand unselfi sh. A good theory of human motivations needs to adopt thisbroader view of the nature of human desires both to be adequate to the realityand to be explanatorily satisfying when it comes to causes and outcomes 81 648

      • Emotions 82 -293
        • Many theories do not include emotions as constitutive partsof motivations.

          Emotions are complex psycho- physiological experiences orstates that environmental and biochemical forces generate

          Emotions concernwhat is traditionally labeled the affective aspect of mental and bodily life 82 –

          Emotional experiences or states entail some kind of physiological arousal thatis often (but not always) meaningfully interpreted in conscious awarenessand expressed in culturally appropriate behaviors 82 –

          Both the physical bodyand subjective awareness are involved in emotions. 82 –

          Various neurotransmittersand hormones such as dopamine serotonin and norepinephrine arecentrally involved in emotions 82 –

          Emotions have incredibly complex relationsto physiological operations of the brain as the underlying material substrateof affective subjective experiences.

          Emotions are also often consciouslyinterpreted as to their kind cause and signifi cance. People normally try toregulate the expression and experience of their emotions to fi t culturally normativeexpectations.

      • human emotions-basic and universal
        • happiness
        • sadness
        • surprise
        • fear
        • disgust
        • anger
      • Emotions
        • The etymological origins of the English word “emotion” are closely relatedto the word “motivation 82

          Emotions can powerfully propel actions and inhibitactions as they shape motivations in complex ways 82

          Emotion properserves to facilitate or regulate action 82 352

          Emotions are integrally enmeshedin the basic motivational processes of “anticipatory states and seeking systems 82 352

          Emotions involve a “power of teleology” involved in the “establishedfact” that “emotions . . . motivate. . . . 82 352

          Emotions are essentially implicatedin our capacity to live a coherent and reasonably well- regulated life; unlessyou care your life will be a mess; and whether or not you care is surprisinglyneatly attested by your galvanic skin response 82 352

          Emotions are “judgments of the body” that can be nonpropositionaland subjectively felt that help people both “know that” about life and“know how” to live life all of which helps comprise and govern motivationsfor action 82 481

          Emotions can be or help make up the cause of something wedo 82 481

          fairly robust fact about emotions that each of them goes together with one or several spontaneous action tendencies that if unchecked will result in action 82 676

          emotions as a “substantive psychological category”64 belong toa proper account of the ontology of human motivations 82 676

          Motivations areconstituted in part by human emotions -136

      ontology of motivations – 3 Faculties

      • 1. cognitive – of or being or relating to or involving cognition the cognitive part of the brain measures intelligence; The psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning

        2. conative – drives how one acts on those thoughts and feelings.

        3. affective – deals with emotions

  • The Teleological Orientation of Motivations
    • Teleology-(philosophy) a doctrine explaining phenomena by their ends or purposes

      Theory-we cannot rightly explain the actions ofpeople and institutions by reference to their supposed functional contributionto the telic end of the survival and well- being of “society” as a whole— acritique

      rational choice

      • the primary explicit exponents of teleologyin human life are rational choice theorists who presuppose that all people areoriented toward the end of increasing if not maximizing their benefi ts rewards or utility

        human activity is oriented toward the (greater) realization achievement or fulfi llment of desired goods 5

        the (greater) accomplishment of thosegoods lies in the future in the distance ahead in life

        The structure of thehuman motivational condition therefore is teleological that is oriented towardthe achievement of some unrealized future end (although the goodspursued are much more complex and specifi c than the “rewards” of rationalchoice theory)

        Human life is oriented toward certain ends which motivationsprovide the energy direction and focus to realize or fulfi ll. We commitno theoretical crime by thinking teleologically. But we need to focus thetelic emphasis of our theories not on “society” (as with functionalism) but onpersons on what they are trying to achieve in their lives— and by extension institutions insofar as they are constructed sustained led and representedby persons and so can be rightly said to be purposively pursuing ends

        To getit right we must also properly specify the telic ends toward which personslive. Rational choice theory is not wrong in believing that people are teleologicallymotivated. It is wrong primarily in the combination of narrownessor vagueness of the ends it assumes people are motivated to achieve

  • Adequate Complexity 463
    • Multiplicity and Incommensurability. We can start by recognizing that motivationsare irreducibly multiple and often incommensurate 39

      Motivationsare potentially complementary or confl icting but never unitary or simple 39

      no realistic or useful theory ofhuman motivations can proceed on the assumption that all signifi cant motivationscan be reduced to one single underlying latent or general basic ormegamotivation 39

      it has been common in the historyof social science for theories to posit or focus on one dominant if not exclusive interest or motivation. 168

      Monomotivational assumptions are standard insociology for example if and when motives are actually addressed 168

      Socialized norms

      • Marxism
        • Marxism for example posits the centrality of control over materialproduction

        Symbolic interactionism

        • Symbolic interactionism emphasizes either the generation andsustaining of intersubjective meanings or alternatively the maintenance ofcredible public moral identities

        Ethnomethodology

        • Ethnomethodology stresses the motivationto create orderly communications

        Hedonic theories

        • Hedonic theories claim that all motivationslead back to the “pleasure principle

        Rational choice theory

        • Rational choice theory posits rationalegoism’s motivation to maximize benefi ts and rewards relative to costs presuming that all ends and goods can be fi t on a commensurate scale of utility 622

        Many confl ict- based theories are built onthe assumption that humans are universally and for all practical purposes exclusively driven in actions to increase their wealth power security andstatus

        wealth

        power

        security

        status

      Downside of Monomotivational Theory 3

      • Monomotivationaltheories oversimplify and ultimately fail to explain social life without havingto engage in major conceptual and empirical qualifi cations or contortions 3

        They usually prove in the end to be either empirically false or theoreticallyvacuous or tautological 3

      Human Motivation has multiple sources 3

      • theory of motivated action must recognize that humanmotivations even basic motivations are multiple 3

        Human action is usuallydeployed to try to satisfy numerous different often competing motivations 3

        Motivations are also complex 3

        They do not usually organize into simple orneat sets but are instead fraught with complications intricacies and diffi culties 3

        the multiplicity and variety of many actual human motivations whether basic or otherwise are sometimes not commensurate in that theyentail enough qualitative differences between them that they cannot be compared weighted or evaluated on shared scales of importance consequence or value. 3

        different sorts of motivations often conglomerate intoclusters or sets that are more or less internally coherent 68

        Sometimes differenthuman motivations complement each other and so can be satisfi ed with oneaction or set of actions. 198

        human motivations for action are not singular simple easilycomparable or routinely convergent in their action- implications the ordinarybusiness of living life turns out to be not simple or easily focused and negotiated 520

        Daily life consists signifi cantly of people managing the innumerablecausal energies and directions of myriad sorts of motivations that push and pull in different directions for different reasons and with different intensities kinds and durations of force 650

        Normal human existence thus involves managingpersonal subjective “coordination and control centers” that processimmense fl ows of perceptions defi nitions associations desires emotions evaluations and the like in order to deploy adequately functional plans ofaction

        coordination and control centers

        • flows of perceptions
        • definitions
        • associations
        • desires
        • emotions
        • evaluations

        Constant Sorting Out

        • mixed motives
        • decision trade- offs
        • ethical dilemmas
        • temptations
        • compromises
        • mental self- control
        • suppression of desires
        • sublimation
        • displacements
        • denials
        • rationalizations
        • self- talk

        Overwhelmed Explained

        • Overloaded personal systems of motivationsmanagement are also in part why people become “overwhelmed” in life andneed rest sleep and diversion to recover and make better decisions and takebetter actions
  • Variance in Conscious Awareness
    • Human motivations for action also varyin the extent to which they are represented in conscious awareness beingsometimes conscious and entailing focused concentration sometimes habituatedand latent in consciousness and sometimes unconscious and even denied.84

      conscious

      habituated

      latent

      unconscious

      denied

      “I really want to pass this test ”

      Others operate further in the background of conscious attentiveness such as those compelling one’s driving to work (which is motivated even though people rarely have to explicitly think “I need to get into my carand drive to work now in order to perform my job so that I can sustain myselffi nancially”)

      a desire to succeed as a surgeon asa means to impress a demanding parent for whom one never felt quite goodenough.

      Motivations can move people even when they are not at the centerof their minds’ consciously focused attention.

      three levels of human un consciousness

      • 1. Focused Conciousness
        • Of all human sentient cognitive affective and volitionalactivity we have reason to believe that focused consciousness— that aboutwhich people have direct attentive awareness— involves lesser amounts ofcontent and mental activity 528

          The human capacity for focused conscious attentionand mental processing is highly limited and consumes large amountsof subjective resources. 528

        2. Habitual Automatic Routinized

        • the human capacity for habitual automatic routinized mentaland physical activity is vast

          Humans enjoy immense capacities to effi -ciently process mental activity and deploy bodily actions without having tofocus on them while they operate “in the background

          Human interests areable to organize a variety of habits and routines that operate on “automaticpilot.

          This dramatically increases the amount of activity in which humansare able to engage despite the limited capacities of focused consciousness 333

        human subjectivityalso includes a dimension that is inaccessible to the actor’s consciousawareness at any particular point in time— although in principle with work elements of the unconscious are capable of being brought to consciousness

        3. Unconscious

        • This human unconscious is real active and often causally potent
        • But in itsdeep subjectivity it remains beyond the access and inspection of consciousawareness
        • the boundary separating the unconscious from the habitualis somewhat porous

      emotional“transference”

      • A massive amount of human action is not but is rather habitual inertial and routinized or driven by subconscious processes such as emotional“transference” or the operation of an unacknowledged defense mechanisms.

        Most human actions that are habituated and latent in consciousnessnevertheless have origins in motivated purposive action; and the original andoften current motivations generating them usually can when questioned bebrought to awareness and explained.

        Much human action is habitual

        Most habitual actions are motivated. Most actions on “automaticpilot” once had to have been put on automatic pilot by a motivation that producedthat effect.

        “The beliefs informing the action do not disappear merelybecause they are not consciously refl ected upon each time. . . . Our beliefs andintentions can be variously located within our consciousness

        And whenwhat eventually became habitual— what people “can do in their sleep”— wasfi rst being learned the actions involved took some conscious focused deliberate motivated effort to acquire and execute. 39

      Habitual acts 361

      • Habitual acts . . . are merely “decayed” versions of earlier “true” actions andobviously have to be understood as such. If therefore conduct as presentlyperformed appears to lack any accompanying subjective meaning it is stillthe case that it must have been so accompanied at the point in the past whenthe actor learnt how to do it. The action characteristics of habitual conductnecessarily stem from the same source as those for “true” action— that of themind of the actor 361

      “developed”habits mindlessly

      • Many people’s habits have also been intentionally chosen and purposefullyformed to help achieve some desired outcome. Social scientists sometimestalk about people’s habits as if they are bad- to- neutral behaviors. People inthis view are seen as having “fallen into” habits or having simply “developed”habits mindlessly

        habits are viewed as larger social practices oflife— “the habitus”— imposed by social orders on individuals who then actthem out.

        Habits sometimes are practices intentionally taken on by persons thathelp to achieve the realization of goods 685

        Habits in short can express virtues(as well as vices) 0 3

      Motivated unconscious actions 0

      • “Motivated unconscious actions” also exist. Many human actions thatare driven by unconscious or denied motivations have biographical sourcesin the consciously experienced world and may be susceptible with help tobeing surfaced for examination and evaluation 0

        Actions whose motivationsare inaccessible to consciousness also normally have temporal connections toreal- world facts events and relationship even if in the distant past 0

        Not all ofthe human unconscious needs to be understood in terms of a Freudian psychodynamicmodel— contemporary psychology takes us well beyond that 0

        Most of the content of the human unconscious is not random or preprogrammed 0

        Most has been embedded in areas of the mind beyond consciousinspection by past experiences living in the world potentially going as farback as infancy— indeed arguably accumulating in human brain structuresfor millions of years of human history 0

        unconsciously motivated actionsare not compelled by free- fl oating random or materially determined forces but by dynamics that in principle may be traced back to experiences perceptions and reactions rooted in lived reality 0 341

        This means that people’s actionscan be motivated even when the motives are unconscious 0 341

      Variance in Intensity of Importance and Commitment 0 389

      • Motivations alsovary in the extent to which they are important to the persons who hold them 0 583

        That variance operates on a continuum from persons hardly caring aboutthem to their being life commitments for which actors are prepared to die 0 583

        People can be motivated in ways that refl ect the smallest of interests importance and commitments 0 583

        people may be willing to “give it shot ” but are also ready to quickly abandon the action with little sense of loss 0 583

      Variance in Temporal Durability 1 -100

      • Motivations for action vary in their durabilityover time on a spectrum from highly fl eeting motivations to highlystable and long lasting. 1 -100

        Some motivations are brief impulses that quicklypass whether or not they are satisfi ed. 1 -100

        Others stick with people for variousperiods of time and then eventually are satisfi ed or fade 1 -100

        Yet other motivationsare long enduring sometimes permanent in human personalities governingfundamental personal orientations and strategies over entire lifetimes 1 -100

        Theories of motivated action that constrain the motivational time horizonsto some artifi cially “typical” range (P wanted X P worked to get X P got X)underestimate the capacity for both fl eeting and lifelong motivations to generatesignifi cant action in different contexts and ways 1 -100

      Variance in Internal Coherence of Motivational Sets 1 -100

      • Specifi c motivationsfor action vary in their coherence with other personal motivations differingin the degree to which they are isolated from or well integrated into largerwebs or structures of personal motivation systems 1

        Nothing in a realist theoryof motivated human action requires that any of people’s particular motivesare well integrated into or driven by the force of a coherent bounded organized systematic scheme of ideas or desires. 1

        Particular motivations maybe linked to coherent ideologies or worldviews. They may belong to largersystems of compatible desires and beliefs. But they need not be 1

        Oftentimesparticular motives are not. 1

        Motivations can be integrated but they can alsobe idiosyncratic 1

        They may cohere in a larger structure of ideas and wants or they may operate in what seem to be random or inconsistent ways. Weneed not predetermine the coherence level of people’s motives as a standardfor being considered real or important but instead see systemic coherence asan open question. 1

        A motivation is a motivation if it moves action regardlessof how random incoherent contradictory consistent or integrated it maybe in relation to other motivations 1

      Variance in Degree of Internalization 1

      • Human motivations for action alsovary in the extent to which they are personally internalized or are prompted orhighlighted by infl uences outside the person. 1 528

        Some motivations (“intrinsic”)are central to integrated personal selves and are the basis of self- determinedactions. 1 528

        These internalized motivations prompt voluntary actions becauseof the inherent satisfaction for the actor of the motivated activities per se 1 528

        Other motivations (“extrinsic”) are more externally prompted and driven triggered and directed by actors situations and rewards outside of the personalactor beyond the enjoyment of the activities in and of themselves 1 528

        These can include what some scholars call amotivational states external regulation introjected regulation identifi ed regulation integrated regulation and intrinsic regulation.1 2 –

        But even when they lean in an extrinsic direction such motivated actions are not simply replaced by the determinative powerof “social forces ” as if in a zero- sum game. Again social forces normallywork on and through the real motivations of persons. 2 –

      Variance in Intentionality of Appropriation 2 –

      • Motivations also vary in thedegree to which they are actively or passively learned or adopted on a spectrumfrom passive absorption through unconscious acquisition to embracethrough purposeful choice. 2 39

        Not all motivations for action need to be of thesort that are purposefully considered and intentionally embraced by the peoplewho are moved by them to action 2 39

        Many motivations for action are internalizedthrough a variety of means over long periods of time includingways about which the persons involved have limited awareness and control 2 39

        Motivations are not limited to those that people appropriate with full awarenessand intention with regard to their purpose power and consequences 2 39

      Solitary and Repeated Actions 2 39

      • Motivations also vary in the extent to whichthe activities they cause are solitary or repeated in patterns of action or practices. 2 39

        Motivated actions vary across a spectrum of degrees of repetition fromsingular isolation to continual reiteration. 2 39

        Motivated actions may be isolated performed only once. 2 39

        Most actions however are not singular but come aspatterned repeated practices 2 39

      Temporal Development 2 298

      • Motivations are also often complex when considered in their temporal formation.An adequate theory of motivations needs to describe the complexityof motives when viewed in “cross- sectional” light (synchronically) and alsoto take a temporal view that describes how motivations develop within time(diachronically). 2

        Motivations often form in a multifaceted developmentalprocess of strengthening movement toward action 2

        This usually involvesthe developing stages of wishes current concerns intentions decisions andimplementation. 2

        The process by which motivations generate action in otherwords does not normally involve a complete 0- to- 1 movement from havingno motive to that of a full motivation immediately acted upon 2

        Motivationis often an internal developmental process involving multiple steps betweenthe spark of initial desire to the fi nal taking of action 101 represented as a fullblownprocess as follows: 2

        Motivation Process 2

        • initial belief(s) 2
        • wish formation 2
        • becoming a current concern 2
        • formingintentions 2
        • deciding 2
        • acting 2

        This motivational process can happen nearly instantaneously or can take along time to develop 3 7

        The temporal development of motivations does not stop once a motivatedaction has occurred however 3 -131 9

        Life is a continual fl ow of personal beingin experience action practice and habit. In that fl ow people’s motivationsare in dynamic motion. 3 -131 9

        Some motivations are satisfi ed and so dischargedand dropped. 3 -131 9

        Some are satisfi ed and sustained to continue to achieve theirsatisfaction. 3 -131 9

        Some are satisfi ed and give rise to new similar or related motivations. 3 -131 9

        Some motivations are frustrated and either abandoned or modifi ed. 3 -131 9

        Some motivations are over time in experience heightened in their consciousfocus. 3 -131 9

        Others are moved into the background of awareness. 3 -131 9

        Depending onpeople’s experiences they may integrate certain motives into larger coherentmotive sets. Others may split out particular motives from previously coherentsets concentrating on one motivation and dropping the previously relatedones. In short because people’s beliefs desires and emotions can anddo continually change— slowly and quickly— their motivations are also everin motion 3 4 9

        “centers with purpose” 3 100 9

        • The simple model depicted above which analytically representsthe temporal development of one motive usually operates at various pointsin a complex process for every motivation operating in every person. And abig part of what it is to be personal “centers with purpose” is to learn how toform manage and act well upon the motivations that are ever developing causing activity and realizing ends (or not) in life. 3 100 9

      Excursus: In Defense of Beliefs 3 508 9

      • Some social scientists believe that the content of people’s beliefs does notcount much in shaping their actions and behaviors.105 I cannot count thenumber of thesis and dissertation committees I have served on in which otherfaculty members declared during the defense “Forget what people supposedlybelieve subjectively. That predicts nothing. Focus instead on actual behaviors.” 3 508 9

        People’s beliefs at least some social scientists believe do little workhelping us to understand and explain their lives. 3 508 9

        What really matter arethings like social network ties habitus and habituated practices cultural repertoiresof action immediate social situations or organizational embeddedness. 3 508 9

        By contrast taking people’s beliefs seriously is associated with outdatedways of explaining human action often connected to Parsonian functionalism which emphasized the central role of “subjective” attitudes values andnorms. 3 623 9

        Beliefs 5 301 9

        • Beliefs are subjective entities referring to things people consciously ortacitly regard to be true 5 301 9

          Only some beliefs are represented by active refl ectionson expressed propositions that can be readily formulated into language. 5 301 9

          People are normally highly limited in their own awareness of their beliefs in their capacity to bring to consciousness the complex fullness of their relevantbeliefs and in their ability to represent their beliefs in words 5 301 9

          the real possible disconnect is between people’s beliefs and their talk abouttheir beliefs not between their beliefs and their actions 5 9

        “ineffable subjectivity”

        • Ann Swidler provides a good example. In an argument skeptical aboutpeople’s “ineffable subjectivity” and “ephemeral subjectivities ” Swidler suggeststhat culture is not about “individual ideas or values” and that “few[people] are presumably moved by deep belief in the principles that lie behind”their behaviors 6 43

          She claims for example that “middle- class Americansdo not ‘believe’ in Christmas gift giving ” in that they are critical of its commercialism hassle and cost (note that “believe” is put in quotation marks the meaning of which is unclear).118 Yet people give Christmas gifts anyway.Why? Because Swidler says 86 chap t e r twoChristmas gift giving constitutes a semiotic code (that is a set of relationallydefi ned meanings) in which the relative value of the gifts a person gives[to] others signals the relative importance with which she or he holds thoseothers. Not to give a gift would independent of the intentions of the giver be interpreted as a sign that one did not value the (non)recipient. What governsaction in this case then is not individuals’ internalized beliefs but theirknowledge of what meanings their actions have for others. 6 8 9

      Conclusion 101 9

      • Motivations we should understand as causing actions 101 9

        Human motivationsactually cause many human actions in the strong sense— they are not epiphenomenalmental states that merely accompany action or post hoc justifications for actions already taken for other reasons. 101 9

        To explain anythingsocial scientifi cally is to describe its causes what produced it or brought itabout. 101 9

        Since a large swath of human personal and social activities and thesocial structures that emerge from them are built on motivated actions socialscience must understand human motivations 101 9

• Chapter-3. Against Social Situationism
  • “social situationism.”

    Important “schools” shaping social situationismhave been symbolic interactionism dramaturgical sociology phenomenology ethnomethodology social constructionism social role theory identitytheory discourse analysis and parts of cultural sociology.3 More broadly thetwentieth century’s “linguistic turn” has been central in forming situationism.Social situationism we may also understand as a reaction against (usuallyreal problems in) sociological Marxism Skinnerian behaviorism Parsonianfunctionalism Durkheimian holism utilitarian rational- choice theory andmetaphysically realist scientistic positivism. -94 9

    Some situationists view themselves as carrying forwarda neo- Weberian “action theory ” despite situationism’s actual radical redefining and overturning of Weber’s original vision (which most situationistsfail to realize).5 Others outright reject Weber as (allegedly) too closely linkedto Parsons. -94 9

    “the sociological perspective”

    The Situationist Outlook 8 9

    • People as people are the products of the social interactions in which theyengage over the course of their lives the social constructions of the discourses cultural repertoires knowledge systems language games andformations of self other people imprint upon them. 143 9

    “to be motivated . 1 139 9

    • “to be motivated . . . is not to be energized by internal or externalforces . . . rather it is simply to be in communication with others about thesense of one’s potentially questionable behavior. . . . Motives . . . are the termsin which the interpretation of conduct proceeds not the causes of it.”50 Thus“despite the beguiling temptation to search for the ‘deeper’ reason why a persondoes what he does . . . there is nothing ‘deeper’ we can infer from verbal(or for that matter nonverbal) phenomena. All we can ever hope to fi nd areother communicative forms 1 139 9

    Asylums 6 -4

    • Asylums is highly focused on issues of“personal defacement ” “being stripped of one’s identity kit ” “loss of identityequipment ” “prevent[ing] the individual from presenting his usual image ofhimself ” “hold[ing] . . . a humiliating pose ” “indignities . . . incompatiblewith his conception of self ” “territories of the self [being] violated ” “theembodiments of self profaned ” “a violation of one’s informational preserveregarding self ” “suffer[ing] the permanent mortifi cation of having . . . takenno action ” “the terror of feeling radically demoted ” “assaults upon the self ”“stress and encroachments on the self ” “personal failure ” and “stigmatization.”79 To avoid such problems people operate with the shared goal of sustaininga “working consensus” of the meaning of contexts so agree about“the desirability of avoiding an open confl ict of defi nitions of the situation.”80Goffman is completely clear that people’s actions have nothing to do with tryingto affi rm or enact moral standards for example even when the actionsclearly concern morality. Action is always only about amorally engineeringsocial impressions designed to affi rm and protect moral self- identities 6 -6 9

    self- identity theory 7 -17 9

    Burke’s self- identity theory for instance. Accordingto him central in all people’s motivation structures is the drive to avoidfeelings of distress disappointment sadness embarrassment shame anger rage annoyance hostility anxiety displeasure fear and depression and thepositive drive to enjoy feelings of competence effectiveness self- worth acceptance and authenticity. 7 -17 9

    Other social situationists agree with these arguments 7 381 9

    • According to Blumand McHugh for example “most fundamentally whatever a motivated actordoes will show his methods for affi rming himself as a person.”86 According toStryker people “incorporate societal defi nitions of appropriate role behaviorinto self and . . . internalize salient identities” through “two mechanisms.”First “persons will generally seek confi rmation or validation of their identities.”Second “people want to think well of themselves. In brief self- esteem.”The basic motivation of human life and action in short is to maintain a positiveaffi rmation of one’s self- identity. 7 381 9

    Motives 9 9

    • “Whatever the actual role of motives (and inmost cases that role is probably minor) humans impute motives— we explaineach other’s actions by assigning motives 9 9

      Motives are the stated reasonsfor an act the verbalized causes of human action that assumes intentions onthe part of the actor.” Therefore “whatever the many complex actual reasonsfor our action taking a certain direction the explanation we fi nd easiest togive involves deep- seated motives. 9 9

    What Situationists Could Have Said That Would Have Been Right 9 207 9

    • 1. People are profoundly infl uenced by the social interactions in which theyengage over the course of their lives such that the discourses culturalrepertoires knowledge systems and language games that (among otherthings) help comprise human social life profoundly affect the ways thatpeople’s natural personal capacities and life projects are developed expressed and directed 120 -62 9

      2. Human doings involve both personal (including interior subjective andprivate) and social dimensions such that people’s actions must be understoodin part as signifi cantly informed defi ned and guided by collectiveprocesses of social communication and pressure 120 -62 9

      3. One crucial activity in human life (among others) is the social communicationof cognitive defi nitions meanings knowledge rules vocabularies and grammars. 120 -62 9

      4. People’s actions are often highly responsive to the local variable and contingentinfl uences of immediate situations in which they fi nd themselvesat any given time which they routinely monitor interpret and respond toas they go about pursuing their interests and larger life projects 120 93 9

      5. Reliance on people’s subjective experiences as evidence for social scienceexplanations is possible and often necessary but also often challengingand fallible since subjective experiences are not directly observable bysecond parties are often not entirely transparent to those experiencingthem fi rsthand must be represented to others through symbolic communications and are only sometimes directive of people’s actions andpractices in straightforward ways. 120 93 9

      6. Although people’s actions and practices are in fact motivated by subjectiverealities such as desires beliefs and emotions the nature and operationof motivations for action are complicated and so must be approached andanalyzed with care and sophistication. 120 210 9

      7. One (among other) basic goal or goods that people pursue in their social interactionsand life projects is their own identity coherence and affi rmation. 120 9

      8. The accounts that people give to explain their actions and practices cansometimes and in varying degrees (though not always and in all ways)refl ect post hoc justifi cations and rationalizations rather than reliable explanationsof the real causes of their actions and practices. 120 9

    Where Social Situationism Goes Wrong 121 -176 9

    • Situationism overstates and misunderstands the waysin which persons are shaped by their societies 121 9

      Situationism fails to see thathuman personal life has an important and necessary interior subjective privatedimension. 121 9

      It compresses the many kinds of human life interests and activitiesinto the one concern of communication of defi nitions and meanings 121 9

      It fails to understand how actions are not shaped only by immediate situationsbut also by long- term identities life projects and moral commitments. 121 9

      It too- easily dismisses the idea of actions performed to achieve subjectivelymotivated ends 121 9

      Situationism also problematically compacts the variety ofhuman interests into the single concern with socially respectable self- identity 121 9

      It denies without warrant the possibility and frequent actuality that the accountspeople give for their actions may and sometimes do actually refl ectthe real reasons behind actions 121 250 9

      Situationism also often relies for validationon the results of social- psychology experiments that are inappropriate andartifi cial tests of the situationist behaviors in question 121 250 9

      socialsituationism recurrently takes initially helpful but limited and conditionalsociological insights into human doings and illegitimately infl ates them intocomprehensive totalizing exclusivist decrees 121 250 9

      social situationism wrongly andimpossibly denies the reality of genuinely motivated human action 121 9

      social situationism’s radical skepticism about “subjectivestates” that serves as the basis for its rejection of standard accounts of motivationsis also unjustifi ed and impossible. Without a belief that humans operatein life with reliance on some real subjective states or capacities that are genuinelycausally related to their actions— beliefs ideas feelings desires intentions and so on— social science becomes a meaningless and hopeless enterprise. 123 9

    “The Imputationof Motives”

    “Causal knowledge ” he observed “is always inferential never immediate.”

    The causal nexus like every other relationship between data is not itself adatum. It can never be vindicated by perception or by any of the devices thatcome to the aid of perception. The assertion of any relationship . . . involvesthe appeal to reason and its establishment is a scientifi c construction 123 9 9

    Motivations that give rise to action therefore may be and in fact are entirelyreal even though they can in any direct sense “never be vindicated byperception.” 123 9 9

    “the postulate is not the existence of motives [per se] but the presence of a particular motive within the scheme of a particular situation.” 123 5 9

    there is no doubt that motivations are real; the onlymatter in question is which specifi c motivations are important in any givensituation. One of the ways we know motivations are real MacIver says isthrough our own directly phenomenological human experience of their presenceand operation inside ourselves 124 -168 9

    That motives . . . belong to the world of reality is established by the best of allevidences— that of immediate experience. We are all aware that we have motives.. . . To the agent himself these subjective urges are important as conditionsand explanations of his act. For him they constitute its why 124 -168 9

• Chapter-4. Human Nature and Motivation in Classical Theory
  • The Dualism of Human Nature
    • Durkheim’s understanding ofhuman being is the idea of the “constitutional duality of human nature” orHomo duplex.

      He believed that all humans embody and experience a doublenature which expresses itself in a dual consciousness

      Humans sense themselves he observed as being composed of body and soul.

      We experience corporealsensations but also concepts in conscious awareness

      We know sensualappetites but also feel moral rules impinging upon those appetites

      We haveindividual psychologies but also live as social beings.

  • 2 sides of dual human nature 132 -93 9
    • Individual 132 -131 9
      • dual human nature are the individual embodied “organico- psychic” aspect of human being on the one hand 132 -131 9
    • socially 132 4 9
      • the sociallydeterminedfact of human existence on the other 132 4 9
  • Implications for Human Motivations -37 9
  • Karl Marx 7 253 9
    • human beings have natural constant universal biological needs that mustbe met in order to survive much less to thrive 9 133

      human nature is the naturalhuman fact of consciousness and self- consciousness. Humans do not merelysubsist. Humans are consciously aware creatures sentient about not only theirmaterial environments but also their fellow humans in social relations 9 3

      human nature is that humans areendowed with certain powerful capacities to engage and transform their materialworld. Humans are not only objects upon which the surrounding worldacts. They are also subjects and agents of their own lives of material production and of history. “The productive power of social labor ” 0 213

  • Max Weber 6 451
    • Purposive Motivated Human Actors 7 -130

      Weber is well known as a methodologicalindividualist. This means that he believed that human beings notsocial structures or organizations are the ultimate true agents of action insocial life. 7 4

      Weber elevated and centeredindividual human actors as the key unit of social life and so the startingpoint of social analysis. 7 4

      people’s purposes are intelligible to themselves and toothers. “Since we [social scientists] take into account every cause which producesor can produce a signifi cant effect we also consider [people’s purpose] 7 4

• Chapter-5. On Basic Human Goods Interests and Motivations
  • Social science must take human motivations seriously in order to understandand explain social life well. So another key question presents itself: amongthe innumerable real motivations that cause humans to engage in actions 0
    • are there any that can rightly be said to be basic? 0

      Are some motivations morefundamental or original in relation to which others are derivative or secondary? 0

      Can human motivations be arranged in a hierarchy according to howcentral or primary they are? 0

      which specifi c motivations are mostcentral or basic? 0

    1. Basicality 0

    • A basic motivation is for presentpurposes one that generates actions intended to produce a result that isvalued for its own sake. 0

      The ends of basic motivations are taken to be goodsof intrinsic and fundamental value not merely instrumental goods that servesome other more primary purpose or benefi t. 0

      Basic motivations generateactions that are not strategic or tactical in serving the purposes of some otherinterests. 0

      They serve their own direct purposes beneath or behind whichnothing more fundamental is sought. 0

      Basic motivations are thus those thatproduce actions expected to achieve results that are ultimately valued fortheir own worth value or benefi t. 0

      When a motivation is not basic Y is something that will serve to achievethe desire involved in some other motivation. But when a motivation is basic Y achieves an intrinsic good valued for its own sake and not justifi ed or desiredin order to realize some other purpose or benefi t. 1

      When the “in- orderthat”explanations about motives come to an end one has likely identifi eda basic motivation. 1

      Example 1

      • some people might be motivated to regularlywork out on the treadmill in their local gym. They may not actually likeworking out or being in the gym. But they do it anyway. If someone askedthem why they may say that they work out in order to regularly exercise.One may then ask what motivates their regular exercise. They may mentiona family history of heart disease and explain that they want to maintain theircardiovascular health. If asked why again they may say that cardiovascularhealth is essential to staying alive. Then if pressed further no additional explanationmay be forthcoming. That is simply what they most basically wantin this case: to stay alive. Remaining alive will be their fi nal end in this case the most elementary benefi t the intrinsically valued good. 1

    2. Existing Accounts 1 9 9

    14 Basic Needs and Drives-viscerogenic-Murray 3 102 9

    • 1. air
    • 2. food
    • 3. water
    • 4. sex
    • 5. lactation
    • 6. urination
    • 7. defecation
    • 8. avoidance of danger
    • 9. unpleasant stimuli
    • 10. excessive heat
    • 11. cold
    • 12. gratificationof the senses
    • 13. rest
    • 14. sleep

    6 Psychogenic Need-Murray 3 102 9

    • 1. The need for prestige and self- enhancement superiority achievement recognition respect and self- exhibition

      2. The need for status- defense and avoiding humiliation defensiveness averting defeat.

      3. The need to exercise power and dealing with the power of others independence aggression avoiding blame dominance and submissiveness submission and resignation

      4. The need for affection affi liation friendliness cooperation support nurture and dealing with rejection

      5. The need to acquire conserve order retain and construct with inanimate material objects

      6. The need for cognition to explore inquire know and satisfy curiosity

    4 universal existential anxieties-Alsted 3 761 9

    • 1. The anxiety of isolation overcome by integrative social relationships andthe joy of belonging. 4

      2. The anxiety of dependence and absorption overcome by self- assertion insocial relationships the joy of recognition 4

      3. The anxiety of insecurity regarding relational change fragility and loss overcome by strong affective relations the joy of comfort safety warmth care 4

      4. The anxiety of stagnation or stasis overcome by the joys of life competence understanding agency mastery risk for gain. 4

    8 basic human needs-Fromm 4 9

    • 1. Relatedness: relationships with others care respect knowledge 4 298 9

      2. Transcendence: surpassing their own nature by creating things and peopleabout which they care (or pathologically destroying people and thingsthrough aggression and killing). 4 298 9

      3. Rootedness: establishing roots and feeling at home in the world developingpast natural maternal security and establishing ties with the largerworld (or pathologically becoming fi xated and afraid to move beyondmaternal security or mother substitutes 4 298 9

      4. Sense of Identity: establishing one’s own individuality (or pathologically engaging in group conformity 4 298 9

      5. Frame of orientation: understanding the world and our rightful place in it 4 298 9

      6. Excitation and Stimulation: striving for goals actively rather than simplypassively responding to the world as it happens to us. 4 298 9

      7. Unity: developing a sense of oneness with the human and naturalenvironment 4 298 9

      8. Effectiveness: being and feeling accomplished 4 298 9

    7 “basic needs”-Turner

    • 1. Group inclusion
    • 2. Trust (in the social and material environment)
    • 3. Ontological security
    • 4. Material symbolic gratifi cation
    • 5. Avoidance of anxiety
    • 6. Confi rmation of self (identity)
    • 7. The sense of facticity (of surrounding world)

    5 basic social motives-Fiske 5 9

    • 1. belonging 5 9
    • 2. understanding 5 9
    • 3. controlling 5 9
    • 4. enhancing self 5 9
    • 5. trusting others 5 9

    5 basic needs-Maslows 5 9

    • 1. Physiological: air water food clothing shelter sex sleep excretion andsuch. 5 380 9

      2. Safety: physical security resource security health wellbeing avoidance ofillness and accidents 5 380 9

      3. Love and Belongingness: family friendship intimacy group participation 5 380 9

      4. Esteem: self- respect being valued status recognition attention confidence. 5 380 9

      5. Self- Actualization: realizing full personal potential fulfi lling promise andcapabilities 5 380 9

    3 basic or fundamental psychological needs-Deci-Ryan 6 188 9

    • 1. Competence: feeling effective in ongoing interactions with the social environmentand experiencing opportunities to exercise and express one’scapacities 6 188 9

      2. Relatedness: feeling connected to others caring for and being cared forby others having a sense of belonging with other individuals and one’scommunity. 6 188 9

      3. Autonomy: perceiving oneself as the origin or source of one’s own behavior acting from interests and integrated values (not to be confused withthe “negative freedom” of liberalism’s self to do what it wishes withoutobstruction by others). 6 188 9

    6 basic human needs-Ramsay 7

    • 1. Physical survival 7
    • 2. Sexual needs 7
    • 3. Security 7
    • 4. Love and relatedness 7
    • 5. Esteem and identity 7
    • 6. Self- realization 7

    9 “axial categories ” or basic needs – Max-Neef 7 -3 9

    • 1. Subsistence 7
    • 2. Protection 7
    • 3. Affection 7
    • 4. Understanding 7
    • 5. Participation 7
    • 6. Leisure 7
    • 7. Creation 7
    • 8. Identity 7
    • 9. Freedom 7

    14 Basic Needs-Nielsen 7

    • 1. Love 7
    • 2. Companionship 7
    • 3. Security 7
    • 4. Protection 7
    • 5. Sense of community 7
    • 6. Meaningful work 7
    • 7. Adequate sustenance 7
    • 8. Shelter 7
    • 9. Sexual gratifi cation 7
    • 10. Amusement 7
    • 11. Rest 7
    • 12. Recreation 7
    • 13. Recognition 7 617 9
    • 14. Respect of person 7 617 9

    7 basic needs-Staub 8 6 9

    • (1) security 8 4 9
    • (2) effectiveness and control 8 4 9
    • (3) a positive identity 8 4 9
    • (4) connection 8 4 9
    • (5) comprehension of reality 8 4 9
    • (6) transcendence 8 4 9
    • (7) long- term satisfaction 8 4 9

    4 basic motivations_Lawrence 8 140 9

    • 1. the drives to acquire (to obtain things thatenhance reproductive success) 8 140 9
    • 2. to defend (to protect that which is acquired) 8 140 9
    • 3. to comprehend (to understand the surrounding world) 8 140 9
    • 4. to bond (to connectand relate to fellow human beings 8 218 9

    4 Basic Desires or Interests-Thorpe 8 412 9

    • 1. An alternative conceptual approach to humanmotivations for action than “needs” is that of basic desires 8 412 9

      2. Whereas needsconceptually entail satisfying already- fi xed requisites the idea of desires connotesa more forward- looking ends- oriented volition- driven outlook 8 412 9

      3. Desires are said to generate and direct action not in order to meet recurrentlyfelt insuffi ciencies or life requirements. 8 412 9

      4. Desires motivate action by providingthe energy of wanting yearning craving longing or aspiring 8 412 9

    7 basic human desires-Argyle 9 9

    • 1. Biological Needs: eating drinking and bodily comfort 9 9

      2. Dependency: help support protection and guidance from parents andpeople in authority 9 9

      3. Affi liation: warm and friendly responses from and acceptance by peers 9 9

      4. Dominance: leading in group tasks dominating talk making decisions enjoying deference 9 9

      5. Sex: physical proximity and bodily and eye contact attractions to and intimateinteractions with (normally) the opposite sex 9 9

      6. Aggression: harming other people physically verbally emotionally andso on 9 9

      7. Self- Esteem and Ego- Identity: receiving approval from and acceptance byother people 9 9

    16 Desires-Reiss 9 333 9

    • 1. Power: the desire to infl uence others. 9 489 9
    • 2. Independence: the desire for self- reliance. 9 489 9
    • 3. Curiosity: the desire for knowledge. 9 489 9
    • 4. Acceptance: the desire for inclusion 9 489 9
    • 5. Order: the desire for organization. 9 489 9
    • 6. Saving: the desire to collect things 0 -207 9
    • 7. Honor: the desire for loyalty to parents and heritage 0 -207 9
    • 8. Idealism: the desire for social justice 0 -207 9
    • 9. Social Contact: the desire for companionship 0 -207 9
    • 10. Family: the desire to raise one’s own children 0 -207 9
    • 11. Status: the desire for social standing 0 -207 9
    • 12. Vengeance: the desire to get even. 0 -207 9
    • 13. Romance: the desire for sex and beauty 0 -207 9
    • 14. Eating: the desire to consume food 0 -207 9
    • 15. Physical Exercise: the desire to exercise muscles 0 -207 9
    • 16. Tranquility: the desire for emotional calm 0 -207 9

    17 basic human desires-Baumeister 0 9

    • A. Animal Desires 0 9
      • 1. Food 0 9
      • 2. Pleasure (avoid pain) 0 9
      • 3. Self- preservation (avoid injury death) 0 9
      • 4. Curiosity and Understanding 0 9
      • 5. Control 0 9
      • 6. Money 0 9
      • 7. Power 0 9
      • 8. Possessions and Territory 0 9
    • B. Social Desires 0 9
      • 9. Belonging 0 9
      • 10. Sex 0 9
      • 11. Aggression 0 568 9
      • 12. Nurturance Generativity Helping 0 568 9
    • C. Cultural Created Desires 1 4 9
      • 13. Language use 1 4 9
      • 14. Self- esteem 1 4 9
      • 15. Guilt Morality Virtue 1 4 9
      • 16. Success Wealth Fame 1 4 9
      • 17. A Meaningful Life 1 4 9

    24 Basic Goals-Ford 1 9

    • human action is purposive and motivated by a set ofbasic ends to achieve 1 184 9

      “motivation provides the foundationfor learning skill development and behavior change by determininghow where and to what end people will invest their capabilities for behavioralself- construction.” 1 184 9

      Ford’s view motivations have centrally to do notwith needs drives or desires but rather with goals. “Goals ” he says “arethoughts about desired (or undesired) states or outcomes that one wouldlike to achieve (or avoid) 1 184 9

      A. Affective 1 9

      • 1. Entertainment: Experiencing excitement or heightened arousal; avoidingboredom and stressful inactivity. 1 9

        2. Tranquility: Feeling relaxed and at east; avoiding stressful overarousal. 1 9

        3. Happiness: Experiencing feelings of joy satisfaction or well- being; avoidingemotional stress or dissatisfaction 1 9

        4. Bodily Sensations: Experiencing pleasure associated with physical sensation movement or bodily contact; avoiding unpleasant or uncomfortablebodily sensations 1 9

        5. Physical Well- Being: Feeling healthy energetic or physically robust;avoiding lethargy weakness or ill health. 1 9

      B. Cognitive 2 -201 9

      • 6. Exploration: Satisfying one’s curiosity about personally meaningful events;avoiding a sense of being uninformed or not knowing what is going on. 2 -201 9

        7. Understanding: Gaining knowledge or making sense out of something;avoiding misconceptions erroneous beliefs or feelings of confusion 2 -201 9

        8. Intellectual Creativity: Engaging in activities involving original thinking ornovel or interesting ideas; avoiding mindless or familiar ways of thinking 2 -201 9

        9. Positive Self- Evaluations: Maintaining a sense of self- confi dence pride orself- worth; avoiding feelings of failure guilt or incompetence 2 -201 9

      C. Subjective Organization 2 -201 9

      • 10. Unity: Experiencing a profound or spiritual sense of connectedness harmony or oneness with people nature or a greater power; avoiding feelingsof psychological disunity or disorganization 2 -8 9

        11. Transcendence: Experiencing optimal or extraordinary states of functioning;avoiding feeling trapped within the boundaries of ordinaryexperience 2 -8 9

      D. Self- Assertive Social Relationship 2 -8 9

      • 12. Individuality: Feeling unique special different; avoiding similarity orconformity with others 2 -8 9

        13. Self- Determination: Experiencing a sense of freedom to act or makechoices; avoiding the feeling of being pressured constrained or coerced 2 -8 9

        14. Superiority: Comparing favorably to others in terms of winning status orsuccess; avoiding unfavorable comparisons with others 2 9

        15. Resource Acquisition: Obtaining approval support assistance advice orvalidation from others; avoiding social disapproval or rejection 2 9

      E. Integrative Social Relationship 2 22

      • 16. Belongingness: Building or maintaining attachments friendships intimacy or a sense of community; avoiding feelings of social isolation orseparateness 2 22

        17. Social Responsibility: Keeping interpersonal commitments meeting socialrole obligations and conforming to social and moral rules; avoiding socialtransgressions and unethical or illegal conduct 2 22

        18. Equity: Promoting fairness justice reciprocity or equality; avoiding unfairor unjust actions 2 22

        19. Resource Provision: Giving approval support assistance advice or validationto others; avoiding selfi sh or uncaring behavior 2 381 9

      F.Task Goals 2 381 9

      • 20. Mastery: Meeting a challenging standard of achievement or improvement;avoiding incompetence mediocrity or decrements in performance 2 381 9

        21. Task Creativity: Engaging in activities involving artistic expression or creativity;avoiding tasks that do not provide opportunities for creative action. 2 381 9

        22. Management: Maintaining order organization or productivity in dailylife tasks; avoiding sloppiness ineffi ciency or disorganization 3 6 9

        23. Material Gain: Increasing the amount of money or tangible goods onehas; avoiding the loss of money or material possessions 3 6 9

        24. Safety: Being unharmed physically secure and free of risk; avoidingthreatening depriving or harmful circumstances 3 6 9

    10 basic capabilities-Nussbaum 3 3

    • 1. Life 3 268 9
    • 2. Bodily health 3 268 9
    • 3. Bodily integration 3 268 9
    • 4. Senses thought imagination 3 268 9
    • 5. Emotions 3 268 9
    • 6. Practical reason 3 268 9
    • 7. Affi liation 3 268 9
    • 8. Other species 3 268 9
    • 9. Play 3 268 9
    • 10. Control over one’s environment 3 268 9

    6 basic human interests-Ryff 3 463 9

    • 1. Self- acceptance: having a positive attitude toward oneself and one’s pastlife. 4 4 9
    • 2. Purpose in life: having goals and objectives that give life meaning 4 4 9
    • 3. Environmental mastery: being able to manage complex demands of dailylife 4 4 9
    • 4. Personal growth: having a sense of continued development and selfrealization 4 4 9
    • 5. Positive relations with others: having caring and trusting ties with others 4 4 9
    • 6. Autonomy: being able to follow one’s own convictions 4 4 9

    9 basic human goods-Qizilbash 4 116 9

    • 1. Health nutrition sanitation rest shelter security 4 116 9
    • 2. Literacy basic intellectual and physical capacities 4 116 9
    • 3. Self- respect and aspiration 4 116 9
    • 4. Positive freedom autonomy or self- determination 4 116 9
    • 5. Negative freedom or liberty 4 116 9
    • 6. Enjoyment 4 116 9
    • 7. Understanding or knowledge 4 116 9
    • 8. Signifi cant relations with others and some participation in social life 4 116 9
    • 9. Accomplishment (of the sort that gives life a point or weight) 4 116 9

    9 components of human existence Griffin 4 387 9

    • 1. Accomplishment: real achievement 4 387 9

      2. Deciding for oneself: agency (a “component of human existence”). 4 387 9

      3. Minimal material goods: physical survival (a “component of humanexistence”). 4 387 9

      4. Senses and limbs that work: bodily functioning (a “component of humanexistence”). 4 387 9

      5. Freedom from pain and anxiety (a “component of human existence”). 5 – 9

      6. Liberty: to read consider others’ ideas to worship of speech and association(a “component of human existence”). 5 – 9

      7. Understanding: knowing about oneself and one’s place in the world 5 – 9

      8. Enjoyment: pleasure perceptions of beauty enjoyment of daily life. 5 – 9

      9. Deep personal relations: mutual relations of friendship and love. 5 – 9

    7 basic goods-Finnis 5 157 9

    • 1. Life (self- preservation) 5 312 9

      2. Knowledge (fi nding out understanding truth curiosity) 5 312 9

      3. Play (intrinsically enjoyable performances) 5 312 9

      4. Aesthetic Experience (beauty) 5 312 9

      5. Sociability (friendship peace harmony) 5 312 9

      6. Practical Reasonableness (using intelligence to face problems choose actions lifestyles character) 5 312 9

      7. “Religion” (origins and order of the cosmos authority over humanfreedom) 5 312 9

    A Thematic Synthesis 6 392 9

    Basic Human Goods and Interests 1 133 9

    • 1. Bodily Survival Security and Pleasure 2 329 9
      • avoiding bodily death injury sickness disease and sustained vulnerability to harm; maintaining physicaland bodily health and safety; sensual enjoyment satisfaction delight orgratifi cation of appetitive and perceptual desires of the body; and the absenceof physical pain and suffering. 2 329 9
    • 2. Knowledge of Reality 2 329 9
      • learning about the world and one’s place and potentialin it; increasing awareness and understanding of material and socialrealities; developing or embracing believed- in truths about what existsand how it works that provide order continuity and practical know- howto life experience. 2 329 9
    • 3. Identity Coherence and Affi rmation 2 329 9
      • developing and maintaining continuityand positive self- regard in one’s sense of personal selfhood over timeand in different contexts and situations. 2 329 9
    • 4. Exercising Purposive Agency 2 329 9
      • exerting infl uence or power (broadly understoodas transformative capacity) in the social and material worlds through the application of personal capabilities for perception refl ection care evaluation self- direction decision and action which causes desired(and unanticipated) effects in one’s environment. 2 6 9
    • 5. Moral Affirmation 2 6 9
      • believing that one is in the right or is living a morallycommendable life by being doing serving thinking and feeling what is good correct just and admirable; avoiding moral fault blame guilt orculpability 2 9
    • 6. Social Belonging and Love: 3 -289 9
      • enjoying recognition by inclusion and membershipin and identifi cation with signifi cant social groups; loving andbeing loved by others in signifi cant relationships 3 -289 9

    Goods Grounded in Personal Ontology 3 8 9

    Unpacking Some Complexity 6 9

    Multiple Mediations 8 707 9

    The Proposed Model 1 187 9

    • Humans by natureseek to accomplish these goods ultimately in order to realize the fi nal humanend of personal fl ourishing. And all of that is so not because “society” defi nesit as such. “Society” operates at a much higher level through the enablingand constraining contextual developmental infl uences it exerts on personsand their motivations. Humans by nature seek to accomplish these goods instead because of the given ontological nature of their human personhood. 3 9

    Considering the Alternatives 4 -62 9

    Personalist theory 5 372 9

    • Personalist theoryexplains why a realistic humanism is both possible and necessary. Humanpersons are the primal causes of their own actions. They are neither autonomouslyfree nor deterministically controlled. They are highly structured defi ned mediated infl uenced and oriented by many ontological personal material and social forces and factors. Yet each human person is fi nally theactive agent— personalism’s “center with purpose”— of his or her subjectiveprocesses decisions and external actions. People do not construct themselves their interests or their core motivations in life out of thin air or ontheir own as they wish. The primary elements of those features are givenby nature. 5 372 9

    Toward a Good Life Well Lived 8 4 9

    • People do not act for random reasons 8 100 9

      People’s actions are grounded motivationallyin some basic human interests and goods 8 100 9

      But what is the pointof those goods and interests? Are they the terminus of the matter the endof the investigation? No. 8 100 9

      The basic human goods together point us to andhelp constitute their own proper end: personal fl ourishing deep happiness thriving well- being eudaimonia a good life well lived 8 100 9

    eudaimonia 0 2 9

    • personal fl ourishing a good life well lived 0 2 9
    • What does anyone do withtheir lives when they wake up from sleep and why do they do that?— 0 2 9
• Chapter-6. Toward a Theory of Flourishing
  • Question of the purpose of human life 2 136 9
    • What does it mean for a human person to live a good life? 2 136 9

      Can people fi nddirection outside of their immediate desires for genuinely reliable guidanceon how to live well? 2 136 9

      Does life have any real purpose anyway? 2 136 9

      Or is one way oflife no better or worse than any other? 2 136 9

      How could anyone know? 2 136 9

  • What Is Flourishing? 3 9
    • how do thesix irreducible basic motivations interests and goods discussed there relateto each other? 3 9

      A good way to convey the character of this fi nal end and purpose in lifeis to name it fl ourishing also sometimes called here “thriving” or “a good lifewell lived.” 3 4 9

      To have a good life is to live in a way that one fl ourishes asa person. To fi nd reliable guidance beyond ourselves for truly living well is tolearn how to practice virtues that are required to fl ourish 3 4 9

      We are not to fl ourish as apes or gods orsomething else that we are not. The sky is not the limit. Everything does notgo. It is ultimately not up to us to determine what it means to fl ourish. Thefeatures capacities and limitations of our naturally given personhood determinethat. 3 179 9

      to fl ourish means “to blossom ” to grow and bloom inmature fruitful beautiful ways. 3 179 9

      To thrive etymologically means “to seize ”to grasp and capture the fullness of life to live life well to the fullest. All livingorganisms naturally strive to live grow and bloom to robustly achieve thefullness of their natural capacities. 3 372 9

      All living organisms work against death disease and weakness. The physical functioning of our human bodies worksthis way. Other natural human capacities are the same. 3 372 9

      Humans are naturally interested in learning how realityworks and what is good. 3 489 9

      Humans by nature want to exercise their capacitiesand powers and to master skills 3 489 9

      Humans cannot escape making evaluationstowa r d a t h eory of f lou r i s h i ng 203of better and worse good and bad attractive and ugly just and unjust praiseworthyand reprehensible. 3 6 9

      Humans are naturally attracted to what theybelieve to be higher better more appealing. A world in which humans didnot seek to learn grow and thrive would be quite unlike our world 3 6 9

      “Happiness then is found to be something perfect andself- suffi cient [ 5 9

      making life desirable] being the end to which ouractions are directed.” 5 9

      fi nal goal in itself the endtoward which other actions are engaged (whether well or poorly) that whichin and of itself makes life desirable. 5 9

      No larger or higher purpose beyond humanfl ourishing exists in this world. Other goals and activities in life exist toserve the purpose of fl ourishing. 5 9

  • 7 Phases-The life of persons is by nature oriented toward 3 372 9
    • 1. learning 3 489 9
    • 2. becoming 3 489 9
    • 3. developing 3 489 9
    • 4. growing 3 489 9
    • 6. expanding 3 489 9
    • 7. maturing 3 489 9
  • How does one achieve a flourishing life? 5 9
    • The answer at a personallevel is by becoming as fully as possible in actual experience that which oneis ontologically namely a human person 5 9

      People fl ourish thrive and aremost genuinely happy when they develop and actualize what they by natureare. 5 9

      Persons are not inert objects. They are living growing dynamic beingsdefi ned by potentials powers and capacities (and limitations). 5 9

      People havea natural disposition to grow learn develop and realize their inherent capacitiesand powers. 5 9

      We are always in motion moving (either effectively orbadly) toward our telos. 5 9

      Human motivations are oriented toward (which isnot the same thing as effective in realizing) the natural interests in achievingand participating in those basic goods 5 9

      Human life thus has a true purpose not to do whatever one wants or to meld into the collective but rather todevelop the fullness of fl ourishing personhood 5 9

  • Personal Becoming 6 9
    • Living human beings are ontologically 100 percent persons but they are variablein the realization in existential experience of the capacities and tendenciesof their personal being 6 18

      Personhood is a 0 1 fact for humans— there are nofractions or percentages of personhood. 6 18

      All living humans are 1 = person nothing less. 6 18

  • Virtues-Definition 8 6 18
    • Virtues are hard- won dispositions and practices of excellencethat lead to a fl ourishing truly happy life 8 7 18

      Virtues are not naive or innocentor smug. 8 4 18

  • 4 “cardinal virtues” – Plato 8 140 18
    • 1. temperance 8 140 18
    • 2. prudence 8 140 18
    • 3. courage 8 140 18
    • 4. justice 8 140 18
  • 9 Virtues -Greek Romans 8 140 18
    • 1. humor 8 140 18
    • 2. mercy 8 140 18
    • 3. dignity 8 140 18
    • 4. tenacity 8 140 18
    • 5. concord 8 140 18
    • 6. nobility 8 140 18
    • 7. endurance 8 140 18
    • 8. modesty 8 140 18
    • 9. equity 8 140 18
  • 10 Christian Virtues 8 18
    • 1. faith 8 18
    • 2. hope 8 18
    • 3. love 8 18
    • 4. temperance 8 18
    • 5. charity 8 18
    • 6. diligence 8 18
    • 7. patience 8 18
    • 8. kindness 8 18
    • 9. humility 8 18
    • 10. chastity 8 18
  • 14 Human capacities 9 18
    • 1. consciousness 9 18

      2. reflexivity 9 18

      3. bodily health 9 18

      4. presence 9 18

      5. selftranscendence 9 18

      6. coherence of experience 9 18

      7. personal identity 9 18

      8. moral commitment 9 18

      9. social communication 9 18

      10. responsibility in causing action 9 18

      11. participationin social interactions 9 18

      12. personal agency 9 18

      13. experience of intersubjectivity 9 18

      14. being and living as a particular kind of self who is engaged in lovingrelationships with other personal selves and the nonpersonal world 9 18

  • 4 Must Have – Living a good life 2 18
    • a person living a good life is more like becoming amaster artist or player in some sport or complex game such as chess 2 18

      1. dedication 2 18

      2. learning 2 18

      3. discipline 2 18

      4. practice to move toward excellence 2 18

  • 8 Opposite of virtues [Delete these from your life] 2 346 18
    • 1. selfishness 2 346 18
    • 2. stupidity 2 346 18
    • 3. indifference 2 346 18
    • 4. vice 2 346 18
    • 5. arrogance 2 346 18
    • 6. laziness 2 346 18
    • 7. evasion of accountability 2 346 18
    • 8. dehumanization 2 346 18
  • 9 necessary conditions-Personal Flourshing 3 582 18
    • 1. Bodily sustenance 4 3 18
      • Bodily sustenance means that to fl ourish persons need the proper nutrition water shelter from the elements and clean air to sustain healthy bodily life 4 3 18
    • 2. Material resources 4 3 18
      • access to sufficient possessions 4 3 18
      • property 4 3 18
      • land 4 3 18
      • tools 4 3 18
      • forms of transport 4 3 18
      • raw materials 4 3 18
    • 3. Avoiding misfortune 4 3 18
      • Avoiding misfortune denotes persons not falling victim to debilitatingaccidents diseases disasters violence and other unexpected turnsof fate that seriously compromise health and life. 4 3 18
    • 4. Being loved 4 3 18
      • Being loved means beingthe object of one or more other signifi cant person’s self- giving care affection and commitment to one’s well- being motivated centrally to promoteone’s genuine good not for instrumental reasons 4 3 18

        The primary source oflove is normally parents and family but can include kin parent surrogates friends and others. 4 3 18

    • 5. Training 4 3 18
      • teaching 4 3 18

        instruction 4 3 18

        educationin a variety of life skills— practical rational emotional relational technical and so on— 4 3 18

        by teachers guides instructors and role models 4 3 18

    • 6. Learning virtues 4 18
      • Learning virtues signifies acquiring and practicing the habituated character dispositions traits and practices that tend to lead to the living of a good life— suchas prudence truthfulness courage justice temperance generosity patience endurance wit and so on. 4 18
    • 7. Commitment to growth 4 18
      • Commitment to growth means the basic dispositionand dedication of persons to continue to work throughout life towardthe proper telos of fl ourishing including resisting or overcoming failures obstacles compromise diversions sloth despair and other threats to ongoingteleological movement toward thriving. 4 18
    • 9. Social participation 4 315 18
      • Social participation meansenjoying and taking advantage of access to a variety of associations communities and institutions in one’s society by which one benefi ts from andcontributes to the variety of goods entailed in those memberships involvements and activities 4 315 18
    • 10. Loving others 4 315 18
      • Loving others is the fi nal necessary condition and experienceof personal fl ourishing 4 315 18

        giving of oneself for the genuinegood of others in the form of care affection and commitment to their wellbeing motivated not for self- regarding or instrumental reasons but primarilyto promote the true welfare and happiness of the other and often to enjoyinter personal communion with them 4 315 18

  • Contingency and Variability 3 – 18
    • The fi rst fi ve of the nine necessary conditions named above involve requirementsor enjoyments that are primarily beyond the control of persons 5 43 0

      They must be provided to each person particularly early in life by other personsand social environments in ways that are largely beyond the infl uenceof the recipients. 5 43 0

      All persons are thus crucially developmentally dependentupon the surrounding social- structural world in a variety of ways to evenhave a chance at personal thriving 5 43 0

      the last four of the nine necessary conditionsfall signifi cantly though not entirely within the control of persons 5 43 0

      Nobodybut the persons in question themselves can learn and practice virtues remaincommitted to personal growth and overcoming actively participate in sociallife and genuinely love other persons. 5 0

      People are not autonomous in any ofthis in complete control of these matters. 5 0

      Learning virtues for example requiresthe presence and investment of more virtuous mature accomplishedpersons to model teach reinforce interpret and reward them 5 0

      And socialparticipation requires not only a readiness to become involved in communityand institutional life but opportunities for such participation which must beafforded by other actors and social arrangements. 5 315 0

      Lastly to repeat we mustnever forget that personal fl ourishing requires learning to love and actuallyloving other persons 5 315 0

      Love is probably one of the words social scientists useleast despite its common usage by ordinary people 5 315 0

      Yet my defi nition ofhuman personhood and everyone’s existential experience makes love an inherentand necessary feature of human fl ourishing 5 315 0

      No person can fail to loveother persons and still fl ourish 5 315 0

      Part of what it means to be an actualizedhuman person is to engage in loving relationships with others 5 4 0

      Love stands at the heart of humanity’s being purpose and teleological end 5 625 0

      Personal flourishing is I have said dependent upon a set of necessary personaland social- structural conditions that make it possible 3 387 18

  • Harmful social- structural and personal conditionsand experiences 6 31 39
    • harmful social- structural and personal conditionsand experiences possess the causal capacity to impair damage and possiblyterminate personal fl ourishing 6 31 39

      developmental trauma during the infant childhood and adolescentyears— including physical or emotional neglect abuse stress molestation or violence— tends to short circuit personal thriving even when thenine necessary conditions of fl ourishing noted above are otherwise met 6 31 39

      Inheritingbad genes can seriously impair the advancement of persons towardgreater fl ourishing in a variety of ways by making certain persons susceptibleto fatal diseases risk- taking or alcoholism for example. 6 31 39

      Material deprivationscaused by severe poverty group discrimination or economic oppressionundermine access to the basic resources necessary for personal thriving 6 31 39

      Social exclusion similarly undermines movement toward thriving. Some ofthese “damagers” are essentially the deprivation of the necessary conditionsfor thriving named above 6 31 39

      As a baseline rule by the nature of things persons cannot fl ourish in a vacuum in states of severe deprivation apartfrom the right kinds of nurturance formation and support of many differentkinds. 6 341 39

  • 3 levels of ends 312 39
    • 1. The Shared human telos 312 39
      • The sharedhuman telos is the general end toward which all humans ought properly tomove given the nature of what they as persons are and which helps to defi nethe right boundaries within which all humans should move forward towardtheir natural end 312 39

        The word “the” intends to suggest that there is only onehuman telos in virtue of there being one human personhood 312 39

    • 2. A personal telos 312 39
      • A personaltelos by contrast concerns the more particular ends that are good and fi ttingfor specifi c persons given their unique biographies interests gifts andsocial conditions. 312 39

        The word “a” here (instead of “the”) says that because eachperson has his or her own distinctive personal telos there are many personalteloi across many people. 468 39

    • 3. A life plan 468 39
      • a life plan as I mean it here consists of a setof specifi c intentions and commitments about relationships activities education vocations locations and other practical matters that together comprisemuch of the actual long- term content of any given person’s life as heor she intends to live it. 468 39
• Chapter-7. Understanding Failure Destruction and Evil
  • Human life is a quest toward something good 59 39
  • Why do failure destruction and evil happen? 292 39
    • Flourishing is not automatic or guaranteed but contingent. 292 39

      It must be purposively accomplished againstresistance and obstacles both internal and external. 292 39

      Achieving human fl ourishingrequires a specifi c set of resources experiences and efforts providedby other persons and social institutions and capitalized upon by personsseeking to fl ourish. 407 39

      People who benefi t from and take advantage of the requisitesof fl ourishing stand a good chance of thriving 407 39

      the default outcomefor those who do not enjoy and capitalize upon these resources experiences and efforts is personal failure stagnation and degeneration. In some cases people become evil. 407 39

  • 6 Types Level Personal Failure To Flourish 602 39
    • 1. Environmental Deprivation 235
      • environmental deprivation— is produced primarily bypersons being failed by their material and social environments and relationshipsin ways that are largely beyond their control (though often not beyondthe control of other responsible people and social institutions).

        persons die of illness in childhood— or of starvation thirst or exposure infamine drought or extreme weather

        They are the victims of tragic unjust or evil forces andcircumstances— the heartrending casualties of a broken unfair sometimescruel world. 235 412 39

        Through no fault of their own these persons cannot and donot realize in existential existence the fullness of their natural personhood.2They remain fully persons ontologically as long as they live but are deprivedof the opportunity existentially to achieve anything like the fl ourishing oftheir unique personal being. 235 412 39

        They are stillborn or born with radicallymalformed bodies or brains.

        They are stricken young in life by horriblediseases.

        They are grossly neglected or abused by parents or guardianswho are inept evil or mentally ill

        Some suffer severely debilitating cognitive emotional or physical disorders caused by bad genes dysfunctional neurology or some other bodily pathologies

        Others are killed or gravely damagedin wars by battering spouses wild animals or bad accidents

        Yet others arecasualties of natural disasters such as earthquakes landslides and tsunamis

        Some people are born into crushing poverty from which there is no escape

        Others are horribly persecuted and exterminated for racial religious or ideologicalreasons.

        In such cases and all like them these persons failto fl ourish not primarily because of anything they could control or for whichthey are responsible.

        This firstcategory of failing to fl ourish— more accurately being deprived of the chanceto fl ourish— often raises weighty moral questions and concerns in social andpolitical ethics -28

    • 2. Stagnation 235
      • personal stagnation a “stalling” of people’s quest to fl ourish

        role played by the bad choices and inadequate misguided or malignant efforts and actions of the persons involved and other personsand institutions.

        These types usually also entail deprivations of vital nurturingresources relationships and experiences

        But some of the explanationfor these failures comes back to problems in the personal agency of some ofthe people involved.

        persons get “stuck” in life stop exerting virtuous effort and wind down newpersonal growth.

        The world is full of such people especially perhaps amongthe middle-aged and older

        Most of them are decent and functional

        theyare not achieving much new that is good in their lives.

        Other people who liveor work closely with them are often aware of their functional lack of interestin personal growth and sometimes have to bear some of the disagreeableconsequences.

        People in stagnation can be diffi cult for others but they areusually manageable.

        these stagnating people have given upon optimizing fl ourishing and have settled for mere “satisfi cing.”

        They havestalled at a point in life that is not ideal but which they think is suffi cient and they are satisfi ed to stay there.

        They remain content with a mere acceptablethreshold of growth and happiness.

        If stagnant people indulge a characteristicvice it is sloth.

    • 3. Avoidant Destructiveness 235
      • Such cases are not merely uninterestedin new personal growth and movement toward their proper telos.They are positively actively stubbornly resistant to it— even if they are notconsciously aware of that fact.

        What would be required of and for them togrow and move toward greater fl ourishing confronts them as more diffi cult more threatening than they are willing or able to deal with

        the basic postureof such lives is to resist the challenges of growth.

        Having already adaptedto a life of stagnation it is easy to take this next step away from fl ourishingtoward destructiveness.

        Living against reality inevitably brings friction collisions splinters 39

        Avoiding the healthy pains and losses that are required for proper personalgrowth inescapably imposes different less generative pains and losses. 39

        Nobodyescapes pain and loss— the only question is whether they are the kindsthat lead to fl ourishing or destruction. 39

        There is no static equilibriumhere. Reality presses increasingly hard over time on those who refuseit and so— when proper growth is avoided— reality must be resisted all themore determinedly.

        Larger costs must be personally absorbed and imposedon other people.

        since the basic posture here is one of avoiding pain andloss destructive persons usually increasingly impose the pain and loss onother people.

        They must progressively make others pay for their unwillingnessor inability to suffer the pain and losses required for them to properlygrow

        This moves them away from being merely diffi cult to other people (asthe stagnant are) to being positively damaging

        If avoidant- destructive peopleindulge a characteristic vice it is self- centered cowardice (deilia to use Aristotle’sterm) which is worse than mere sloth

    • 4. Negligent Evil 235
      • evil the extreme opposite of fl ourishing.

        results from inexcusable negligence or recklessness not purposeful maliciousness.

        some evils that ruin otherpeople’s lives are produced not by sadistic monsters but by otherwise ordinarypeople who so happen to act recklessly or negligently 265 39

        Example – Interpersonal 0

        • Negligentevil is also not always interpersonal— it also often happens institutionally 0
        • Babysitter did not watch a toddler closely and the baby drowned 0
        • A teen inexperienced driver running over a child bicycling in the road 0

        Example – Institutional 0

        • toxic industry pollution 0

          bad investments of otherpeople’s fortunes 0

          failure to install the proper safety and warning devices indangerous environments 0

          The subjects of such failures are thevictims of events beyond their control while the perpetrators of such eventsare the causes of evildoing resulting from unconscionable risk- taking negligence and recklessness. 0

    • 5. Instrumental Evil 0
      • the evil necessityor consequence of actions pursued instrumentally for other reasons not directlyto enjoy the damage of the evil itself.

        It consists of intolerableharm produced as the recognized necessity risk or result of actions undertakento achieve different ends than the evil itself. 0 113 39

        The evildoing here is somethinglike “collateral damage” expected occasioned or required in order torealize another overriding goal. 0 39

        Persons and social institutions committingthis kind of evil do not do so primarily in order to enjoy the horrifi c damagethey produce. 0 39

        Instead they simply tolerate or ignore that damage (howeverunbearable it may be to their victims) since they believe it to be justifi ed ornecessary to realize more important (to them) purposes. 0 39

        The underlyinglogic is “the ends justify the means”— success is worth the risks and costs(to others).1 0 268 39

        Examples of instrumental evil 0 268 39

        • 1. An armyoffi cer tortures a war captive not because he enjoys torturing people (somewho torture actually do not enjoy their work) but in order to elicit vital informationthat may help win the war. 0 268 39

          A married man seduces the naive wifeof another man simply because he wants to enjoy the triumph of conquestand pleasure of sex with her and when they are discovered (as he had everyreason to know they might be) it destroys both marriages and the long- termemotional well- being of the wife and her husband— in which case the seducingman’s goal was not to cause that intolerable harm although he was(culpably) prepared to infl ict it upon others in order to realize his immediate goal 0 617 39

        callousness 1

        • The social equivalent of instrumentallyevil people can be named as instrumentally evil social institutions which promulgate evil not purposively but readily as a by- product of somepurpose they pursue such as the accumulation of wealth power or status. 1

          Such callousness often involves the active psychological “silencing” by personsand institutional leaders of good reasons that argue against committingevil— reasons that compel most people and social groups not to act ontheir possible evil motives.15 1

          Related to this problem is the matter of moralindifference by both persons and social institutions— something like “sins ofomission ” as some religious people call it as opposed to actively committedsins— by passively allowing evil to be committed by simply not acting againstit. 1

          Also clearshould be the fact that the perpetrators of instrumental evil are not merelyirresponsible people who inadvertently commit evil deeds but are actuallyevil people— not necessarily thoroughly but evil at least in some ways. Andthe characteristic vice of their evil is callousness— not ignorance not negligence but cold indifference to the feelings well- being and futures of otherswho suffer as casualties of their wickedness.14 1

    • 6. Sadistic Evil
      • The third springs from the malicious sadism of the evil person. This I callsadistic evil

        This is evildoingfor the purpose of causing destructive suffering on others. 1 310 39

        Sadistic evilalways involves evil deeds committed by evil persons. 1 310 39

        Its perpetrators refl ectfairly stable dispositions and intentions to instigate evil acts that cause intolerabledestructive suffering to others precisely for the sake of seeing the sufferingcaused. 1 310 39

        The pleasures gained by sadistically evil people committing evildeeds are enjoyed as a direct result of the intolerable destruction itself 1 310 39

        It maybe the pleasure of pure sadism a malignant neural reward system that “lightsup” when observing others suffering 1 310 39

        It may be the satisfi ed pleasures of narcissisticdominance and control over others which is more purely realizedby the capacity to render them helpless through suffering 1 310 39

        it may be thepleasure of an internal terror relieved by witnessing it imposed on the bodiesof other people instead of oneself.19 1 310 39

        In any case such people “destroy for thesake of destruction and . . . hate for the sake of hate.” 1 310 39

        this evildoer silences any goodreasons against evildoing.

        Examples 2

        • psychopathic kidnappers 2

          torturers 2

          mass murderers 2

          serial rapists 2

          perpetrators of school shootings 2

          intentional spreaders of sexually transmitted infections 2

          politicaland military instigators of genocide 2

          by commanding othersto commit evil deeds such as torture or genocide 2

          Suffering can also beimposed on others in different forms and through different methods. Forinstance a sadistically evil adult can (directly) torture a child by infl ictingsuffering on his or her body or torture that same child (indirectly) by forcinghim or her to watch the slow mutilation of his or her living pet kittens 2

  • What is evil?
    • “evil” generally I mean foreseeable intolerable harms produced by culpablewrongdoing

      Badness and evil come into being only in the absence of the good 5 39

      Evil cannotbe creative or life giving; it is always destructive 5 39

      Evil is “the attemptto regress to the pre- human state and to eliminate that which is specifi callyhuman: reason love and freedom. 5 39

      when evil does parasitically impose its negative power on thegood through its absence and misdirection it defi nitely does take on a malignantexistence with massive capacities to distort and destruct 5 123 39

      Even so justas light really does exist on its own but darkness and shadow do not exceptas the absence of light so good really does exist but evil and the bad independentlydo not— what is evil and bad come to exist only in the absence hindrance or misdirection of good. 5 123 39

      Example 6 -18

      • Rape is inexpressibly wicked and morallyreprehensible in the extreme— but in a deeply twisted and depraved wayit is evil exactly in virtue of the privation of the goods of consent mutuality and loving communion in sex properly engaged or a hideously misdirectedattempt to achieve the true goods of sexual intimacy and the exercise of thepower of personal agency 6 -18

        Violent vigilante revenge is morally wrong yet inessence it represents the privation of the good of procedural justice and amisdirected seeking of what is a genuine human good that of proper retributivejustice. 6 -18

        The physical battery of wives by husbands is also repellently evil yet precisely so in its privation of anything that makes a good marriage good(love tenderness self- giving)— importantly in the very structure of that privation the battery does not happen in the abstract or between strangers butwithin the empty shell of the otherwise- good relations of husband and wife violated eviscerated mocked and made unreal by the battering 6 39

  • 3 basic elements of evil
    • 1. intolerable harm
      • the evildoers who committed them have good reasons (whichany reasonable person should be aware of ) not to commit them so whichthey are personally responsible and blameworthy for ignoring
    • 2. foreseeability
      • when theharm caused could have been seen beforehand and when
    • 3. culpable wrongdoing
      • their actions inactions damage other people in ways that are intolerable atrocious catastrophic or monstrous -355 39

        Severe and unremitting pain or humiliation debilitatingand disfi guring diseases starvation extreme [disempowerment] andseverely enforced isolation are evils ” for example “when they are broughtabout or supported by culpable wrongdoing.”

        Bad outcomes are thus notevil when their perpetrators genuinely had no good reason to think theiractions would produce intolerable harm or when the harms done are notsevere.10 They may still be very wrong but they are not evil. This approachhelps us to distinguish not only evil deeds from evil persons but also evilmotives from evil intentions. -45 39

        The former (motives) concern people’s desires(and related beliefs and emotions) to commit evil; they are the inclinationsthat dispose people to do evil deeds -45 39

        The latter (intentions) by contrast involvewillful decisions to act upon evil motives the volitional purposing tocommit evil. -45 39

  • The Ontology of Badness and Evil 3
    • Badness and evil in human life are understood and explained in different waysby different belief systems 3
      • dualistic 3
        • believing that good and evil areindependent equal opposing principles existing and struggling against eachother from the beginning or forever as in Zoroastrianism Manichaeism andmany forms of Gnosticism. 3
      • samsaric view 3
        • the belief thatfailure and evil consist in an illusion of individual separateness sustained bymisguided desire attachment striving and bad karma that drive continuingcycles of reincarnation which can only be overcome by enlightenment anddharma (right living) to achieve moksha and nirvana the “snuffi ng out” of(the illusion of ) individual existence and merger into the all- encompassingBrahma. Some version of this view is assumed by the main Indus religionsof Hinduism Buddhism and Jainism 3
  • The spectrum of movement toward failure and fl ourishing.
  • contrast of thatwhich-is- not 6
    • To affi rm a “Yes” implies the possibility of a “No.”

      To desiresomething is to reject other things

      To will a particular good necessarily impliesa lesser good that was not willed

      To shine light on an object casts ashadow on its far side.

      To love and be loved raises the possibility of not lovingor being loved.

      To choose rightly necessarily entails the potential to choosewrongly.

      To affi rm a truth risks affi rming a falsehood instead

      The not- love the wrong choice the falsehood affi rmed do not need to be actualized. Theydo not have to be brought into existence. They could stay in the realm ofnegation and nothingness

      To want to live in a reality not involving any possible bads necessarilymeans forgoing living with real goods 6 39

  • Biological analogies 7 400 39
    • The Privation of Basic Human Goods 8 5

      How do failure and destruction relate to the privationor misdirection of the six basic human goods proposed in chapter 5?

      One basic good is to achieve bodily survival security and pleasure.

      This goodcan easily be turned toward the bad and become the occasion for failure andevil.

      Take cancer for example. Canceris not the development in a body of an independent and innately destructiveorgan set in opposition to healthy organs. 7 400 39

      Cancer is the mal- developmentand misdirection of healthy bodily processes of cellular reproduction and tissuegrowth. 7 400 39

      Cancer is the getting- out- of- control of natural bodily goods 7 400 39

      Their absence and misdirection produce worlds of grief and ruin. Thesimple absence of bodily life is death 8

      • vulnerability to accident
      • attack
      • sickness
      • disease
      • anexistence of intolerable anxiety
      • inevitably
      • injury
      • illness
      • a highchance of eventual death

      The complete absence of physical pleasure 8

      • Imagine what it would be like if the receptors of everyneuron in one’s brain having to do with pleasure were blocked

        That would bea dreadful existence of numbness to any perceptual or appetitive enjoyment an experience on the spectrum of bodily sensations limited completely to theside shading off from sense- neutrality to discomfort and agony

  • 4 Basic Social causal mechanisms of Human Failure 9 221 4
    • 1. Exploitation
      • “when powerful connected people command resourcesfrom which they draw signifi cantly increased returns by coordinating theeffort of outsiders whom they exclude from the full value added by thateffort.” 9 415 4
    • 2. Opportunity Hoarding
      • “when members of a categorically bounded networkacquire access to a resource that is valuable renewable subject tomonopoly supportive of network activities and enhanced by the network’smodus operandi.” 9 415 4
    • 3. Emulation
      • “the copying of established organizational models and or thetransplanting of existing social relations from one setting to another.” 9 647 4
    • 4. Adaptation
      • “the elaboration of daily routines . . . on the basis of categoricallyunequal structures. 9 647 4
  • Social Dominance Theory 0 28 4
    • explains intergrouprelations of oppression domination destructive discrimination tyranny andbrutality. 0 28 4

      Their illuminating theory involves interpersonal intergroup intrapersonal and institutional causal mechanisms that produce and maintaingroup- based hierarchies of domination 0 28 4

      They include personal “social dominanceorientations ” “aggregated individual discrimination ” “aggregatedinstitutional discrimination ” “behavioral asymmetry ” hierarchy- enhancing“legitimizing myths ” and “hierarchy equilibriums and constraints 0 28 4

  • Socially and Psychologically Structured Historical Inheritances 0 454 4
    • Nobody begins life with a blank slate. People inherit the consequences of allthe bad and good in human life and society that predates their birth. If we setaside the diffi cult question of the ultimate origins of evil in human existence a great deal of the actual darkness with which anyone at any place and timelives can be explained with reference to the many broken social institutions relationships and cultural beliefs and practices inherited from the past whichshape all the lives they touch. 0 454 4

      Many problems are also engraved into people’spsychological and emotional structures in ways causing them to perpetuatethe problems into the next generation 0 454 4

• Conclusion
  • modern spiritualproject
    • the pursuit of a sacred good
    • throwing off restraint andachieving human happiness through individual autonomy
    • To make everything new
    • to leave behind the past
    • to be unbound by any tradition
    • to enjoy maximum choice
    • to be free fromany constraint
    • to be able to buy whatever one can afford
    • to live however onedesires— that is the guiding vision of modernity’s spiritual project
    • self- defi nition
    • self- determination
  • On Taking Love Seriously 8 4
    • Love may seem “unscientifi c” to many social scientists but that is because they assume the wrong view of science 8 4

      Let us say it again:the sciences need to conform their concepts methods and theories to therealities they seek to understand allowing specifi c dimensions of reality todetermine how particular sciences are done rather than forcing that realityto conform to a preconceived uniform notion about what science is andmust be. The “scientifi c method” (singular) is tyrannous nonsense 8 4

      Human societies without love are bodies without blood 9 -63 4

      Even when humans survive and somewhat prosper through having receivedan adequate though not great amount of love the probability still remainsof their living out of the fundamental postures of fear or denial 9 93 4

      One powerthat can prevent that is love. Love fosters trust interpersonally and institutionally and trust promotes human fl ourishing. Do we need something moresignifi cant to justify taking love seriously? 9 208 4

• Compiled By:
  • blindcaveman.wordpress.com
  • Rigel Arcayan