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Right Actions and Motives1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

Extract

CAN actions be right irrespective of the motives from which they come? Can an action be right though coming from a bad or an ‘indifferent’ motive?

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1933

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References

page 191 note 1 Is it not true that a man cannot reflect upon his motive until he has been moved, i.e. has already acted, just as he cannot reflect upon his thinking until he has already thought? Perhaps we ought to say that there cannot even be a motive of his until he has been moved, i.e. has acted, just as there cannot be a thought or leap of his until he has thought or leapt. In the case under consideration there can be only the motive operative in the question.

page 191 note 2 Those who have eyes only for the purity of their own motives are not merely tiresome or ineffectual; they are verily the children of Satan.

page 191 note 3 Cf. infra.

page 193 note 1 The expression of ordinary speech is significant. Cf. infra.

page 193 note 2 Mind, 1912, p. 27.

page 194 note 1 Cf. Ross, W. D., The Right and the Good, p. 4.Google Scholar

page 194 note 2 An action, like a work of art, is generally a very complex organism or structure with many strata. Into each stratum a different motive may enter, and perhaps different motives may enter into the same stratum. Also it is rarely a momentary origination, but commonly a sustained or interrupted and resumed origination. All this adds to the complexity.

page 195 note 1 If the motive is the action or an inseparable aspect of it, we can see why there cannot be a motive until there has been an action.

page 195 note 2 Cf. supra.

page 195 note 3 For his distinction between act and action see infra.

page 195 note 4 Op. cit., pp. 42–47.

page 196 note 1 This identification made by Mr. Ross (op. cit., p. 3) I accept for the sake of the argument. But language is against it. That only is properly right which has already been done, while one ‘ought to do,’ presumably, only what has not yet been done.

page 196 note 2 I fail to see the absurdum in Mr. Ross's reductio (p. 5): “It is my duty to do act A from the sense that it is my duty to do act A from the sense, etc.” Surely it is quite simple to say that it is a man's duty to act from a sense of duty, a sense hic et nunc made specific as the sense that it is his duty to do act A. Even if we allow a reductio ad infinitum here, not every infinity is absurd or impossible. In knowing B, I know (in some sense) that I know that I know, etc.,.. that I know B; in rejoicing in C, I rejoice in rejoicing in rejoicing, etc.,.. in rejoicing in C; in willing to do D, I will to will to will, etc.,.. to will to do D; in getting from X to Z I pass over an infinite number of points in an infinite number of fractions of seconds. Mr. Ross admits that it is our duty to cultivate a sense of duty (p. 6). But it is our duty to cultivate a sense of duty only because it is our duty to have it because it is our duty to act from it at this particular moment as well as at other particular moments.

page 197 note 1 Ibid., p. 5.

page 198 note 1 Cf. infra.

page 197 note 2 Pp. 45–46.

page 198 note 1 Cf. infra.

page 198 note 2 Compare or contrast Professor Burgh, W. G. de, “On Right and Good,” Journal of Philosophical Studies, vol. v, pp. 19 and ff.Google Scholar

page 199 note 1 Cf. supra.

page 199 note 2 Cf. Rashdall, , The Theory of Good and Evil, vol. ii, pp. 130138.Google Scholar

page 199 note 3 Cf. infra.

page 200 note 1 Mind, 1912, p. 27.

page 201 note 1 Mr. Ross (p. 7) says the initiation is the act or the thing done, and the initiating is the action or the doing. But who would speak of an initiation as ‘the thing done’? On his own showing, ‘action’ = ‘acting,’ ‘doing.’ Therefore ‘initiation’ ought to mean the same as ‘initiating.’ He ought to use ‘act,’ actum, for the initiatum or what has been initiated, i.e. the change or new state of affairs.

page 201 note 2 Contrast Professor de Burgh, loc. cit.

page 203 note 1 It may, however, be questioned whether there can be true conscientiousness or selflessness except in properly right actions.

page 204 note 1 Cf. supra.