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SECTION XIII The Nature of Motive and Choice, and the Bearing of This on the Question of Freedom 1. Motive WHAT DO WE mean by motive? We have already discussed the end presented in the image, or rather in the train ofimagery, and arousing in its course reverberations of desire and stimulating effort either for or against. What is the relation between motive and desire ifwe take the emotional side? Or between end and ideation? Desire is the emotional antecedent of motive. Intention is the intellectual antecedent. Of course, on the theory that has been developed, motive simply represents the completely evolved desire or intention. The difference between them is only one of completeness or maturity ofdevelopment. (According to another psychological point of view there is an essential difference between them. Desire becomes motive when the will has been brought to bear upon the desire and it has been chosen from its competitors. Desire, according to that view, is in one sense a nonvolitional force, a force which is acting upon the will or soliciting the will in some way. The desires are regarded as merely animal forces and the will which sits in the citadel ofour moral nature [or, ifnot the will, our conscience which sits in the heart of our moral nature] looks on this conflict ofdesire and tends to be drawn into the conflict but finally sides with some one desire or other, and by choosing it makes it a motive of action.) The motive, then, as the word signifies, is whatever finally influences or decides action. It is the effective tendency so long as it is 253 254 John Dewey not merely instinct or impulse but has been brought to consciousness, has been given meaning and value. That is what motive means in any case. The difficulty is whether the motive is, so to speak, homogeneous in the process of the stream of consciousness, in the development of activity, or whether it represents a change ofdesire through some force acting outside the desire. What is the relation ofdesire to motive or intention? The distinction commonly made is that the intention is what the man means to do, while the motive involves also why he does it. The soldier in war means to kill his opponent but the motive is different from that of murder. In the latter case the motive is cruelty, or revenge, or love of gain; in the former case it is patriotism and obedience to the commands of his country. The intention would be the same but the motive would be different, and so the moral significance ofthe two cases would be different . So far as that position is taken as ultimate, as indicating mere distinction ofstages ofdevelopment in going from a more superficial to a more mature stage of conscious conduct, something would also have to supervene upon the intention in order to transform it into a motive. The intention, according to this view, would be merely an intellectual purpose which the individual holds before himself. Then there is something again in the act ofchoice or the attitude which is assumed toward the intention, which transforms that end into a working motive and thereby gives it its moral significance or the lack ofmoral significance. Lecture XXXI. March 21,1901 The main point to be kept in mind is that the characteristic difference between desire and motive is found in the movement from diversity towards unity, and the corresponding movement from uncertainty to assurance in action. Every desire is a motive as far as it goes. Itexercises attractive and directive power in conduct. It has a motor force. It is a motive because it influences the agent and because it represents the tendency in which his activities are consciously directed. But as long as we term it "desire" rather than "motive," as long as the desire element is uppermost in it, it is because, as previously pointed out, there is diversity of desire because there is conflict or tension in desire which prevents any given desire from operating completely. This conflict or tension in the desires is the sign of lack of complete identity between any particular desire and the self. So while each desire has a motive quality or is a motor force, yet it is exercising that influence under conditions of restraint and of opposition. As some one desire emerges as the adequate representation of what the self really wants to be, as the desire becomes clarified, inhibition, which is exercised...

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