Do we ever know our own motives?

[floppit]

And if we don't can we be responsible for them?

I can use an example to describe what I mean but I'd like to ask that it doesn't side track the topic, that's for another thread (maybe?). I was thinking this morning about whether to write a blow by blow account of our little family's journey, maybe not quite blow by blow but to keep going, to keep writing. On the one hand the sort of information I was thinking of writing was exactly what months ago I hunted down to read but never found. And I know the impact of other people being open, especially the blunt kind of open, has made a real, day to day, positive difference.

On the other hand, there's a side in me wants to hear people speak back and I don't know whether I would be aware of when that crossed the line to attention seeking, or more importantly whether it starts to crowd other people out. For a long time I have held the belief that it's important to acknowledge needing attention, partly because the truly fucked up behaviour seems to me most often to come from those who don't.

My mother is a blinding manipulator, through religious teaching, depression and powerlessness she expresses the belief all things she does must be for others, that she should NEVER seek attention for herself - it's hard to describe just how at odd her expressed belief is with her behaviour, this is a woman who faked heart attacks when I was growing up and told everyone she wouldn't live past 40, trained us as kids to stand by her if she dropped dead, all of which was in her younger years when there was nothing wrong with her. The thing is, I used to be really angry with her but in all honesty I now think she doesn't know her own motives, just responds to a human need to be 'seen' while sat on by a moral code denying her any open way of achieving that. Needless to say I don't share that moral code, or give it any credit!

On the whole I'm on the side of being open but like all things, the mistakes someone else makes are always clearer than my own, I don't think I would know if I crossed the line and attention became something I sought through manipulation rather than explicit request. I'd like to know though - just don't know if it's a possible or reasonable target to have.

so
Do we ever really know our own motives?
And if we don't how can we be responsible for them?

[Feck]

Floppit your mother managed to instil some of her stuff in you .......Writing about what you have been through and about what is happening is NOT attention
seeking .


personally I don't think people are good at self knowledge .... our brains have constructed a Self and we cling to our idea of ourselves no matter what ... like a faith .

[floppit]

Floppit your mother managed to instil some of her stuff in you .......Writing about what you have been through and about what is happening is NOT attention
seeking .

I know how you meant that so - cheers, but Feck, sometimes I will even ask for attention and where I part from my mother is that I don't think that's wrong to do. Even if the bottom line is (and I think it may well be) that being open is generally helpful, that doesn't change it also being personally helpful, not a problem, but if I start to squish my own brain into thinking only the former motivates me then I reckon I run a much higher risk of self delusion. Also, there can come a point where it's not so great anymore, where other people are pushed to one side by a person quite as verbose and willing to gut spill as myself! I'm not saying I've done that here, just that it exists and I'm not keen to forget that entirely.

personally I don't think people are good at self knowledge .... our brains have constructed a Self and we cling to our idea of ourselves no matter what ... like a faith .

I agree with this completely but we beat faith despite our brains - is beating the above obliviousness also possible? If it isn't surely a lot of what we think of manipulators should change.

[PsychoSerenity]

I think we can become more aware of our own motives by taking the time to think about our own thoughts. But we'll still only be aware of them in terms of the stories we tell ourselves to explain them. I'm not sure if a full 'enlightenment' is possible.

As to responsibility - no idea. It's the same as free will. We live in a society where we are forced to take responsibility, and punished if we don't, in a way that assumes we have free will - but I've seen no evidence for it.

Is it possible for a mind to truly comprehend the mind that it's using to do the comprehending? I don't know - I'll leave that to the neuro-psychologists to work out.

[FBM]

I'm also not sure if a full 'enlightenment' is possible, but I'm not willing to rule it out, either. In my experience, self-awareness is a sliding scale. If you're interested in that sort of thing - and most people really aren't - it is probably a life-long effort.

[JimC]

Glimpses from time to time, as through a glass darkly...

Usually not very flattering, once glimpsed...

[CJ]

Do we ever really know our own motives?

For simple things such as thirsty > drink I would say yes. Any choice above that level, we may well not do. To understand our motivations we have to strip them of emotional content and that is very difficult to do. Take for example moving house. One may be able to break that down into a number of logical motivations, better area, bigger for kids, smaller when retiring etc and thus remove/minimise the emotional element. But how about marrying somebody? I would contend that if love is involved (there are more arranged marriages on Earth than not) it is impossible to make a truly logical choice except to accept that irrationality is at the core of your motivation.

And if we don't how can we be responsible for them?

We always have choice and usually intuition. These combined allow us to decide what impact our actions will probably have on ourselves and others and therefore we can apply the golden rule. So I think whether or not we understand our motivations we do have control over our actions and we therefore have responsibility for our actions.

[the PC apeman]

And if we don't can we be responsible for them?

Since there is no evidence for objective responsibility and all evidence points to responsibility being something subjectively (or perhaps inter-subjectively) assigned by the observer(s), yes, it is possible that we can be responsible (in the mind of someone) for our own unknown-to-us motives (and run-on sentences).

[charlou]

And if we don't can we be responsible for them?

Since there is no evidence for objective responsibility and all evidence points to responsibility being something subjectively (or perhaps inter-subjectively) assigned by the observer(s), yes, it is possible that we can be responsible (in the mind of someone) for our own unknown-to-us motives (and run-on sentences).

Key point. If only theists would recognise it, too, instead of assigning that observer status to a 'higher being'.

[Rum]

There is a tendency to think that other people's actions are coherent and planned but I suspect they rarely are.

I think for the most part we invent a sense of motive in others as a way of filling in the gaps, though there may be some exceptions. I say this because having been overly introspective for much of my life I know that I personally know how incoherent I am fundamentally! Most of my reactions to the world and events are random and/or conditioned and I have no idea what my motives are..usually the easiest way through, past and over the next hurdle I suspect.

[FBM]

A long, long time ago, something happened. Whatever it was, it influenced the way several other things subsequently happened. Each of those things conditioned the arisings of several other things, and so on. Whatever happens today, whether in our heads or on Alpha Centauri, is the product of an uncountable number of prior events. Most of our concepts of responsibilities and motivations arise out of failing to recognize that we are inescapably products of our environment and history. Those who believe in free will, an important issue for theists and lawyers, are the most guilt-laden, IMO. The clergy and lawyers are only too happy to cash in on that.

Whatever my motives are, and the fact that they're so hard to perceive, they are the result of perfectly natural processes. They're either healthy or not, not good or evil. If they're unhealthy, others and I will suffer because of them. If they're healthy, others and I will benefit from them. If I'm attentive and diligent, I'll be mindful when unhealthy behavior arises, analyze its cause, and prescribe a course of corrective behavior. If I don't, well, that's the product of environment and history, too. Moral agency, as fashioned by church and state, are fictions. They may be useful, but they are nontheless fictitious.

[charlou]

A long, long time ago, something happened. Whatever it was, it influenced the way several other things subsequently happened. Each of those things conditioned the arisings of several other things, and so on. Whatever happens today, whether in our heads or on Alpha Centauri, is the product of an uncountable number of prior events. Most of our concepts of responsibilities and motivations arise out of failing to recognize that we are inescapably products of our environment and history. Those who believe in free will, an important issue for theists and lawyers, are the most guilt-laden, IMO. The clergy and lawyers are only too happy to cash in on that.

Whatever my motives are, and the fact that they're so hard to perceive, they are the result of perfectly natural processes. They're either healthy or not, not good or evil. If they're unhealthy, others and I will suffer because of them. If they're healthy, others and I will benefit from them. If I'm attentive and diligent, I'll be mindful when unhealthy behavior arises, analyze its cause, and prescribe a course of corrective behavior. If I don't, well, that's the product of environment and history, too. Moral agency, as fashioned by church and state, are fictions. They may be useful, but they are nontheless fictitious.

It's that health factor that Sam Harris suggests makes it possible to take a scientific approach to morality (topic here).


This thread is rather closely related to this one ...

[Trolldor]

The prime motivation for anything a human does is 'because I can'. We only ever do that which we believe is possible for us to achieve.
Eating, drinking, fucking, quantum mechanics... it's all the same.

[Hermit]

Do we ever know our own motives? Perhaps not. I have read a report about a study conducted by neuroscientists which indicated that we make on-the-spot decisions about whatever, and then backfill it with post hoc rationalisations.

Unfortunately I can't find any links to it now. (Hint, hint)