Modern Age - Winter 2018 - 68

Modern Age

*

Winter 2018

the just or of the noble, but also to a lesser degree of the useful,
and even of the pleasant (since human beings can have very different ideas concerning what is "good to eat")-this variability
in no way changes the invariable fact that every human being,
whatever the "culture" or city to which he belongs, is necessarily
moved by these three categories of motives.
Of course, this does not mean that the agent is the inert site of
the activity of motives, of their play or concurrence, or that the chosen action is determined mechanically by the strongest motive, or
by the strongest combination of motives, however such strength
might be evaluated. As I have just noted, the agent is an agent; he
bears an active relation to his motives. Neither the pleasant, nor
the useful, nor the noble (just, fair) are in his power, but the weight
accorded to each, and the way they are combined, depends in the
first instance on him, that is, on his disposition, on his nature as it
is either perfected or degraded by his education and by the habits
produced by his past actions. In brief, the agent's motives are not
up to him, as to either their presence or their nature; they belong
to the human being as such, to human nature; but the way these
human motives become his action is up to him. His dispositions
with respect to the action, his virtues and his vices, are up to him.
This description of the relationship between the action and
the motives of action is admittedly just an overview, but it has
the merit of emphasizing-rightly, I think-the objective and
shareable character of human motives. But does it make sense to
oppose the agent's certainty with the uncertainty of the theoretical man, as I have done? Let us take a closer look at the problem.
Let us start with the case, which is not so rare and which is
always interesting, of a person who effectively or sincerely sacrifices the pleasant, or the useful, or both, to his or her idea of the
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Modern Age - Winter 2018

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Modern Age - Winter 2018 - Contents
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