117: Motives
July 9, 2009You have heard it asked “Are you questioning my motives?”, as if there were something wrong with this. And the conventional answer is “No; of course not. I certainly wouldn’t do that.”
Consider: Our motives guide our actions; they have grown up with us and are an essential part of who each of us is. You cannot understand another person without knowing, at least to some extent, his motives. To ignore motives is to deal with persons as if they were machines. Perhaps some people would prefer to be (treated as) machines. For the rest of us, inquiry as to motives is always germane.
Do we always understand our motives? Of course not. At times, other people know our motives better than we do. But the impossible goal of knowing our own minds should never be abandoned. Dialog with others can help make it so.
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