Moral self-determination: The nature, existence, and formation of moral motivation

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper addresses three basic questions about moral motivation. Concerning the nature of moral motivation, it argues that it involves responsiveness to both reasons of morality and the value of persons and everything else of value. Moral motivation is thus identified as reason-responsive appropriate valuing. Regarding whether it is possible for people to be morally motivated, the paper relies on Self-Determination Theory (SDT) to show how moral motivation is a likely product of education that is need-supportive in modeling appropriate valuing and engaging students in the kinds of reasoning that are essential to moral motivation. Virtuous motivation that inclines people to engage in morally motivated acts is equated with being morally self-determining or achieving the right kind of integrated motivation. SDT shows how people come to be morally motivated, and the paper concludes that an identified aspiration to be virtuous may play a significant role.