Morality Evaluation: Two Perspectives from Motivation Theory and Consequentialism

Abstract

Morality is a significant component of human behaviour norms and plays a crucial role. With the involvement of morality, a fundamental question must be asked: which behaviours should be considered good, and which should be considered evil? This involves the issue of the ethical evaluation criteria of morality. Among the whole question, it is clear that the standard that is truly important to morality evaluation should be discussed. Obviously, different theories have different attitudes toward it. For example, utilitarians insist that the value of morality comes from fulfilling peoples need, especially their emotional requirements, which means that only a movement that leads to a good result can be appraised as moral; moreover, deontologists argues that morality is made to demonstrate the transcendental and inevitable essence of human beings, such as liberty or free will, in other words, morality should be used to describe a motive which is accord with the essence. By discussing the debate between motivation theory and consequentialism, this article aims to investigate the two most important criteria for the evaluation of morality: whether it is universally valid and whether it is operable. Moreover, the analysis and discussion contribute to a more in-depth understanding of the fundamental ethical issue of identifying goodness.