ON MOTIVATION AND VALUES

On motivation and values

The sociology of motivation could be a useful contribution for the study of social phenomenal such as collective action, communication, forms of individual or collective violence, deviation and conflicts. One could also trace motives in “positive” expressions of culture, such as science, art, literature. The major ethical problem of values and of their various grades could be connected with motivation of human thoughts and needs, in order to distinguish acquired or exogenous axiological characteristics that gives color to an action or a thought from the endogenous characteristics of motives. Finally, an approach will be elaborated of the limits among aims and motives, with the further goal of the clarification of the human selections that vary so much under the same circumstances.

The axiological neutrality (the bet of M. Weber with the science) consists always a challenge in contemporary sociology. The values as a product of cultural articulations and alterations change continuously and attract in their change the interests of scientists and researchers who operating as acting subjects. Why to study the bees dancing or Etna`s lava or the collective behavior of a Pygmies tribe or a bunch of European hooligans? What priorities can specialists put, and further more discover as a new method beyond the subject selected, presented and interpreted? Science has to be axiological, neutral, deliberated from any influence, dependence or alienation. This can be achieved only by the in depth comprehension of human behaviors, composing our every day reality. The historians causal interpretation of the historical events is not enough. On the contrary, the comprehension of a meaning can enlighten in depth rejecting stereotypes such as “so it be if so working” or the tyranny of the much beloved to the natural scientists bipole “causal- consequence”. There is not any casualty legalized in the social action of humans and consequently any extraction of a social “law” as Comte or Spencer would like, should be immature, artificial and false. Human reality develops itself beyond causal connections and their relatives laws.

The significance of motive’s comprehension is great and consists in direct observation of a subject meaning that the other conceives in order to act. The best presupposition for the success of this achievement is the identification of the observer with the other’s way of thinking, his goals, good communication, and in the case the other has not full conscience of his goals, an effort of some education in order to avoid alienated or mechanical behavior. The creation of a goal and its revelation to the other is not an easy task. Acceptance of motivation of a concrete aim or idea, its comprehension and its possible realization are not usually accepted by others. Many of them continue to confuse their personal motives with their aims, even in practical examples of their every day lives. Some others tend to confuse their motives with the causes of their actions. Here the important question is to know what qualities must have the motives in their purest forms in order not to be confused easily sometimes with the causes or with the aims. The fact is that this systematic confusion even more observed to intellectual men and women causes the suspicion that the motives for our every day actions and deeds are not pure forms but connected with exogenous values and colored with secondary qualities non related with the essential and real meaning.