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C00002 00002	motiva[f84,jmc]		What are human motivations
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motiva[f84,jmc]		What are human motivations

	It is common to the point of being a truism to account for
human actions as arising from a small number of built-in drives.
Economists and game theorists even try to get by with a single
utility functions, suitably discounted as to the future.  Rawls
refers to such a theory.

	This view seems obviously mistaken.  By obviously, I mean
that once pointed out I hope it will be obvious.  Since many smart
people believe the theory, it can't be obvious without being pointed
out.

	My opinion is that human action is motivated by a wide
variety of goals, many of which are peculiar to the individual
and his current state.  They have causes, and people mistakenly
imagine that these causes make them subgoals of more primitive primary
goals.  The reason that they aren't subgoals of primary goals
is that they acquire independence of primary goals and will
often be pursued at the expense of ``primary'' goals.

	Admitting this, it might be claimed that this represents
a malfunction, an error.  If it is pointed out to a person that
he is pursuing a secondary goal at the expense of the primary
goal that triggered it, perhaps he should give up the secondary
goal.  Sometimes people will, but often they will claim you have
misrepresented the basic motivation.

	The fact may be that people have second order goals, or
meta-goals.  Meta-goals include goals of having goals.  A person
may consciously acquire ``a purpose in life'' or something similar
of a less comprehensive nature --- or many of them.  Once acquired
such a derived goal need not be subordinate.  It may even supersede
the goal of survival and usually supersedes the goal of forming goals.

	We need not regard such behavior as
pathological.  There is no reason to suppose that primary individual
goals have a higher status.

	Perhaps some babble about evolution will make this easier
to take.  The ability of a human community to compete with others
depends on its members being able to sustain complex goals for
many years.  Evolution isn't intelligent and cannot select for
the particular goals which are very far from being genetically
describable.  Therefore, the ability to hold arbitrary goals
has survival value for the group.  It allows goals to evolve
socially.