Motivation and Honesty

Abstract Up to this point, the book has said very little about motivation. But many philosophers, especially in the Aristotelian tradition of thinking about character, claim that a virtue must give rise to appropriate motivation as well as appropriate action. The first section of this chapter agrees with these philosophers, at least with respect to honesty. The second section briefly considers various implausible accounts of honest motivation, before turning to the pluralist account in the third section. The basic idea of this account is that many different kinds of motives can fit with the virtue of honesty, including dutiful, loving, and friendship motives. The main exception is self-interested motivation. The final section of the chapter considers some complications.