[Xmca-l] Re: Intrinsic motivation?

[Martin John Packer]

Larry, 

I didn't have this in mind when I responded to Andy's assertion that every motive is personal. But your question "does EACH particular *objective motive* carry or call forth a particular *value/virtue* that is not merely subjective" brings to mind Bruno Latour's latest book, A Inquiry into Modes of Existence. The LCHC group recently studied this book with some care, I believe, so they can say more than I can. But Latour aims to go beyond his previous studies of the ways that social realities are assembled, always a network or web, by exploring what circulates in different kinds of assemblage. What each network delivers - different in each case - he calls "value."

In Latour's analysis, each kind of social institution - the law, the church, science, politics, technology, - 15 in all - has its own mode of existence and its own mode of value. These values define, I think we can say without distortion, the interests that people have in each domain; in economy, for example, their "passionate interests." 

Latour does a pretty good job of exploring, describing, and explaining how the modes of our modern social world, and their intersections, define the values we take to be self-evident, and the ways that we are concerned and interested within these modes. Perhaps Andy will say that this is what he meant when he wrote that "*every* motive is objective; but equally every motive is subjective." But then he also wrote "What is an objective motive? Or to put it another way, what motive is there which is not personal?"

Martin

On Aug 9, 2014, at 1:57 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> To return to *objective motive* AS  *objective motiveS*  does EACH
> particular *objective motive* carry or call forth a particular
> *value/virtue* that is not merely subjective.