What is a moral person? Why do we have to be moral?

Answer 1

Moral Motivation
First published Thu 19 Oct, 2006

In our everyday lives, we confront a host of moral issues. Once we have deliberated and formed judgments about what is right or wrong, good or bad, these judgments tend to have a marked hold on us. Although in the end, we do not always behave as we think we ought, our moral judgments typically motivate us, at least to some degree, to act in accordance with them. When philosophers talk about moral motivation, this is the basic phenomenon they seek to understand. Moral motivation is an instance of a more general phenomenon—what we might call normative motivation—for our other normative judgments also typically have some motivating force. When we make the normative judgment that something is good for us, or that we have a reason to act in a particular way, or that a specific course of action is the rational course, we also tend to be moved. Many philosophers have regarded the motivating force of normative judgments as the key feature that marks them as normative, thereby distinguishing them from the many other judgments we make. In contrast to our normative judgments, our mathematical and empirical judgments, for example, seem to have no intrinsic connection to motivation and action. The belief that an antibiotic will cure a specific infection may move an individual to take the antibiotic, if she also believes that she has the infection, and if she either desires to be cured or judges that she ought to treat the infection for her own good. All on its own, however, an empirical belief like this one appears to carry with it no particular motivational impact; a person can judge that an antibiotic will most effectively cure a specific infection without being moved one way or another.

Although motivating force may be a distinguishing feature of normative judgments, the phenomenon of normative motivation seems most significant in the case of narrowly moral judgments. Moral motivation has, in any case, received far greater attention than motivation in connection with other normative judgments. Morality is widely believed to conflict, frequently and sometimes severely, with what an agent most values or most prefers to do. Perhaps because of the apparent opposition between self-interest and morality, the fact of moral motivation has seemed especially puzzling. How is it that we are so reliably moved by our moral judgments? And what is the precise nature of the connection between moral judgment and motivation? Of course, the less puzzling and more mundane moral motivation comes to seem, the more puzzling failures of moral motivation become. If we are to explain moral motivation, we will need to understand not only how moral judgments so regularly succeed in motivating, but how they can fail to motivate, sometimes rather spectacularly. Not only do we witness motivational failure among the deranged, dejected, and confused, but also, it appears, among the fully sound and self-possessed. What are we to make of the “amoralist”—the rational, strong willed individual who seemingly makes moral judgments, while remaining utterly indifferent?

In answering the foregoing questions, philosophers have been led to sharply differing views about moral motivation, and these views have sometimes been thought to have important implications for foundational issues in ethics. More precisely, differing views about moral motivation involve commitment to particular theses which have been thought to bear on questions about moral semantics and the nature of morality. Perhaps most famously, certain theses have been jointly deployed to support skeptical or anti-realist views in metaethics. This entry provides an overview of the main positions philosophers have taken in their efforts to understand and explain the phenomenon of moral motivation. It also briefly explains how key theses concerning moral motivation have come to inform and structure debates about moral semantics and the nature of morality.

* 1. The Basic Phenomenon of Moral Motivation
* 2. Moral Motivation and the Nature of Moral Properties
* 3. Moral Judgment and Motivation
o 3.1 Humeanism v. Anti-Humeanism
o 3.2 Internalism v. Externalism
* 4. Moral Motivation and Metaethics
* Bibliography
* Other Internet Resources
* Related Entries
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Answer 2

People with no moral character are losers. They can't be good friends, workers, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, etc... When you have no respect for right and wrong, you have no respect for your fellow human beings, and in turn no respect for yourself. There are people in the world like that, but they are the ones that cause the big problems in our society.

Answer 3

look it up in the dictionary
that should help