Is there a point in trying to judge your own motives?

Question

If you determine your motives for any particular decision to be good, is that not colored by the fact that they are your motives and you want to have pure intentions?

If you determine said motives to be bad, could that be the fault of "over-correcting" for the above mindset? Or, if you truly have bad motives, do you really want to know this?

For example, if one says "I want to be rich so I can help a lot of people," does that include the fact that he or she will then obviously have more than enough for themselves?

However, if you refuse to judge your own motives, you then have no basis for doing anything, correct?

Answer 1

That’s who the “I” is, the judge. We are just the motives fighting for the judge’s attentions. The judge can be excessively lazy no matter how loud we scream. Judgments are passed based on the presidents with out any thought or action on the judge’s part.

As far as good motives vs bad motives we have found that the motive is not nearly as important as the action. If you look at any action hard enough you will find both good and bad reasons for doing it. We often start out doing good things for bad reasons but by the time we finish we have found so many good reasons to do it we are not sure if it was motivated by selfish reasons or not?

Answer 2

Taking stock of one's own motives is always a good thing. You have a point that one's judgment will be affected by one's own attitudes and opinions. A conclusion that your motives are "bad" COULD be an attempt to "over-correct," although after proper reflection, it could be decided that those motives were, in fact, less than noble, shall we say. On the other hand, those who act out of PURELY selfish or dangerous motives probably don't care that they are bad, even though they may couch it terms such as "for the greater good." Such people refuse to judge themselves, but unfortunately tend to act anyway, witness Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and a host of others.

Answer 3

There's a lot of people who do not judge their motives. To do so means your intelligent and do use your brain cells...

The one who judge his motives before doing a bad thing, is fully aware of what he does and still does it... So he meant to do so.

And yes, I think if someone do not judge his motives, he had no reason doing anything, and that is equaly wrong especially when it's bad !

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Answer 4

I hear what you are saying, but for me I find that to "observe" oneself is better.
The observer can always change the experiment, so it is the "witness position" I feel when I observe my attitude in something that is happening, etc...
You have given more meaning to "judge not or you will be judged". ... interesting.
Thank you for your observations.

Answer 5

Life frequently tries to deceive other life to gain an advantage.

Trying to deceive yourself is just silly.