TYPES OF MOTIVATION AND MORAL LIFE: THE PROPOSAL OF E. HUSSERL

Abstract

The transcendental reduction introduced by Husserl in Ideas I allows him, in Ideas II, defining the "personalistic attitude" where the "intentional object" gives way to a new key notion, "motivation." Given the importance of motivation to understand any life and, therefore, moral life, my paper seeks a rigorous classification of the different types of motivation that Husserl describes (in Ideas II and in Einleitung in die Ethik). Its aim is showing that although Husserl gives importance to "rational" (correct or incorrect) motivation, he does not identify motivation with rationality. In the motivation, that covers completely personalistic (no "causal”) level, Husserl includes, in effect, a "pre-rational" or associative motivation, which leads us to the field of genetic phenomenology