> Research	> Ideals	> Cross-Reference to Motivators

Basic Ideals and Motivators Cross-reference

The following chart lists ideals from the Ideals Survey across the top. The names at the top of the chart match the titles used for each ideal in the survey. To see a more detailed description of any ideal, click the name on the title.

The first column identifies standard motivators. A "+" in a cell of the chart indicates that the ideal provides satisfaction of the motivator. In some ideals, work is typically necessary in order to achieve it; this is represented by a "-" because work is deemed to be undesirable. So long as the positive aspects of the ideal outweigh the negative aspects (work required), it is a desirable ideal.

The Pets, person, and human columns indicate the kind of animals to which the motivator applies. A further explanation of those categories is given below the chart.

Note that we could put many more "+" marks on the chart if we consider the more indirect consequences of the ideals. The above chart is meant to show only the most direct effects.

The "x" indications show which kinds of creatures are most likely to have the motivations, so that they would notice a benefit. The placement of the "x"s is the most uncertain for the pets, because there are various kinds of animals that are capable of being pets and there are variations in their characteristics.

Pets, Persons, Humans

Based on work in modelling learning and decision making behavior, it is evident that there are certain basic motivators that any learning creature must have. In the chart above I use the word person to describe any animal that has the capabilities for significant learning and large-scale cooperation. A human is a kind of person, but there could be other creatures in the universe that are people too.

A Pet is and animal that is similar to a person because it has the ability to cooperate and empathize with people, and it has some limited ability to learn and communicate. Most living things on our planet are not pets: diseases are not pets, and neither are parasites nor many kinds of wild animals that cannot be trained to cooperate with people. In many respects, a pet is a "borderline person." Pets have been included in the chart because they deserve special consideration beyond what we give to simpler creatures.

All learning animals have motivators. Sometimes we use the term "emotion". A motivator and an emotion are flip-sides of the same coin. An emotion is simply the manifestation of the motivator as a feeling that the creature can recognize. The emotion represents the state of the motivator (either as it is fulfilled or as the opposite occurs).

Motivators are necessary to guide learning behavior. Learning animals do not operate on a rigid script of specific actions, such as one might find in a typical computer program. Therefore, learning animals require some built-in criteria by which they judge learning experiences, in order to identify the behaviours they choose to repeat (vs not). That set of built-in criteria is the animal's motivators.

In addition to motivators that are necessary for any learning creature, there are some motivators that are specific to creatures with a specific biology or evolutionary heritage. For example, humans and many other kinds of animals are periodically motivated to sleep (they become sleepy), but we cannot say if this would also be true for other learning beings that might exist elsewhere in the universe. Also such things as enjoyment of music or dance may be a kind of anomaly in the evolutionary development of humans; in other learning creatures those motivators might be absent or significantly different.

A workable set of ideals is one that enables each potential cooperant to satisfy their common motivators, while also leaving sufficient flexibility so that each kind of cooperating animal can also satisfy the motivators that are unique to their species.

What do you think of the content on this web page?

Site Search

Return to Universal Ethics home page