ABSTRACT
In the late 1950s when Richard Peters wrote The Concept of Motivation 1 there was a great deal of philosophical interest in motives and motivation. Much of it was no doubt directed by a more general concern—to make clear the distinction between reasons and causes. But it was not just that. Ryle, following a quite ancient tradition, had stressed that the explanation of behaviour by reference to motives involved an appeal to dispositions—to, in Aristotelian terms, the formal causes of action. Richard Peters's emphasis on the rule-following purposive model and to the idea of directed dispositions in effect emphasised final causes too, although this was complicated in his case by the additional emphasis, one that was not unusual in the context of ordinary-language philosophy, on the circumstances in which it is appropriate to use the term 'motive' itself. Perhaps we can now recognise that last consideration as one of somewhat parochial interest. Whatever be the case about the circumstances in which we use the term 'motive' itself, it does not necessarily carry over to explanation of actions in terms of such things as pride, revenge and friendship.
