ABSTRACT
The unveiled supposition under the approaches to human motivation that we have been teaching for decades is that we human beings are always – and basically – selfish beings. What drives us is reduced to the good we expect to receive (extrinsic motivations), and the one we could achieve (intrinsic motivations). In this chapter, we reflect on what empirical studies are furthering – that the purpose of giving, and not just receiving or achieving, is also a common and universal driver and part of our humanity. Once we include the category of giving, three new kinds of motivation arise: the transcendent useful motivation, a voluntary desire to give useful good to others; the transcendent pleasant motivation, a voluntary desire to give pleasant good to others and the transcendent moral motivation, a voluntary desire to give moral good to others, to be moved by goodwill.
