I read it as an analogy to a programming stack trace, but with motivations. Often times you’re motivated to do A in order to get B in order to get C, where one thing is desired only as a means to get something else. Presumably these chains of desire bottom out in some terminal desires, things that are desired for their own sake, not because of some other thing it gets you.
So one example could be, “I want to get a job, in order to get money, in order to be able to feed myself.”
I’m not sure if that’s what they meant. I’m often kind of skeptical of that sort of psychologizing though. It’s not that it can’t be done, but that our reasons for having motivations are often invisible to ourselves. My guess is that when people try to explain their own actions/motivations in this way, they’re largely just making up a plausible story.
I read it as an analogy to a programming stack trace, but with motivations. Often times you’re motivated to do A in order to get B in order to get C, where one thing is desired only as a means to get something else. Presumably these chains of desire bottom out in some terminal desires, things that are desired for their own sake, not because of some other thing it gets you.
So one example could be, “I want to get a job, in order to get money, in order to be able to feed myself.”
I’m not sure if that’s what they meant. I’m often kind of skeptical of that sort of psychologizing though. It’s not that it can’t be done, but that our reasons for having motivations are often invisible to ourselves. My guess is that when people try to explain their own actions/motivations in this way, they’re largely just making up a plausible story.
Processes for doing this notably do not do it via explanation.