Dilemma of «Naturality» and «Non-naturality» of Moral Motivation

Abstract

Unusualness of moral motivation and its apparent distinction (in some respects) from any other motivations of human behavior have become a source for a variety of metaphysical concepts which repudiate possibility to describe and explain morality in terms of natural causality and which seek to solve this task by creating a special picture of the world, including an idea of the transcendent and intelligible dimension of being. The article analyzes and specifies criteria under which particular features of morality have been interpreted directly or indirectly by philosophers as «non-natural», and therefore they required appropriate speculative schemes to explain them. Critical analysis of classic arguments of ethical naturalism has been provided as well in which sole naturality of morality is argued through wrong reduction of moral values to non-moral ones.