Concept
Motive (law)
Overview
A motive is the cause that moves people to induce a certain action. In criminal law, motive in itself is not an element of any given crime; however, the legal system typically allows motive to be proven to make plausible the accused's reasons for committing a crime, at least when those motives may be obscure or hard to identify with. However, a motive is not required to reach a verdict. Motives are also used in other aspects of a specific case, for instance, when police are initially investigating.
The law technically distinguishes between motive and intent. "Intent" in criminal law is synonymous with mens rea ('guilty mind'), which means the mental state shows liability which is enforced by law as an element of a crime. "Motive" describes instead the reasons in the accused's background and station in life that are supposed to have induced the crime. Motives are often broken down into three categories: biological, social and personal.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Motive (law) is discussed.
But when we want to get him to act in this specific way rather than in that, when we want to direct his activity that is to say in a specified channel, then the question of motive is pertinent. A motive is then that element in the total complex of a man's activity which, if it can be sufficiently stimulated, will result in an act having specified consequences. And part of the process of intensifying (or reducing)…
John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
The motive would be the idea of punishing this playmate, of getting even with him, of taking something away from him. The motive is the end which he desired to reach by striking and on account of which he struck. This is implied by the fact that the parent would ask, "What _made_ you _angry_?"
John Dewey, Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
Physiologically, the difference between stimulus and motive admits also of the following definition. The stimulus provokes _immediate_ reaction, which proceeds from the very part on which the stimulus has acted; whereas the motive is a stimulus that has to go a roundabout way through the brain, where its action first causes an image to arise, which then, but not till then, provokes the consequent reaction, which is…
Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in Nature
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
From the notion of a motive arises that of an interest, which can never be attributed to any being unless it possesses reason, and which signifies a motive of the will in so far as it is conceived by the reason. Since in a morally good will the law itself must be the motive, the moral interest is a pure interest of practical reason alone, independent of sense. On the notion of an interest is based that of a maxim…
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Practical Reason
names the idea; a chapter is titled for it; opens on it
If only one single motive is present, which prepares the emotion and its discharge into action, we call the volitional process an impulsive act; The acts of animals are clearly in most cases such simple volitional acts. So also in the psychical life of man they play a very important part--the leading part in the more composite volitional processes, and they very often arise out of these latter when these have been…
Wilhelm Max Wundt, An Introduction to Psychology Translated from the Second German Edition
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
Related ideas
Place in the tradition
Part of Applied ethics.