Is Self-Interest Our Motivation To Be Moral Analysis

To what extent, if at all, is self-interest our motivation to be moral? (30 marks)
This means is a person moral because they are thinking about the benefits for them if they are moral? It could be rephrased as: ‘How much is a person inclined to do the right thing at the right time because it benefits them?’
For example if self-interest is our motivation to be moral, a person may, for example, help an old woman onto the bus, but actually they didn’t do that to help the old woman, or to be kind to her, they simply did that for the ‘Thank you’ from the old woman or to look like a hero to all the other people on the bus. This makes self-interest our motivation to be moral because the person is simply in it for themselves and only cares about
The social contract theory is the view that a person’s moral and/or political obligations are dependent upon a contract or agreement among them to form the society in which they live. It suggests a set of rules, and without these rules society would fall apart. It suggests that these rules are necessary for social cooperation. This theory would be in favour of self-interest as our motivation to be moral because it states that if we expect people to be moral then there must be some reason as to why they do things, one answer given is self-interest. Therefore a reason as to ‘why should I be moral’ is because it’s in your self-interest. This can be developed into the fact that morality is an unspoken agreement about how to behave, making it necessary for social cooperation and also making self-interest a motivation to be
Kant believes that duty is the moral requirement to perform certain actions without regard to their and personal values, goals or desires. In turn, Kant argues that to be moral, a person must perform their duty without any reference to personal goals, desires or effects of their happiness, therefore Kant argues that if an act is performed due to the individual gain or benefit, it then has no moral value. According to Kant, a person is moral when he acts to attain his values. For Kant, what are necessary for a legitimate moral philosophy are obligations that are categorical (i.e., moral duties). For example Kant believes that if a person performs his moral duty contrary to inclinations, then they have moral worth. Unlike Aristotle, Kant rejects any morality that holds a person’s happiness as the ultimate goal and he instead maintains that an act is only moral if there is no reference to a man’s happiness, desires or ultimate goals. For example a person who helps other people and gains pleasure from such actions displays no moral worth. Similarly, if a person wants to be honest he deserves no moral credit. An individual who does not have a natural desire to help others or to be honest but nevertheless does so from duty does display moral worth. Finally,