Reply #56: Clarification. [View All]

[varkam]

I think an act *can* be rewarded and still be ethical. Theoretically, even a good, God fearing bible beating Christian could be purely ethical (so long as he/she performs the right action for it's own sake and nothing else) - the reward would come secondary. As long as the reward is not the motivation, although I think it would be incredibly hard to determine one's underlying motivations.

So therefore, I'm not really excluding anyone (at least hypothetically). But J-C normative systems don't state "Hey, you should do good things for their own sake". Why? Because, admittedly, that's a bad motivation for people. A better motivation? "If you don't do good things you're going to suffer forever!" That's scary. If I believed it, I'm sure I would be motivated to do good things.