Historians invoke subjective motives only when objective causes fail to explain an act

Evidence

As soon as a consciousness is made-past, it is what I have to be in the form of the “was.” Consequently when I turn back toward my consciousness of yesterday, it preserves its intentional significance and its meaning as subjectivity, but, as we have seen, it is fixed; it is outside like a thing, since the past is in-itself. The motive becomes then that of which there is consciousness. … But as the motive is in-itself and as the cause is objective, they are presented as a dyad without ontological distinction; we have seen, indeed, that our past is lost in the midst of the world. That is why we put them on the same level and why we are able to speak of the causes and of the motives of an action as if they could enter into conflict or both concur in determined proportion in a decision. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1092 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Past motives become objective things, collapsing the distinction between cause and motive — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1092; Whole-trend historical explanations often mask escapes from responsibility; A fully conscious model of historical action fails to capture history’s impersonality — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 455

Broader Connections

• Past motives become objective things, collapsing the distinction between cause and motive #expands (0.90) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1092
• Whole-trend historical explanations often mask escapes from responsibility #complicates (0.72)