Motive force never determines conduct because it is only ever possible

Evidence

But I am in anguish precisely because any conduct on my part is only possible, and this means that while constituting a totality of motives for pushing away that situation, I at the same moment apprehend these motives as not sufficiently effective. At the very moment when I apprehend my being as horror of the precipice, I am conscious of that horror as not determinant in relation to my possible conduct. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 238

Categorization

• XREF: Direct causal backdrop to Beauvoir’s ethics: if motives never determine action, responsibility and choice are always radical. — connects to: No factual state can by itself motivate any action — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1069; Laws restrain action but never inspire it — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1054; Proxy-based preventive action escapes scrutiny because its necessity can never be demonstrated. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 451
• DEFINE: Core claim that even a strong motive like horror of heights is apprehended as merely possible, not determinative — the hinge of the freedom/anguish analysis.

Broader Connections

• No factual state can by itself motivate any action #expands (0.92) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1069
• Laws restrain action but never inspire it #corroborates (0.78) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1054