by nature. Marx believed that specifically human motivations are the products of social learning, and different societies produce citizens with radically different wants. This view lies at the root of Marx's expectation of the withering away of the state. Once a society is so structured as to produce only generous and benevolent citizens, the state, which is basically an instrument of coercion, will become unnecessary. Towards the opposite end of the spectrum are the views set forth in The Leviathan of Thomas Hobbes. For Hobbes, in the state of nature without the imposition of laws life would be "nasty, brutish and short". People are by nature selfish and will try to appropriate all goods and power for themselves. They will attribute these same motives to their neighbours and this leads to a war of all against all. The state, invented to prevent this natural warfare, establishes the rules necessary for survival and enforces these rules with severe penalties. There is no question here of modifying human motivation. The state appeals to existing motives, mainly fear, to create a system for distributing goods and keeping the peace. The views of Sigmund Freud are of some interest in this context. Freud allows for a considerable modification of human appetites by such processes as sublimation, reaction formation and displacement. The modification, however, is superficial. The roots of all motivation remain in the "id", and at that root level they are not modified.40 The root appetite of the id is for self-centred pleasure. This drive for pleasure may assume a socially acceptable form before it is allowed to surface in consciousness. Where Hobbes believed that the channelling of selfish motivation into a socially acceptable form is done by the state, for Freud it is done by a process within the psyche of the individual. This process does not change the most basic nature of the appetite. Christianity sees human beings as capable of very different motivations, from great holiness and charity to selfishness and terrible hatred.
To this extent, it teaches that human
motivations can be modified. However, Christians also believe that in its present condition human nature is prone to sin; and because the hold of sin is strong, change for the better 40
Here I am focussing on a stage in Freud’s thought that most clearly illustrates the relevant point.
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