Fear. Why does it always come down to fear? We control things through fear. We are always afraid of something bad happening to the point that we want to do the right thing simply to avoid the bad thing. And that is being controlled by fear.
Okay many situations in our lives are a balance of doing the right thing and doing the wrong thing. What strays us onto the right thing is usually the fear of what will happen if we do the wrong thing. And this pattern of behavior starts when we are very young.
"Put your toys away or I will throw them away." "Get good grades in school or you'll never go anywhere." These are things commonly heard as we grow up. There is always the consequence of something bad happening if we don't do what we're supposed to do. And sometimes that even comes down to doing things safely as opposed to just right or wrong. "Hold the nail like this or you'll hit your fingers with the hammer." "Pay attention while you're driving or you'll have an accident." We are conditioned to make choices based on good outcomes and bad outcomes, but it is the fear of the bad outcome that makes us make the right decision.
Doctors control us through fear. "Do this, follow my advice, or you'll die." The government controls through fear. They put restrictions on us based on the fear that if we don't do this we are open to terrorism. Teachers control is through fear. "If you get bad grades you'll fail and have to take the class again."
I would think that there has to be some other method of motivating people other than through fear. It just seems like we're always torn between the right thing and the wrong thing and the consequences that'll occur if we do the wrong thing, and the subsequent fear that this creates. Shouldn't we just do the right thing because it is the right thing? Shouldn't we be nice to people just because we should be nice to people? Shouldn't we just learn to live in peace because it is the right thing?
I would hope there are better ways to raise children than to have them constantly afraid of what's going to happen if they make the wrong choices. But that of course means that we have to be able to reason and make the children understand the reasoning. Sometimes that is not possible. But I would hope that eventually that is what will win out as opposed to the consequence in the fear going along with it.
While we are always going to have many different outcomes for choices we have to make, can't we learn to motivate ourselves to do the right thing just because it is the right thing?