Purity of motives at the limit

Rob is rightly suspicious of "anything that makes our moral lives just a tad 'easier' on us."

I share that suspicion, but I must reject outright anything that makes our moral lives impossible, as the purity of motives fallacy does.

So what do we do about impure motives?

I'd say the process is to choose the good, observe any bad motives, and pray for the grace to be purified of the imperfections that cause the bad motives. Repeat as necessary.

What about acts for which I have good motives on behalf of both another and myself? In the fallacy's strongest form, which I've heard argued by a few atheists, nothing anyone does is meritorious, because anything meritorious is motivated by the merit received, and being motivated by any personal benefit erases all merit.

In the case of good but secondary motives, I'd say we should strive to refer them more and more to our final and highest good of union with God. So if I give money to the poor in part because it makes me feel good about myself, I should refer that feeling to actually being good insofar as I am being like God. Then I give money to the poor in part to be good, which I do to become perfect in order to be with God.

In short, I pray to be purged of all vicious motives and to develop all virtuous motives into their fulfillment in God's love for Himself and His creation.

Perfect holiness implies perfect unity: God is One. When we are perfectly holy, we will be participating in the one act of God, the One Act that is God.

It seems to me, though, that the means we have of attaining this perfect holiness is through imperfection. Impure, or even mixed good, motives imply imperfection, but perfection is not demanded of every human act we perform. What is demanded is that we become perfect. We can't become perfect, though, by refusing to act until we are perfect any more than by indulging our imperfections with a shrug of acceptance.