ATTRIBUTIONS AND AVOWALS OF MOTIVE IN THE STUDY OF DEVIANCE - RESOURCE OR TOPIC

In explaining human actions, scholars and laypeople alike employ expla natory devices such as 'motives'. This paper critically reevaluates th e relationship between 'professional' and 'lay' invocations of motive, proposing a general reorientation of theory and research. This reorie ntation emphasizes the mundane 'practical grammar' of motives, and arg ues that motive deployment is inextricably tied to deviance, and there fore irremediably moral. It is argued, therefore, that motives should serve as a topic for scholarship, not a resource for scholarly use. Se veral landmark theories of motives, deviance, and explanations are cri tically reviewed from the proposed vantage. Finally, a brief survey of similarly-minded work is offered, focussing on ethnomethodological ar guments and findings, as illustrations of the heuristic power and prom ise of the outlined approach.