Generalized Harm-Avoidance Monism: A Unitary Reconstruction of the Ultimate Motivation of Human Conscious Behavior

The theoretical interpretation of human behavioral motivation has long been constrained by the traditional dual parallel cognitive framework of benefit pursuit and harm avoidance. Rooted in empirical cognition and classical theoretical constructs, this framework classifies benefit pursuit and harm avoidance as two independent, coequal dual driving logics of behavior. It remains confined to the superficial induction of behavioral phenomena, failing to penetrate beyond appearances to the essential nature of underlying behavioral motivation. This ultimately leads to the fragmentation of behavioral interpretation and the non-self-consistency of theoretical construction. Centered on a single, empirically verifiable axiom, Generalized Harm-Avoidance Monism conducts a fundamental deconstruction of the dualistic cognition of benefit pursuit and harm avoidance, establishes the core proposition that generalized harm avoidance is the sole ultimate motivation for all conscious human behaviors, and completes the unified reconstruction of the system of human behavioral motivation. It provides a new, logically closed theoretical framework for understanding the fundamental logic of human behavior. This paper strictly adheres to the principle of value neutrality, and only carries out an objective academic interpretation of behavioral motivation at the level of what is, without involving value judgments or behavioral norms at the level of what ought to be.