Therefore, it is possible for someone to act in an immoral manner simply by virtue of ignorance of the appropriate course of action to take, while still having the will to do something moral about a situation, just as it is possible to act immorally through an omission of acting due to a lack of will. The need for both components to be present to act in a moral fashion becomes an important consideration when seeking clues to why people act the way they do. Some recent real-world feedback on morality was identified during an exit poll survey conducted by Rubin (2005) after the 2004 election. This survey found that "moral values" was the single most important issue that determined the manner in which people voted. According to this author: "Morality is a rather general term, after all, and it is not difficult to characterize people's concerns about the economy, education, health care, and Iraq as essentially moral in nature. But the people whose votes were determined by 'moral values' certainly knew what they meant, and everybody else does too. They meant gay marriage and abortion, and perhaps birth control methods, stem cell research, and sex education" (Rubin, 2005, p. 2). The common "morality" theme that emerged from the survey conducted by Rubin was the fact that these "moral" issues all involved sex (the author adds that this is not a "gender" issue or even a "Mars/Venus" type concept, but rather relates to sexual relations and the "act" itself) (2005). Surely, though, there has to be more to "moral" behaviors than this focus on mere sexual issues, and this turns out to be the case upon further investigation. In fact, the research shows that the motivation to act in a moral fashion can relate to any number of issues, but such behaviors are typically influenced by a several factors, including culture, and these issues are discussed further below.

             Motivation to be Moral.