____________________ is the reason a character takes a particular action.  it can simply be the desire to do the right thing.
Many people want there to be a single right answer to ethical questions. They find moral ambiguity hard to live with because they genuinely want to do the 'right' thing, and even if they can't work out what that right thing is, they like the idea that 'somewhere' there is one right answer. There is not, however, a way to determine which one (Goodness or Rightness) is right. In order to do that you would have to determine the rules by which to judge which one is right and which one is wrong. But there is profound disagreement among philosophers and across cultures about what the rules are. There are a number of other uses of the term “right” in addition to conformance to moral rules, such as the following: Correct, truthful, as in “the right answer.” This implies that rightness is exclusive, that there is one right answer or opinion and that others are wrong. What is good has to do with benefits. Something that benefits something or someone else is called good for that thing or person. We can think of this instrumentally or biologically. Instrumentally, a hammer is good for pounding nails, and what is good for the hammer is what enables it to do so well. Good people as well as good actions. Ethics is not only about the morality of particular courses of action, but it's also about the goodness of individuals and what it means to live a good life. Virtue Ethics is particularly concerned with the moral character of human beings. According to Aristotle, happiness is the only end or good that we desire for its own sake, and it is for the sake of happiness that we desire all other ends or goods. Ethics doesn't always show the right answer to moral problems. Indeed more and more people think that for many ethical issues there isn't a single right answer - just a set of principles that can be applied to particular cases to give those involved some clear choices. Some philosophers go further and say that all ethics can do is eliminate confusion and clarify the issues. Many ways of thinking about ethics focus on whether specific actions are good or bad, or right or wrong. They help one decide what he or she should do in a particular case or class of cases, or evaluate after the fact actions that someone else has done. They may be called the Good and the Right. The good has to do with achievement of goals; the right, with laws and rules. The goodness paradigm recognizes that people have desires and aspirations, and frames values in terms of what enables a being to achieve its ends. All things aim at some good, and the good can rightly be defined as that at which all things aim (NE 1094a 1-3). The only good or end at which human beings aim, in and of itself, is happiness, and humans aim at all subordinate goods (wealth, honor, power) for the sake of happiness.
Virtue Ethics