Desire has been spoken of in a general sense that includes the general tendency of every substance to seek its own perfection, i.e., its teleological end. So, for instance, the sentence from the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics, according to which “the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim”, has been rendered simply as, “goodness is that which all desire”. This general desire of everything for its good is then called the “natural appetite”, or “natural love”, since it belongs to every substance “according to its nature”.
This nomenclature involves saying that atoms and planets desire to do whatever it is that they naturally do. This is unusual to any reader nowadays, since, of course, inanimate things are not conscious of their aiming at anything. But this desire is actually thought to follow upon an apprehension, like any other desire – the fact that such beings lack intelligence to direct themselves toward an end simply means that there must be some intelligence directing them, “and this we call God.” It’s how Thomas’s Fifth Way to prove God’s existence works.
Be that as it may, it’s still a strange way to speak, and I do not intend to use it henceforth. Desire, then, which I shall understand as an inclination in a conscious being to seek an apparent good, or turn away from an apparent evil, shall include only those inclinations regarding goods or evils which are apparent to the being’s own faculties.
The verb “to desire” (something) means to have a desire (for something). I will use the noun “want”, and the verb “to want”, as interchangeable synonyms for “desire” and “to desire”, respectively. I will not speak of “needs”, or of “needing”.
0. Contents
1. Properties of desires
2. Types of desires
2.1. Rational desires
2.2. Sensitive desires
3. Types of objects
3.1. Terminal dependence
3.2. Appetitive dependence
4. Further definitions
4.1. Metaphysics and ethics
4.2. Economics
5. Notes
1. Properties of desires
I thought it would be relevant to first state that I believe that all desires have the following properties.
- Subjectivity: all desires, as I understand them, exist in a conscious subject, and never outside of one.
- Finality, or teleology: all desires are desires for something. The thing that is desired shall be called the object, end, or term, of the desire.
- Ordinality: within each subject, desires are ranked in an ordinal “value scale”, whereby some desires are ranked above others. Subjects always act to seek the “foremost”, or “topmost”, desire in their scale, which changes throughout time. I do not admit that desires have “strength”, “intensity” or “magnitude” in any cardinally quantifiable sense. Instead, I shall speak of each desire’s relative rank, or order, in the scale of desires.
- Dependence: no desire is “uncaused”, “self-caused”, a “brute fact”, or caused by “randomness”. Every desire has some reason, outside of itself, to exist. This cause, or reason, may be internal to the subject, however.
It is according to this last property that desires have been divided into kinds.
2. Types of desires
According to their efficient cause, I believe that all desires can be divided into two kinds – rational desires, caused by the rational power, and sensitive desires, caused by the sensitive power. This division follows Thomas (ST 1.80.2) and Plato (Rep., 4.439d). For more matter on this division in particular, see the other post. In this post, I will only divide it further.
2.1. Rational desires
I divide rational desires into correct and incorrect.
Correct rational desires are formed by the natural operation of reason as it follows the right rules of inference and deduction. It is impossible for such desires to be in any way disordered or wrong, hence the name.
Incorrect rational desires are desires that, although they are formed by the rational power, are not fully rational. Some interference from the sensitive power causes these desires to be formed wrongly in some way, as through a logical fallacy or a hasty induction. This causes them to have wrong objects, or an inappropriate rank.
2.2. Sensitive desires
I divide sensitive desires into irascible and concupiscible, following Thomas (ST 1.81.2) and Plato (Rep., 4.439e–440a).
Concupiscible desires, also called concupiscence, are sensitive desires to seek what is sensibly pleasant, and to avoid what is unpleasant or painful.[1]
Irascible desires are sensitive desires to seek what is useful for obtaining something sensibly pleasant, and to avoid what is dangerous because it will lead to something painful. These desires incline us to strive and fight for sensible goods that are difficult to preserve or to attain.
3. Types of objects
Objects of desires are divided, first, according to whether the object is dependent on other objects, which I shall call terminal dependence; and second, according to whether the desire is dependent on other desires, which I shall call appetitive dependence.
3.1. Terminal dependence
According to terminal dependence, I divide objects of desires into proper objects of desire and common objects of desire.[2]
Proper objects of a desire are the things to which a desire tends naturally and immediately. For instance, water seems to be the proper object of thirst, while the proper object of hunger is ‘food’, taken generically. The proper object of rational desire is knowledge.
Common objects of a desire are the things to which a desire tends naturally, but not immediately. For instance, while water is the proper object of thirst, anything containing water may satiate it, such as milk or beer – all such things are common objects of thirst. All things are common objects of rational desire, insofar as they are intelligible.
3.2. Appetitive dependence
According to appetitive dependence, objects of desire are divided into direct objects of desire and indirect objects of desire.
Direct objects of desire, also called final ends or consumer’s goods, are objects of desires which are not dependent on other desires. The specific desire for such objects, in turn, is called “intrinsic”, or “as an end”. For instance, it seems that water is a direct object of thirst.
Indirect objects of desire, also called means, intermediate ends, or producer’s goods, are objects of desires which are dependent on other desires. The specific desire for such objects, in turn, is called “instrumental”, “extrinsic”, or “as a means”. For instance, while I desire water directly, I may desire a cup indirectly, as a means to drink the water.
4. Further definitions
This division of desires allows for clearer definitions of various terms in metaphysics, ethics, and economics. (Most of them relate to the word “good.”)
4.1. Metaphysics and ethics
Sometimes, “natural desires” are said to be a kind of desire, opposed to “artificial desires”. This distinction is often used in loose, unrigorous ways. When I spoke of natural desires, I meant to refer to sensitive desires, while highlighting the fact that they are all caused by our innate instincts.
While the adjective “good” is a transcendental property of being, and as such is not passible of essential definition,[3] I believe that it is definable in relation to rational subjects, being the object of correct rational desire. This definition suffices, in my opinion, for moral non-naturalism to be false.
The definite noun “the good”, at least in my usage, is always defined in relation to “good”, as G.E. Moore rightly stated in the Principia Ethica:
I suppose it may be granted that ‘good’ is an adjective. Well ‘the good,’ ‘that which is good,’ must therefore be the substantive to which the adjective ‘good’ will apply: it must be the whole of that to which the adjective will apply, and the adjective must always truly apply to it. (p. 9)
The indefinite noun “good”, as in “a good”, tends to refer to any common object of desire.
4.2. Economics
In economics, an “economic good” seems, similarly, to refer to common objects of desire, most of the time. But Murray Rothbard seems to have stressed, at least once, that it refers to proper objects, or rather, to common indirect objects considered as answering to a particular configuration of proper objects. For he famously answered an objection to the doctrine of time preference in this way:
Time preference may be called the preference for present satisfaction over future satisfaction or present good over future good, provided it is remembered that it is the same satisfaction (or “good”) that is being compared over the periods of time. Thus, a common type of objection to the assertion of universal time preference is that, in the wintertime, a man will prefer the delivery of ice the next summer (future) to delivery of ice in the present. This, however, confuses the concept “good” with the material properties of a thing, whereas it actually refers to subjective satisfactions. Since ice-in-the-summer provides different (and greater) satisfactions than ice-in-the-winter, they are not the same, but different goods. In this case, it is different satisfactions that are being compared, despite the fact that the physical property of the thing may be the same. (MES, ch. 1, fn. 15)
This may be a proper way to speak of goods, but it is easy to relapse into the more common usage of speaking of goods as being just any common objects of desire. This seems to be done later on, when speaking of the Law of Marginal Utility. One statement of the law is that “for all human actions, as the quantity of the supply (stock) of a good increases, the utility (value) of each additional unit decreases.” (MES, 1.5B) This is clearly because each subsequent marginal unit answers to fewer wants, or to less urgent wants, than the previous unit. But if so, then we are speaking of the same good answering to different wants, rather than of each unique satisfaction constituting a different good. The “ice-in-the-summer” usage was dropped in favor of the common usage.
I prefer the common usage, which feels more natural to me. So it seems to me that the doctrine of time preference should rather be stated as, that desires to provide for a foreseen future want are always ranked lower than desires to satisfy the same want in the present. The value of the means to satisfy those wants varies accordingly.
5. Notes
[1] I qualify pleasant with sensibly to clearly distinguish bodily pleasure from the purely spiritual delight called joy. But it is not helpful to add such a qualification to unpleasant or painful, since all displeasure, pain, and sorrow has its origin in the body. This is because the soul is incorruptible. See ST I-II 22.1.
I also have a blog post on whether sorrow is evil.
[2] See Plato, Republic, 4.437d–e. This division parallels Thomas’s division, in ST 1.17.2.c, of proper and common objects of sense perception. (This footnote, and all other references to Plato’s Republic, were added on 2022-02-18.)
[3] Transcendental properties of being are common to all being, regardless of category. But to give the essential definition of something is to give its genus and specific difference. So, since transcendental properties of being are not in any genus, they are essentially indefinable.
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