Marketing and advertising companies have used psychological research on how desire is stimulated to find more effective ways to induce consumers into buying a given product or service. Desire-satisfaction theories of well-being state that a person's well-being is determined by whether that person's desires are satisfied. According to fitting-attitude theories of value, an object is valuable if it is fitting to desire this object or if we ought to desire it. There is disagreement whether desires should be understood as practical reasons or whether we can have practical reasons without having a desire to follow them.

Desires play a role in many different fields. Various authors distinguish between higher desires associated with spiritual or religious goals and lower desires, which are concerned with bodily or sensory pleasures. Propositional desires are directed at possible states of affairs while object-desires are directly about objects. Occurrent desires are either conscious or otherwise causally active, in contrast to standing desires, which exist somewhere in the back of one's mind. Intrinsic desires concern what the subject wants for its own sake while instrumental desires are about what the subject wants for the sake of something else. Value-based theories identify desires with attitudes toward values, like judging or having an appearance that something is good.ĭesires can be grouped into various types according to a few basic distinctions.

Pleasure-based theories focus on the tendency of desires to cause pleasure when fulfilled.

Action-based theories define desires as structures that incline us toward actions. which of these features are essential and which ones are merely accidental. While many researchers roughly agree on these general features, there is significant disagreement about how to define desires, i.e. Conscious desires are usually accompanied by some form of emotional response. Their fulfillment is normally experienced as pleasurable in contrast to the negative experience of failing to do so. Desires present their objects in a favorable light, as something that appears to be good. For this to be possible, a desire has to be combined with a belief about which action would realize it. Desires are closely related to agency: they motivate the agent to realize them. They aim to change the world by representing how the world should be, unlike beliefs, which aim to represent how the world actually is.

They are seen as propositional attitudes towards conceivable states of affairs. A great variety of features is commonly associated with desires. Desires are states of mind that are expressed by terms like ' wanting', ' wishing', 'longing' or 'craving'.

Desire & Deception by Sahara Roberts