On Desire
Wednesday April 16, 2008
I’ve just had a review of William B. Irvine’s book On Desire
As you will see from reading the review, I enjoyed Irvine’s book, although not without some reservations. In particular, what the book lacked for me was an assessment of the positive role of desire in human life.
There’s a popular understanding of Buddhism that it is a matter of extinguishing desire. I’m not sure that this is either possible or desirable (and, of course, it raises the famous “paradox of desire” in Buddhism, which is to say, the question of how one can desire to extinguish desire – see here and here). Anyway, the textual story on this is much more nuanced, and for those interested, it might be well worth reading David Webster’s 13 May 2008 Schweitzer might have said that desire in its totality is the will-to-live. In a generic sense Schweitzer would also have said the “fundamental ethic” is reverence for life. So in a somewhat perverse but logical way reverence for life is reverence for desire. However the moment desire acts against whole life in oneself or others it becomes in the old venacular “sinful”. Concerning desire we all need some kind of watchfulness and acesis. The highest desire is the will-to-love.
#2 · Peter
#1 · Jim Eubanks
23 April 2008
Excellent point about “desire” as a human characteristic that does indeed have positive elements. It is no doubt an element of desire that leads one to the Buddhist path in the first place. Though its role in our lives might mature and become tempered, there is nothing about desire that is inherently wrong. We desire the welfare of ourselves and others, and rightfully so.