Natural human desires. Basic human desires

Passed over into an effective thought about the possibility of possessing something or accomplishing something. Having a motivating force, Zh. sharpens the awareness of the purpose of the future action and the construction of its plan. G. as an activity is characterized by a fairly clear awareness. At the same time, not only its objects are realized, but also possible ways of its satisfaction.

Brief psychological dictionary. - Rostov-on-Don: PHOENIX. L.A. Karpenko, A.V. Petrovsky, M. G. Yaroshevsky. 1998 .

Wish

A conscious attraction that reflects a need; an experience that has turned into an effective thought about the possibility of having something or doing something. Possessing a motivating force, it sharpens the awareness of the purpose of the future action and the construction of its plan. A subjective characteristic of the motivational process, in which the key experience of the subject is his goal-oriented, purposefulness. Desire as a motive for activity is characterized by a fairly clear awareness of the need. At the same time, not only its objects are realized, but also possible ways of satisfaction.

Dictionary of practical psychologist. - M.: AST, Harvest. S. Yu. Golovin. 1998 .

Specificity.

The key experience is goal-orientedness, "aspiration" of the subject to specific objects in which he feels the need.

Psychological Dictionary. THEM. Kondakov. 2000 .

WISH

(English) wish;desire) is one of the forms of the motivational state. The word "J." widely used in both science and folk psychology. It is noteworthy that in the developed by A. Vezhbitskaya "natural semantic metalanguage", which "claims" to represent lexical universals, along with primary concepts“know”, “feel”, “think” and “say”, there is also a universal “wish” (or “want”). In psychology, one should also single out a minimum of primary undefined concepts, using it as a basis for defining other psychological concepts. For the time being, we are forced to confine ourselves to a non-strict comparison of close and only intuitively clear concepts. Obviously, the concept of "Zh." closely related to the concepts , , experience.

One can single out several interpretations of Zh., which are far from being fully theoretically worked out. 1. Zh. as one of the forms of mental (subjective) experience of needs, and not only organic ones (cf. ), but also all others, including purely human ones. 2. In a more precise sense, Zh. is a form of experiencing needs, in which the object of need is concretized, “represented” ( ) and possible ways to satisfy the need. 3. Many authors interpret Zh. as a conscious attraction, “attraction with its consciousness” (for example, B.Spinoza,L.With.Vygotsky), which imposes an additional restriction (compared to previous interpretations). Thus, in the above quasi-definitions, the following is indicated. semantic features: a set of needs (the whole set or only a part); intentionality ( , see ) Zh.; awareness. As a rule, completely different signs are attributed to instincts(drives): experiencing organic (or, equivalently, biological, homeostatic, vital) needs; possibility of confusion and ignorance. It must be assumed that animals have only biological drives and only unconscious ones, although they cannot be completely denied objectivity. W.Freud, apparently, allowed the existence of both conscious and unconscious not only drives (instinctive impulses), but also Zh. From this perspective, unconscious Zh. censorship, were pushed into the subconscious and continue to act on consciousness and through consciousness, manifesting itself in dreams, slips of the tongue, involuntary deviations from adequate behavior (parapraxes), etc. It is obvious that both Zh. and drives can be. more or less strong and long lasting. If it is impossible to satisfy those and others, a state arises frustrations. (B. M.)

Big psychological dictionary. - M.: Prime-EVROZNAK. Ed. B.G. Meshcheryakova, acad. V.P. Zinchenko. 2003 .

Synonyms:

See what "desire" is in other dictionaries:

wish- Wish … Dictionary of synonyms of the Russian language

Wish- Desire ♦ Desir Potential ability to enjoy or act. One should not confuse desire with need, which is by no means the collapse, limit or impossibility of desire. Desire as such does not need anything (need ... ... Philosophical Dictionary of Sponville

wish- Will, desire, hunting, readiness, thirst, greed, lust, lust, impatience, itching, overthrow; desire, attraction, impulse, urge, appetite, pursuit, demand, tendency. The desire is hot, sincere, burning, irresistible, immoderate, fiery, ... ... Synonym dictionary

Wish- Mystery of feelings * Remembrance * Desire * Dream * Pleasure * Loneliness * Expectation * Fall * Memory * Victory * Defeat * Glory * Conscience * Passion * Superstition * Respect * … Consolidated encyclopedia of aphorisms

WISH- DESIRE, desires, cf. 1. Internal attraction, the desire for the implementation of something, the possession of something. To have a desire (to desire). Burn with desire. The desire for revenge did not leave him. Irresistible desire for glory. I will fulfill your wish with everything ... ... Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov

WISH- fell. Wed Ural. To whom l. really wanted something. SRGSU 3, 118. Cut off someone's desire for what. Kar. Repulse any desire for anything. SRGK 4, 321. Burn with desire. Razg. Very strongly, irresistibly wanting something. F 1, 123 ... Big dictionary of Russian sayings

wish- barren (Pushkin); insanely passionate (Ldov); stormy (Balmont); fast-flying (Ratgauz); domineering (P. Solovyova); rough (Bitter); wild (Gorky, P. Solovieva); burning (Gorodetsky, Corinthian); cherished (V. Kamensky); sultry (Mei); radiant... ... Dictionary of epithets

Wish- a subjective characteristic of the motivational process, in which the key experience of the subject is his goal orientation ... Psychological Dictionary

While most people generally don't think about human behavior in terms of fundamental desires, knowing our 16 basic desires can help you take a deeper look at yourself and think about who you are and why you do what you do. Desires allow you to develop a new approach to the analysis of your behavior; as you become more familiar with the 16 basic desires, you will be able to understand how your behavior and life goals are related to them. Since it is your desires that determine the path of psychological improvement needed to become who you want to be, they can help you think about what you need to find complete happiness.

Basic human desires - psychology

The 16 Basic Human Desires provide you with a powerful tool for analyzing the behavior of the people you know. If we want to know what people will do, we need to find out what they want and predict how they will try to satisfy their desires. Desire may not tell us everything we want to know about ourselves or others, but what it tells us is very important for understanding behavior and happiness.

The order in which a person's basic desires are presented is irrelevant:

• Power is the desire to influence other people.
• Independence is the desire to rely on one's own strengths.
• Curiosity is the desire to know.
• Recognition is the desire to join.
• Order is the need for organization.
• Thrift is the desire to collect something.
• Honor is the desire to be loyal to one's parents and heritage.
• Idealism is the desire for social justice. Social contact is the desire to communicate. Family is the desire to raise your own children. Status is the desire to occupy a position in society. Revenge is the desire to pay off. Romance is the desire for love and beauty. Food is the desire to consume food.
• Physical activity is the desire to exercise the muscles.
• Serenity is the desire for emotional peace.

If you are interested in knowing how to use the knowledge of these desires, but do not need information about how our research was conducted, which discusses these 16 desires in detail.

What is "DESIRE"? What is the correct spelling of this word. Concept and interpretation.

WISH German: Wunsch (sometimes Begierde or Lust). - French: désir. - English: wish. - Spanish: deseo. - Italian: desiderio. - Portuguese: desejo. In Freudian dynamics, it is one of the poles of a defensive conflict: the unconscious desire seeks to be realized, relying, according to the laws of the primary process, on the signs associated with the first experience of satisfaction. Using the example of dreams, psychoanalysis has shown how desire is imprinted in the compromise form of symptoms. In every general theory of man there are fundamental concepts which cannot be defined; these, of course, include the concept of desire in Freud's concept. We restrict ourselves here to a few terminological considerations. 1) First of all, we note that the French word desk does not coincide in meaning and usage with either the German word Wunsch or the English word wish. Wunsch is primarily a wish, a formulated wish, while désir implies lust, a claim (these meanings are conveyed in German by Begierde or Lust). 2) Freud's understanding of Wunsch is most clearly manifested in the theory of dreams, which makes it possible to distinguish it from a number of concepts similar to it. In its most detailed definition, desire is associated with the experience of satisfaction (see this term), as a result of which "the mnemonic image of perception is connected with the mnemonic trace of the excitement generated by the need. As soon as this need arises again, the established connection generates a mental impulse to overload the mnemonic image of perception and even to the challenge of this perception itself, i.e. to the restoration of the situation of primary satisfaction, this urge we call desire, the emergence of this perception is the "fulfillment of desire" (la). Such a definition requires several explanations: a) Freud does not identify the need and desire: the need is generated by internal tension and is satisfied (Befriedigung) by a specific action * to find the desired object (for example, food).As for desire, it is inextricably linked with "mnestic traces": its fulfillment (Erfüllung) involves a hallucinatory reproduction of perceptions, turned as signs of satisfaction of this desire (see: Identity of perception). This distinction is not always observed by Freud; thus, in some texts there is a compound word Wunschbefriedigung. b) The search for an object in reality is wholly directed by this relation to signs. It is the chain of signs that gives rise to fantasizing* as a correlate of desire. c) The Freudian conception of desire refers only to unconscious desires fixed with the help of signs that are stable and inherited from childhood. However, Freud does not always use the concept of desire in the sense implied by the above definition; sometimes he speaks, for example, of the desire to sleep, of preconscious desires, and even at times considers the result of the conflict to be a compromise between "two fulfillments of two opposite desires having different psychic sources" (1b). * Jacques Lacan tried to understand Freud's discovery differently, making it the basis of desire and bringing this concept to the fore in psychoanalytic theory. With this approach, Lacan was forced to distinguish between concepts with which desire is often confused, namely the concepts of need and demand. The need is aimed at a particular object and is satisfied by this object. The request is formulated and addressed to another person; even where it is aimed at an object, this does not really matter, since the request expressed in the word is always, in fact, a request for love. Desire is born in the gap between need and demand; it is irreducible to need, being in principle not a relation to a real object independent of the subject, but a relation to fantasy; however, it is also irreducible to a demand that imperiously imposes itself independently of the language and the unconscious of another person and requires an absolute recognition of oneself as another person (2).

WISH- or lust - the average degree of will, between simple organic desire, on the one hand, and obdu ... Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron

WISH- in psychology, an experience characterized by a more or less conscious idea of ​​the article ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

WISH- DESIRE, desires, cf. 1. Internal attraction, the desire for the implementation of something, the possession of something. And ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

WISH- cf. 1. Inner attraction, desire for the implementation of smth., for the possession of smth. 2. Someone's. requests ... Explanatory Dictionary of Efremova

WISH- - an experience that reflects the need, turned into an effective thought about the possibility of something about ... Big psychological encyclopedia

WISH- Desire is a subjective characteristic of a motivational process in which the key experience ... Psychological Dictionary

WISH- desire? n., s., use. very often Morphology: (no) what? desire? for what? desire, (see) th...

German: Wunsch (sometimes Begierde or Lust). - French: d?sir. - English: wish. - Spanish: deseo. - Italian: desiderio. - Portuguese: desejo.

o In Freudian dynamics - one of the poles of a defensive conflict: an unconscious desire seeks to be realized, relying, according to the laws of the primary process, on the signs associated with the first experience of satisfaction. Using the example of dreams, psychoanalysis has shown how desire is imprinted in the compromise form of symptoms.

o In any general theory of man there are fundamental concepts that cannot be defined; these, of course, include the concept of desire in Freud's concept. We restrict ourselves here to a few terminological considerations.

1) First of all, we note that the French word desk does not coincide in meaning and usage with either the German word Wunsch or the English word wish. Wunsch is first of all a wish, a formulated desire, while d?sir implies lust, a claim (these meanings are conveyed in German by Begierde or Lust).

2) Freud's understanding of Wunsch is most clearly manifested in the theory of dreams, which makes it possible to distinguish it from a number of concepts similar to it.

In its most detailed definition, desire is associated with the experience of satisfaction (see this term), as a result of which "the mnemonic image of perception is connected with the mnemonic trace of the excitement generated by the need. As soon as this need arises again, the established connection generates a mental impulse to overload the mnemonic image of perception and even to the challenge of this perception itself, i.e. to the restoration of the situation of primary satisfaction, this urge we call desire, the emergence of this perception is the "fulfillment of desire" (la).This definition requires several explanations:

a) Freud does not identify need and desire: a need is generated by internal tension and is satisfied (Befriedigung) by a specific action * to find the desired object (for example, food). As for desire, it is inextricably linked with "mnemonic traces": its fulfillment (Erfällung) presupposes a hallucinatory reproduction of perceptions that have turned into signs of the satisfaction of this desire (see: Identity of Perception). This distinction is not always observed by Freud; thus, in some texts there is a compound word Wunschbefriedigung.

b) The search for an object in reality is wholly directed by this relation to signs. It is the chain of signs that gives rise to fantasizing* as a correlate of desire.

c) The Freudian conception of desire refers only to unconscious desires fixed with the help of signs that are stable and inherited from childhood. However, Freud does not always use the concept of desire in the sense implied by the above definition; sometimes he talks about, for example, the desire to sleep, about preconscious desires, and even sometimes considers the result of the conflict as a compromise between "two fulfillments of two opposite desires, which have different psychic sources" (1b).

Jacques Lacan tried to understand Freud's discovery differently, making it the basis of desire and bringing this concept to the fore in psychoanalytic theory. With this approach, Lacan was forced to distinguish between concepts with which desire is often confused, namely the concepts of need and demand.

The need is aimed at a particular object and is satisfied by this object. The request is formulated and addressed to another person; even where it is aimed at an object, this does not really matter, since the request expressed in the word is always, in fact, a request for love.

Desire is born in the gap between need and demand; it is irreducible to need, being in principle not a relation to a real object independent of the subject, but a relation to fantasy; however, it is also irreducible to a demand that imperiously imposes itself independently of the language and the unconscious of another person and requires an absolute recognition of oneself as another person (2).

WISH

conscious attraction, reflecting a need; an experience that has turned into an effective thought about the possibility of having something or doing something. Possessing a motivating force, it sharpens the awareness of the purpose of the future action and the construction of its plan. A subjective characteristic of the motivational process, in which the key experience of the subject is his goal-oriented, purposefulness. Desire as a motive for activity is characterized by a fairly clear awareness of the need. At the same time, not only its objects are realized, but also possible ways of satisfaction.

WISH

an experience that reflects a need, turned into an effective thought about the possibility of possessing something or accomplishing something. Having a motivating force, desire sharpens the awareness of the goal of future action and the construction of its plan. Desire as a motive for activity is characterized by a fairly clear awareness of the need.

WISH

English wish; desire) is one of the forms of motivational state. The word "J." widely used in both scientific and folk psychology. It is noteworthy that in the "natural semantic metalanguage" developed by A. Vezhbitskaya, which "claims" to represent lexical universals, along with the primary concepts of "know", "feel", "think" and "speak", there is also a universal " wish" (or "want"). In psychology, one should also single out a minimum of primary undefined concepts, using it as a basis for defining other psychological concepts. For the time being, we are forced to confine ourselves to a non-strict comparison of close and only intuitively clear concepts. Obviously, the concept of "Zh." closely related to the concepts of need, attraction, experience.

One can single out several interpretations of Zh., which are far from being fully theoretically worked out. 1. Zh. as one of the forms of mental (subjective) experience of needs, and not only organic (cf. Attraction), but also all others, including purely human ones. 2. In a more precise sense, Zh. is a form of experiencing a need, in which the object of the need (motive) and possible ways of satisfying the need are concretized, “represented”. 3. Many authors interpret Zh. as a conscious attraction, “an attraction with its consciousness” (for example, B. Spinoza, L. S. Vygotsky), which imposes an additional restriction (compared to previous interpretations). Thus, in the above quasi-definitions, the following is indicated. semantic features: a set of needs (the whole set or only a part); intentionality (objectivity, see Intention) Zh.; awareness. As a rule, completely different signs are attributed to drives (drives): the experience of organic (or, equivalently, biological, homeostatic, vital) needs; the possibility of non-objectivity and unconsciousness. It must be assumed that animals have only biological drives and only unconscious ones, although they cannot be completely denied objectivity. 3. Freud, apparently, allowed the existence of both conscious and unconscious not only drives (instinctive impulses), but also Zh. From this point of view, unconscious Zh. , for reasons of censorship, were forced into the subconscious and continue to act on consciousness and through consciousness, manifesting itself in dreams, slips of the tongue, involuntary deviations from adequate behavior (parapraxia), etc. It is obvious that both Zh. and drives can be. more or less strong and long lasting. When it is impossible to satisfy those and others, a state of frustration arises. (B. M.)

Wish

Specificity. The key experience is goal-orientedness, "aspiration" of the subject to specific objects in which he feels the need.

WISH

1. In general - any desire or passion. Some writers use the term to refer to conscious or unconscious desires; others, however, prefer to limit its use to one or the other. In some cases it is used in such a way that it becomes clear that the individual is making no apparent effort to obtain the object(s) of desire; here the terms purpose or intention will be used to refer to the desired items. 2. Object of desire.

WISH

a psychic impulse, an impulse aimed at satisfying a person's needs.

Freud addressed the problem of desire in the first fundamental work, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), which marked the discovery of psychoanalysis. In it, he emphasized that "every person has desires that he does not communicate to others, and desires that he does not even admit to himself." Both those and other desires make themselves felt in dreams, which, in his opinion, are the hidden realization of the suppressed, repressed desires of a person. From such an understanding of the essence of dreams flowed the desire of the founder of psychoanalysis to put forward and substantiate the theory of the fulfillment of desires.

Freud's theory of the fulfillment of desire was based primarily on the consideration of the nature and origins of the emergence of desires as such and their reflection in dreams. Z. Freud proceeded from the fact that those desires of a person that are erotic and egoistic in nature are reflected in dreams. As for the possibilities of the origin, the manifestation of desires in dreams, they can have various sources. According to Z. Freud, a desire can: wake up during the day, but due to external circumstances, not find satisfaction for itself, as a result of which an unfulfilled desire appears at night; arise during the day, but undergo elimination; not related to the waking life and corresponds to those desires that awaken only at night. The desire of the first kind refers to the system of preconsciousness, the second - to the transition from the system of preconsciousness to the system of the unconscious, the third - to the system of the unconscious.

Z. Freud distinguished between conscious, preconscious and unconscious desires. He admitted that conscious desires can give impetus to the formation of a dream. At the same time, he believed that the dream would not have formed if the preconscious desire had not received reinforcement from the realm of the unconscious. Conscious desire becomes the stimulus of a dream when it succeeds in awakening an equivalent unconscious. Expressing this consideration, Z. Freud wrote: “These are always active, so to speak, immortal desires of our unconscious sphere, reminiscent of mythical titans, on which heavy mountain ranges have gravitated from time immemorial, once heaped upon them by the gods and shaken still movements of their muscles - these repressed desires themselves, however, arise from childhood, as the psychological study of neuroses shows. Ultimately, the founder of psychoanalysis believed that the desire depicted in a dream refers, as a rule, to childhood: in an adult, it stems from the subconscious system; in the child, it is the unfulfilled desire of the waking life.

Trying to shed light on the mental nature of desire, Z. Freud distinguished between need and desire. According to his views, a collision with vital necessity gives rise to a physical need in a person, for example, to satisfy hunger. Irritation caused by inner need seeks a way out in the form of internal change or spiritual movement - a hungry child cries, screams, flounders. Thanks to outside help, say, with the help of the mother, the internal irritation of the child is eliminated by satisfying his need for nutrition. The child experiences a sense of satisfaction. Part of his experience is the perception of food, the memory of which is now and forever associated with the memory of satisfaction. As soon as this need arises next time, due to the existing association, a mental movement is immediately caused, which, through the memory of the first perception, reproduces the situation of the former satisfaction. “It is this psychic movement that we call desire; the reappearance of the perception is the fulfillment of the desire, and the full restoration of the perception of the feeling of satisfaction is the shortest path to such satisfaction.

Introducing the hypothesis of the existence of a mental apparatus into his theoretical constructions, Z. Freud believed that nothing but desire can set this apparatus in motion and that the course of irritation in it is automatically regulated by pleasant and unpleasant sensations. "The first desire seems to be a hallucinatory replay of the memory of satisfaction." In the primitive state of the psyche, desire just turns into a hallucination. It retains its effectiveness in hallucinatory psychosis and fantasy. Life experience modifies primitive mental activity. Thinking becomes, as it were, a substitute for hallucinatory desire. And as soon as desire is capable of inducing mental activity, then the dream turns out to be the fulfillment of desire, that is, an analogue of primitive mental life, a part of the overcoming spiritual life of the child.

From the point of view of Z. Freud, human desires can manifest themselves not only in the form of dreams. Neurotic symptoms also serve as a clear manifestation of a number of fulfilled desires. However, unlike dreams, where unconscious desires dominate, neurotic symptoms are an expression not only of realized unconscious desires, but also of desires from the realm of the preconscious. Neurotic symptoms are due to two desires arising from systems in conflict: they are formed only where two opposite fulfillment of desires that have arisen in different mental systems coincide in one expression.

Such are the ideas expressed by Z. Freud in his work “The Interpretation of Dreams” about the nature of human desires and their manifestation in dreams and neurotic symptoms. In his subsequent works, he used the concept of "desire" in relation to the consideration of dreams, which was reflected, in particular, in the "Introduction to Psychoanalysis Lectures" (1916/17). However, when discussing the nature and origins of neurotic diseases, he preferred to talk in the future not so much about desires as about human drives.

As the theory and practice of psychoanalysis developed, many psychoanalysts focused their attention on the further study of human drives and, in fact, abandoned the understanding of the problem of desires, with the exception of discussing the Freudian theory of dreams as the fulfillment of desires. At the same time, the issue of the subject's desires became central to the structural psychoanalysis of J. Lacan (1901–1981).

Based on Z. Freud's ideas about desire, J. Lacan gave the understanding of desire such an orientation, as a result of which he not only distinguished such concepts as "need" and "request", but also came to the conclusion that, being not reducible to anything , to another desire arises at the junction of both of them. The true essence of man is precisely the subject of desire, and his desire is nothing but the desire of the Other.

From the point of view of J. Lacan, desire is the central function that determines human experience. It "lies at the origin of everything that makes a being animate." It is in the experience of desire that a person comes to experience his Self in relation to being. In a word, it is desire as an unconscious factor that carries out the initial organization of the human world proper. Therefore, Z. Freud's emphasis on desire, which determines the life of a person, is indeed essential and important for understanding what is happening in his psyche. Another thing is that the followers of the founder of psychoanalysis blindly believed his statements, according to which the core of human desire is sexual desire, and did not understand what he really wanted to say.

In the process of therapy, the psychoanalyst interprets the patient's thoughts and behavior in terms of the effectiveness of this desire, this causes resistance in the latter, although in reality the analyst resists, trying to explain to the patient that the object of his desire is a certain sexual object. However, according to J. Lacan, the task lies elsewhere, namely, to teach the subject to name his desire, the result of which will be an effective psychoanalytic impact. “By naming his desire, the subject speaks, gives birth to a new presence in the world.”

Making a distinction between such concepts as "need", "request" and "desire", J. Lacan correlated the formation of the subject with three levels of the psyche - real, symbolic and imaginary. If at the real level we are talking about the subject of need, and at the symbolic level - about the subject of a verbally expressed request, then it is at the imaginary level - about the subject of desire. These ideas have become guidelines both in the research and therapeutic activities of psychoanalysts, who share the views of J. Lacan on understanding the essence of human desire and pay attention to the fact that at the moment of the merger of the imaginary and the real in the analytical situation, the patient's desire turns out to be both present and inexpressible.

Unfortunately, there are no instructions on how to find, find and how to get happiness with the map of the area attached to them. How to try to get true satisfaction from life? Natural, acquired and right desires.

This article is about what is right desire and what is the highest good for a person. Follow with us the beautiful and harmonious logic of the philosophical reasoning of Mortimer Adler from his new book "Six Great Ideas" on the topic of happiness and satisfaction. You will learn why happiness is not achievable and what you can get absolute true satisfaction from.

Real and imaginary goods

It is necessary to distinguish between real and apparent benefits. Even Socrates repeatedly reminded that the good that we consider as such, because we actually want it, does not become a real good from this. It can turn - and so often happens - into its complete opposite. What seems good to us at the time we desire it may turn out to be bad for us after a while.

natural desires

On the one hand, there are desires inherent in our human nature, growing out of inner needs and leading to their satisfaction. These are natural desires given to us from birth. Since they originate in the very nature of man, they are common to all human beings, just like facial features, skeletal structure, or blood type. But not only do all people have them, as properties inherent in human nature, they always manifest themselves in a person's desire for satisfaction, regardless of whether we are aware of them or not.

For natural desires, you can use the word need.

Acquired Desires

On the other hand, there are desires that each person acquires in the process of life, each of them is the result of personal experience and is due to the individual originality of character and circumstances of life. Therefore, unlike natural desires, which are the same for all people, acquired desires are exclusively individual, since each person has only his own temperament, experience and life circumstances. In addition, unlike natural desires, which may or may not be conscious, we always have a sound understanding when acquired desires make us act one way or another.

For acquired desires, you can use the word want.

Right Desires

What is right desire? Apparently, this is the desire for what should be desired. But, according to Socrates, we never want what at that moment does not seem good to us. We cannot be wrong about our own desires. The man is right in saying that he wants something. However, in matters of their own needs, a person tends to err. Children often think or say they need something when they should have said they want it. Adults make the same mistake.

What is the real good that satisfies the natural desires and needs of man?

Benefits can be divided into several categories:

which we want to have;
which we want to do;
that improve our lives.

1. Goods of possession

These are property and virtues, as well as goods that we choose and that we receive by chance.

Wealth is property, and health is dignity. Both, to some extent, are given to us by chance. In addition to wealth, the category of property includes friends or loved ones, as well as all external circumstances that affect a person’s life and are determined by the structure of the society of which he is a part.

Merits, unlike property, are intrinsic goods. They do not exist separately from humans. In this context, the word dignity is used in a narrow sense and denotes a good that satisfies a person’s aspirations or capabilities, that is, his ability to develop in one area or another: health, sensual and aesthetic pleasures, as well as any form of knowledge and skills.

2. Benefits of action

These include activities that benefit us by allowing us to acquire necessary property or intrinsic worth. Such actions can also bring benefit to someone else, that is, bring benefits to this person or at least save him from harm. If a person's actions affect the well-being of other people, we usually classify them as right or wrong (fair or unfair).

3. The blessings of life

They come from the desire to be a good person. In this case, a good person is one who has managed to develop certain virtues in himself and realize his human potential. The main such advantage is the ability to desire what is needed, and also not to have desires that prevent a person from receiving the benefits necessary to lead a decent life. If something seems to be good to a good person, then it will really be such, because such people have a natural desire only what is really necessary, and get rid of unworthy desires. However, being a good person does not in itself mean achieving a good life.

A good human life is an unconditional blessing, and the rest of the blessings are the means to achieve it. However, the good life is not at the top of the hierarchy of goods.

Mouse and pearl

Augustine the Blessed, speaking of the hierarchy of the blessings of being, cites the mouse and the pearl as an example.

Which one would you like to have?
Which one would you rather be?

In the first case, a pearl, in the second, a mouse, right? A living organism has its own existence, the potential for development, the ability to act - all that a soulless but expensive pearl is deprived of.

highest good

The highest good is happiness. Many perceive the concept of "happiness" as an end goal, and not a stage on the way to something more. The phrase "I want to be happy because..." cannot be ended with any other words than "...I want to be happy." Of any other human desire, one can say, "I want this because it will make me happy."

Happiness can be defined as the accumulation of real and necessary goods for each person throughout life. In addition, a happy life is filled with imaginary benefits, which are the objects of a person’s desire, depending on his tastes and preferences.

Unattainable happiness

Happiness, being the highest good and the highest goal, cannot be fully experienced at any one moment of life. It is impossible at one moment to feel and enjoy a succession of well-lived years.

We can appreciate the whole human life as a whole only after some time has passed after it has ended. It cannot be said that the entire fullness of an individual's life exists in any of the moments or periods. When we strive for happiness as the highest good, we set ourselves an unattainable goal, and subsequently we will never be able to enjoy the results of such a pursuit.

There are two ways to become happier:

Gain knowledge;
contemplate beauty.

The happiness of knowing

According to Aristotle, man by nature wants to possess knowledge. Since the acquired desire to know is correct, because it consists in striving for what everyone needs.

Kant helps to understand the sensory kind of knowledge that we use to understand beauty - contemplation.

Contemplation of beauty

Food and water, health and wealth, and most things we want or need are pleasurable when we own them. It is the possession of them, the use and consumption of them that gives a feeling of joy. They give pleasure when we satisfy our desire to possess them, and not just look at them.

But there are objects of desire that we cannot or do not want to acquire, take possession of, use, use, or in any other way incorporate into our lives. It is enough for us to simply contemplate or dream to see.

This is the way a person enjoys a natural landscape or a picture in a gallery - without any practical interest in acquiring real estate or a work of art, the possession of which brings joy.

pure pleasure

Beautiful is what gives pleasure after we comprehend it, or ... what gives pleasure when we perceive it with the mind, or ... what gives pleasure when we perceive it with the senses.

This is pure pleasure. We simply get it from the contemplation or perception of an object. And you don't need to add anything more to your experience to call an object beautiful.

The satisfaction of contemplation is the pleasure of the viewer, lifting us above the bustle of purposeful and selfish actions that fill our lives. We can say that it leads to a special kind of ecstasy and elevates us above everyday life.

The contemplation of objects that give us pure and spiritual satisfaction also brings elements of relaxation into our lives. Beauty that brings pleasure becomes an essential component of happiness and a good life. The most we can do in this direction is to give ourselves the opportunity to meet the beautiful by visiting certain places and studying art, harmonious concepts and innovative ideas.

Happiness to you!

Based on the book Six Great Ideas by Mortimer Adler.