Why do we want the things we want? It sounds like a simple question, but when a person really stops to ask why they want specific things they may find themselves at a loss for an answer. The motivating factors for almost everything we do is alarmingly consistent, yet no one every stops to think about it. William Irvine, a philosophy professor, has stopped to think about it, and his thoughts on the topic are incredibly enlightening.

The most notable aspect of On Desire is how readable it is. Whereas normally I am quickly satiated by nonfiction, this was one of those I found myself eagerly devouring. Though I'm a regular reader of nonfiction, I typically read a book simply because I'm interested in learning more about the topic, so it's refreshing to find an author who can take that interest and turn it into a craving. Because of this book, I not only want to read more of the author's books but I'm inspired to read more books on the topic. This speaks volumes for a reclusive, anti-social, slightly misanthropic young man who has a penchant for completely disregarding other people's opinions because he believes he knows all the answers already and everyone else is just wrong about everything.

Towards the end, the book also offers various methods of controlling desires. Though I do think this is an incredibly useful tool, I think Mr. Irvine forgets that not all desires are a bad thing and it's okay to indulge from time to time. Nevertheless, it would be nice if I could control my addiction to hyper-sweetened chai tea, and perhaps one day I'll use the techniques mentioned to drink less of it. Someday. Eventually. Maybe... ( )

A bit pedestrian if you come to the topic with any background. Fun diagrams like "The Chain of Desire" and "The Taxonomy of Desire" are a lame attempt at street cred. Presents a naive understanding of Buddhism. We are ever at odds with our Biological Incentive System (BIS), but must we reduce eons of evolution to an acronym worthy of an online management school primary text? ( )

On Desire is the result of philosophy professor William Irvine’s academic study of desire. The first two thirds is a summary of his and others’ research results. The remaining third is a survey of philosophical and religious views on the nature of desire, including the many and various recommendations for taming desire to maximize its positive contributions to our lives and minimize its potential for enormous destruction.

Briefly, Irvine posits that Nature commands us to survive and produce and from this arises the parent of all our desires, what he calls our biological incentive system, or BIS. “Our evolutionary master,” he reminds us “is indifferent to whether we have happy, meaningful lives. He will care only if our misery and sense of futility hinder his pursuit of his own goal that we survive and reproduce.”

Irvine’s analysis of humankind’s perpetual struggle with desire is illustrated with stories of Buddha, Merton, Thoreau, and Amish Farmers. As well, he offers less well-known social experiments, such as New York’s Oneida Community founded in 1848 and dedicated to the proposition that sufficient quantities of non-exclusive sex would defuse the destructive power of sexual desire. These examples not only illustrate Irvine’s arguments but also make for livelier reading after plowing through 170 pages of drier, more academic discourse.

“We ‘evolutionary slaves’,” he writes, “can form a personal plan for living and superimpose it over the plan imposed on us by our evolutionary master. If we do this, we will no longer simply be doing his bidding; we will instead be taking our life and doing something with it, something we find meaningful. We will thereby be conferring meaning on our life, to the extent that it is possible to do so.”

Though satisfaction is the key to a happy, meaningful life, Irvine points out, it is anathema to our BIS, our biological system that requires us to infinitely want and to replace each satisfied desire with yet another desire. Irvine proposes that the answer is to turn our desire towards wanting what we have. Though this is hardly unique advice (as he has shown in his sections on the religious and philosophical answers to desire’s destructive potential), he has succeeded in creating a new academic theory of desire.

There is a lot of food for thought here, even if you speedily mumble your way through the dry parts and slow to absorb the more accessible and entertaining bits. I learned a little more about classical philosophy—the advices of the Epicureans and the Stoics (not what you might think) and that Seneca, who touted poverty as the shortest route to happiness, was a wealthy man who never directed a single personal desire towards that elevated state.

The writing is uneven and particularly wanting in the first 100 pages, reading as if several separate journal articles were tossed together with awkward bridging sentences. Despite its stylistic shortcomings, though, Irvine’s On Desire answered a lot of my practical questions on desire and led the way towards answers to my philosophical questions. Perhaps its greatest usefulness is in carefully mapping out why wanting what I already have makes sense. Irvine is not preaching, but rather presenting fact and theory that bring me to that ancient conclusion so well stated by the philosopher Epicurus: “Nothing satisfies the man who is not satisfied with a little.” ( )

This is a great book to read. Its a combination of everything.. May be I shud say evolution ...of life, science, love, traditions and philosophy. ( )