# Desire Grounds Moral Obligation Objection Defeater ## Intro Some people say that **morality is really about desire**. What you ought to do is whatever satisfies you: your self-interest, your pleasure, the fulfilment of your wants. A religious version sounds warmer: "Our only obligation is to love the God we have found joy in loving, and to let that joy spill over to our neighbour." There is something true here. People do act from desire, and Christians do find joy in God. The trouble starts when desire is made the **reason a duty exists**. Ask a simple question: if someone has no desire at all to keep a duty, does the duty disappear? If the duty disappears, then a cruel man who enjoys cruelty has no duty to stop. If the duty stays, then desire was never what made it a duty. The answer this page gives is that desire is the **engine** and God's command is the **rulebook**. A good desire helps a person keep a duty, and keeping it often brings joy. The duty itself comes from somewhere else. Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane shows the difference: he asked that the cup pass from him, and then said, "not as I will, but as thou wilt." ![Nineteenth-century photograph looking across the olive groves of Gethsemane and the Kidron Valley toward the walls of Jerusalem](/codex/assets/gethsemane-and-jerusalem-john-anthony-1860s.jpg) *The Garden of Gethsemane and the walls of Jerusalem, photographed by John Anthony in the 1860s. Metropolitan Museum of Art, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.* ## In full The objection takes several forms, all of which locate the ground of obligation in the agent's desires or their satisfaction: - **Ethical egoism:** an act is right when it advances the agent's own interest. - **Hedonism:** pleasure is the only intrinsic good and pain the only intrinsic evil (Bentham opens his *Introduction* by placing mankind under "two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure"). - **Desire-satisfaction theory:** a person's good consists in getting what he wants (one of the three theories of well-being in Parfit's *Reasons and Persons*, Appendix I). - **Humean theory of reasons:** a person's reasons for action are fixed by his desires, so nothing binds a person who wants nothing it requires. See [Moral Motivation vs Moral Grounding](/codex/moral-motivation-vs-moral-grounding/). - **Devotional desire-grounding:** a Christian form, in which the believer's only obligation is to do what satisfies the regenerated spirit. The defeater separates three claims that the objection runs together: **motivational** (I obey because I desire), **normative** (I have a reason to obey because I desire) and **ontological** (obeying is obligatory because I desire). The first is often true and fully compatible with Christianity. The third is the thesis under attack. It fails by modus tollens, because some obligations bind where the relevant desire is absent or opposed, and it collapses into subjectivism, because satisfactions conflict. The Christian account places desire where it belongs: as the **motive** that grace reorders and as the **fruit** that obedience brings, with the **ground** of obligation in God's good nature and rightful command. ## Cheatsheet **30-second reply:** "Is your desire what *makes* the duty a duty, or just what makes you *want* to keep it? Take a man with no desire to love his enemies. Is he still obligated to? If yes, desire isn't the ground. If no, then nobody who hates his enemy is doing anything wrong." **Fast facts:** - Three claims hide in "morality is about desire": I obey *because* I desire (motive), I have a *reason* because I desire (normative), it is *obligatory* because I desire (ground). Only the third is the problem. - Kant's test case: a man whose sympathy has dried up still owes help to the suffering, and helping then shows more clearly that he acts from duty (*Groundwork*, ch. 1). - Parfit's case: a man indifferent to agony that falls on a future Tuesday has every reason to avoid it anyway (*Reasons and Persons*, sec. 46). - In Gethsemane Jesus states a real desire ("let this cup pass away from me") and submits it: "not as I will, but as thou wilt" ([Matthew 26:39](/codex/matthew-26-39/), ASV). **Counter-moves:** - "Everyone does what they most want anyway." That describes motive. The question is whether wanting makes an act right. - "I only mean that the redeemed *want* to obey." Then you are describing sanctification, which Christians affirm. That is a claim about motive, and the ground is still God's command. - "Desire-satisfaction is the best theory of well-being." Well-being is one question; obligation is another. Even a well-being theory needs a further premise saying you ought to promote it. **Concessions (with their reciprocals):** - Grant: desire does move people, and joy in God is real. Collect: then you agree desire is the motive, and the question of what makes the duty a duty is still open. - Grant: some reasons depend on desire ("if you want to get to Boston, take the train"). Collect: a hypothetical reason disappears when the desire does, which is exactly why moral duties cannot be hypothetical reasons. **Closing line:** "Desire is the engine. God's command is the rulebook." ## Grammar and hermeneutics The Christian form of the objection rests on biblical language about delight and satisfaction, so the texts have to be read on their own terms first. 1. **[Matthew 26:39](/codex/matthew-26-39/), two wills named and ranked.** The setting matters. Jesus leaves the disciples with "Sit ye here, while I go yonder and pray" ([Matthew 26:36](/codex/matthew-26-36/), ASV), takes Peter, James and John further, and then "went forward a little" (Greek *proelthōn mikron*) before praying. The prayer is uttered a short distance apart from the three, whom he then finds sleeping. The prayer's grammar has two halves. The first, *parelthatō ap' emou to potērion touto* ("let this cup pass away from me"), is a third-person aorist imperative of request, a genuine expressed wish, framed by the condition "if it be possible". The second turns on *plēn* ("nevertheless"), a strong adversative, and sets *hōs egō thelō* ("as I will") against *hōs sy* ("as thou"), with the verb of willing understood in the second clause. The text distinguishes the wish from the submission and places obedience on the side of the Father's will. Luke's parallel makes the point with the noun: "not my will (*thelēma*), but thine, be done" ([Luke 22:42](/codex/luke-22-42/), ASV). See [G2307 - thelema](/codex/g2307-thelema/). 2. **Descriptive narrative, normative weight.** The Gethsemane account is narrative: it describes what Jesus did. Its normative weight comes from elsewhere, where he commands the same pattern of his followers and teaches them to pray "thy will be done" ([Matthew 6:10](/codex/matthew-6-10/), ASV). The narrative shows that obedience and expressed desire can run in opposite directions without the obedience being any less his. 3. **The Church's reading of the two wills.** The Third Council of Constantinople (680-681) read Gethsemane as the human will of Christ, which shrank from suffering, freely following the divine will. On that reading, the wish to avoid suffering is not sinful, and it is not what defines the duty either. 4. **[Romans 7:15-25](/codex/romans-7-15-25/), three verbs kept apart.** Paul separates what he *wills* (*thelō*), what he *does* (*prassō*, *poieō*) and what he *hates* (*misō*): "not what I would, that do I practise; but what I hate, that I do" ([Romans 7:15](/codex/romans-7-15/), ASV). Through all of it, the law's standing does not move. "The law is holy, and the commandment holy, and righteous, and good" ([Romans 7:12](/codex/romans-7-12/), ASV), and even in failure "I consent unto the law that it is good" (7:16, ASV). The obligation is fixed while desire and performance vary. This holds on both major readings of the chapter, whether Paul describes the believer's ongoing struggle or the person under the law apart from the Spirit; see the [Sanctification](/codex/sanctification/) hub for that dispute. On either reading, the law binds a person whose desires are divided against it. 5. **[Romans 8:7](/codex/romans-8-7/), obligation where desire refuses.** "The mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be" (ASV). The verb *hypotassetai* ("is subject") is present tense: the fleshly mind does not submit and, in its own strength, cannot. Paul still calls the law "the law of God" over that mind. A law that binds the unwilling is a law whose authority does not come from the will it binds. See [G5293 - hypotasso](/codex/g5293-hypotasso/) and [G4561 - sarx](/codex/g4561-sarx/). 6. **[Matthew 22:37](/codex/matthew-22-37/), love commanded.** "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God" renders a Greek future indicative (*agapēseis*) used with the force of a command, carried over from the Septuagint of [Deuteronomy 6:5](/codex/deuteronomy-6-5/). A command to love addresses people who do not yet love as they ought. If present delight were the ground of the duty, the greatest commandment would bind only those who already keep it. See [G0025 - agapao](/codex/g0025-agapao/). 7. **Delight texts are promises and fruit.** "Delight thyself also in Jehovah; And he will give thee the desires of thy heart" ([Psalm 37:4](/codex/psalms-37-4/), ASV) is an imperative with a promise attached: delight is commanded and its reward promised. "I delight to do thy will, O my God; Yea, thy law is within my heart" ([Psalm 40:8](/codex/psalms-40-8/), ASV) describes the obedient heart. Neither verse makes delight the source of the law; both assume the law and describe a heart brought into line with it ([Ezekiel 36:26-27](/codex/ezekiel-36-26-27/)). ## Argument structure | | Premise | Notes | |---|---|---| | **P1** | "Morality is about desire" can be a claim about motive, about reasons, or about the ground of obligation | Disambiguate first | | **P2** | If obligation were grounded entirely in desire or satisfaction, its binding force would rise and fall with the desire | Definition of the thesis | | **P3** | Some obligations bind where the relevant desire is absent or opposed | Kant's dried-up sympathy; Parfit's future Tuesday; love of enemies; Romans 8:7 | | **P4** | Desire-grounding makes conflicting satisfactions into conflicting obligations, which is subjectivism | [Subjective Morality Defeater](/codex/subjective-morality-defeater/) | | **C** | Desire is not the ground of obligation; it is the motive grace reorders and the fruit obedience brings, with the ground in God's nature and command | [Divine Command Theory](/codex/divine-command-theory/) | ## Form Defensive. P1 is a disambiguation. P2 and P3 yield the conclusion by **modus tollens**: if obligation depended entirely on satisfaction, it would vanish where satisfaction is absent; it does not vanish there; so it does not depend entirely on satisfaction. P4 adds a reductio against the view's strongest fallback. The positive conclusion is abductive: the Christian account explains why desire matters so much to the moral life without making it the source of moral authority. ## Premise 1, Three claims in one sentence ### Affirmative case 1. **Motivational claim:** "I obey God because I desire him." A report about why someone acts. Christians affirm it of the regenerate. 2. **Normative claim:** "I have a reason to obey because I desire him." A claim about what supplies reasons. It is the Humean theory of reasons applied to religion. 3. **Ontological claim:** "Obeying God is obligatory because I desire him." A claim about what makes the duty a duty. This is the claim the defeater rejects. 4. **The diagnostic question:** "Are you saying my satisfaction is what makes loving God obligatory, or that God's nature and authority make it obligatory whether or not I find satisfaction in it?" ### Anticipated objections 1. "This is hair-splitting. Motive and ground come to the same thing in practice." 2. "The regenerate person's desires and God's will coincide, so it doesn't matter which one we call the ground." ### Rebuttals 1. **They come apart exactly where morality matters most,** in temptation, suffering and enmity, when the person does not want to do what is right. A theory that cannot tell motive from ground has nothing to say at those moments. Failure mode: **equivocation on "reason"** (a reason that explains versus a reason that justifies). 2. **Agreement leaves the source question open.** A loving son's wishes may line up with his father's instructions, and the instructions still come from the father. And the coincidence is partial in this life ([Romans 7:15-25](/codex/romans-7-15-25/); [Galatians 5:17](/codex/galatians-5-17/)). Where it fails, the duty remains. ### Live-cite kit - **Scripture:** [Matthew 26:39](/codex/matthew-26-39/); [Romans 7:12](/codex/romans-7-12/). - **Scholarly:** Bernard Williams, "Internal and External Reasons" (1979); Michael Smith, *The Moral Problem* (1994). - **Aphorism:** "Why you want to keep a promise is one question. Why you have to keep it is another." ### Tactical notes - Ask the diagnostic question early and let the person choose. Many people offering the devotional version mean only the motivational claim and will say so gladly. - **What not to defend:** do not deny that desire matters to Christian obedience. The New Testament is full of joy, delight and love. ## Premise 2, Desire-grounding makes obligation rise and fall with desire ### Affirmative case 1. **That is what grounding means.** If X is what makes something obligatory, then where X is absent the obligation is absent. A ground that can be removed without removing what it grounds was never the ground. 2. **Hypothetical reasons behave this way.** "If you want to reach Boston, take the train" stops applying to someone who no longer wants to reach Boston. Desire-grounded duties would all be hypothetical in this sense, which is Kant's contrast between hypothetical and categorical imperatives. ### Anticipated objections 1. "Idealized desires fix duty: what you would want if you were fully informed and rational." ### Rebuttals 1. **Idealization smuggles in the standard.** Which idealization counts, and why? If the answer is "the desires a good and rational person would have," then goodness and rationality are doing the grounding, and desire is only tracking them. Failure mode: **circularity**; the standard is assumed in order to select the desires that are supposed to produce it. ### Live-cite kit - **Scholarly:** Kant, *Groundwork* (hypothetical versus categorical imperatives). - **Aphorism:** "A duty that disappears when you stop wanting it was only ever a preference." ### Tactical notes - Use the Boston example. It is concrete and nobody disputes it. ## Premise 3, Some duties bind where desire is absent or opposed ### Affirmative case 1. **Love of enemies.** "Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you" ([Matthew 5:44](/codex/matthew-5-44/), ASV) is addressed precisely to people who do not want to. 2. **Kant's philanthropist.** Kant describes a man whose own sorrows have extinguished all sympathy for others, who still helps them; then, he says, the action first has genuine moral worth, because it is done from duty (*Groundwork*, ch. 1). The duty did not leave when the feeling did. 3. **Parfit's future Tuesday.** A man who cares about his future except that he is indifferent to any agony on a future Tuesday still has every reason to avoid Tuesday agony (*Reasons and Persons*, sec. 46). Reasons outrun desires. 4. **The unregenerate under the law.** "The mind of the flesh ... is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be" ([Romans 8:7](/codex/romans-8-7/), ASV). Christianity holds every person accountable to God ([Romans 3:19](/codex/romans-3-19/)), including those who take no pleasure in him. 5. **The cruel man.** A man who takes pleasure in cruelty and none in kindness is, by the desire view, under no obligation to stop. Almost no one accepts that conclusion. ### Anticipated objections 1. "Deep down, everyone desires the good; the enemy-hater's true desire is to love." 2. "The cruel man is mistaken about what will really satisfy him." 3. "Christianity itself says obedience brings joy, so duty and satisfaction never really separate." ### Rebuttals 1. **Then 'true desire' means 'the good'.** Appeals to deep desire define desire by the good it ought to aim at, which concedes that the good is the standard. Augustine's point exactly: virtue is rightly *ordered* love (*City of God* XV.22), and the order is set by the good that the love is aimed at. 2. **Then satisfaction is measured by something outside it.** If the cruel man is wrong about what would satisfy him, there is a fact about what is good for him that does not depend on what he wants, which is the externalist's claim. 3. **Joy is the fruit, given in God's time.** Aquinas holds that perfect happiness is found in God alone (*Summa Theologiae* I-II q.2 a.8), and Scripture promises joy to obedience ([Hebrews 12:2](/codex/hebrews-12-2/), "who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross"). The joy was "set before him", that is, future; the cross was endured now. Duty and joy meet at the end, and they can stand far apart along the way. ### Live-cite kit - **Scripture:** [Matthew 5:44](/codex/matthew-5-44/); [Romans 8:7](/codex/romans-8-7/); [Hebrews 12:2](/codex/hebrews-12-2/). - **Scholarly:** Kant, *Groundwork*, ch. 1; Parfit, *Reasons and Persons* (1984), sec. 46. - **Aphorism:** "If the duty leaves when the desire leaves, the cruel man is innocent." ### Tactical notes - Lead with the cruel man for a general audience; lead with Kant's philanthropist for a philosophically trained one. - **Force-commit move:** "If an unregenerate person takes no pleasure in loving God, is he still obligated to love God?" A yes concedes the point. A no contradicts Christian teaching that all are accountable. ## Premise 4, Desire-grounding collapses into subjectivism ### Affirmative case 1. **Satisfactions conflict.** What satisfies the torturer contradicts what satisfies the victim. If satisfaction makes obligation, each is obligated to opposite things, and there is no fact about who is wrong. 2. **Moral reform becomes impossible to state.** The abolitionist and the slaveholder would each be right relative to their desires. See [Subjective Morality Defeater](/codex/subjective-morality-defeater/). ### Anticipated objections 1. "Maximize total satisfaction, then; that settles conflicts." ### Rebuttals 1. **Then a new principle is doing the work.** "One ought to maximize total satisfaction" is a normative premise the theory needs and cannot supply from anyone's desires. The theory has moved from desire-grounding to utilitarianism and owes a ground for that principle instead. See [Well-Being Cannot Ground Morality Defeater](/codex/well-being-cannot-ground-morality-defeater/) and [Is-Ought Fallacy](/codex/is-ought-fallacy/). ### Live-cite kit - **Aphorism:** "Your desires and mine disagree. Which one is the law?" ### Tactical notes - This premise is the fallback. Use it when the objector concedes P3 but retreats to "everyone's desires together". ## The devotional version, answered gently When a fellow believer says "our obligation is to love the God we have found pleasure in loving," he is usually describing something real and good: the regenerated heart that delights in God. Christians should affirm that. Three things should still be said, with care. 1. **Keep the ground in God.** The command to love God is "the great and first commandment" ([Matthew 22:38](/codex/matthew-22-38/), ASV) because of who God is, before anyone delights in it. 2. **Keep the unbeliever accountable.** If obligation required pleasure in God, the person who has none would owe nothing, which contradicts [Romans 1:18-21](/codex/romans-1-18-21/) and [Romans 3:19](/codex/romans-3-19/). 3. **Keep claims about unbelievers' inner lives modest.** Saying that every unbeliever is merely covering shame is a theological description drawn from [Romans 1:18](/codex/romans-1-18/), where people "hinder the truth in unrighteousness". In debate it is an assertion about the opponent's psychology, and he can deny it. Argue the grounding question instead. John Piper's "Christian Hedonism" (*Desiring God*, 1986), summed up in his line that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, is sometimes confused with desire-grounding. It is a claim about how God is glorified and what true joy is. Piper does not make human satisfaction the source of God's commands. See [John Piper](/codex/john-piper/). ## Master objections 1. **"You're just smuggling in God."** The defeater's negative conclusion (desire is not the ground) stands on Kant, Parfit and the cruel man, none of which mention God. The positive Christian account is offered after that as the best explanation of a ground that lies outside the agent. See [Moral Argument](/codex/moral-argument/). 2. **"Atheist moral realists also say duties bind regardless of desire."** True, and they agree with P3. The disagreement with them is about what grounds the desire-independent duty. See [Godless Normative Realism](/codex/godless-normative-realism/) and [Atheist Moral Realism Defeater](/codex/atheist-moral-realism-defeater/). ## Tactical opening and closing **Opening:** "I want to make sure I understand. Is your desire what makes the duty a duty, or what makes you want to keep it?" **Closing:** "Desire is the engine, and grace can rebuild the engine. The rulebook comes from God." ## Live-cite kit **Scripture (ASV):** - [Matthew 26:39](/codex/matthew-26-39/), "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." - [Romans 8:7](/codex/romans-8-7/), "the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be." - [Matthew 5:44](/codex/matthew-5-44/), "Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you." - [Psalm 40:8](/codex/psalms-40-8/), "I delight to do thy will, O my God; Yea, thy law is within my heart." **Scholarly:** - Kant, *Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals* (1785), ch. 1, the man who helps from duty after his sympathy has gone. - Parfit, *Reasons and Persons* (1984), sec. 46, future-Tuesday indifference. - Augustine, *City of God* XV.22, virtue as rightly ordered love. - Aquinas, *Summa Theologiae* I-II q.2 a.8, happiness in God alone. **Aphorism:** "Desire is the engine; the command is the rulebook." ## Connection to Scripture Scripture holds duty and delight together without confusing them. The law is holy before anyone loves it ([Romans 7:12](/codex/romans-7-12/)). God promises to change the heart so that his people walk in his statutes ([Ezekiel 36:26-27](/codex/ezekiel-36-26-27/)) and works in them "both to will and to work, for his good pleasure" ([Philippians 2:13](/codex/philippians-2-13/), ASV). The believer's love answers God's prior love ([1 John 4:19](/codex/1-john-4-19/)). Gethsemane shows the Son keeping the Father's will at the point where his human wish ran the other way ([Matthew 26:36-46](/codex/matthew-26-36-46/)). ## Patristic and scholarly note - **[Augustine](/codex/augustine/)** made rightly ordered love the heart of virtue (*City of God* XV.22): desire is good when it is ordered to the good, which means the good is its measure. - **[Thomas Aquinas](/codex/thomas-aquinas/)** held that every person seeks happiness and that only God can satisfy that desire (*Summa Theologiae* I-II q.2 a.8), while grounding obligation in the eternal law in which the natural law participates (I-II q.91 a.2). - **The Third Council of Constantinople** (680-681) affirmed two wills in Christ, human and divine, with the human will following the divine, which is the standard reading of Gethsemane. - **[Immanuel Kant](/codex/immanuel-kant/)** separated acting from inclination and acting from duty, and located moral worth in the second. - **[David Hume](/codex/david-hume/)** gave the theory of motivation the objection builds on; his heirs in the theory of reasons, from Bernard Williams onward, are the strongest form of it. See [Moral Motivation vs Moral Grounding](/codex/moral-motivation-vs-moral-grounding/). ## Scholarship Published academic works this page draws on, each matched to a publisher, index or library catalog record. - Derek Parfit, *Reasons and Persons* (Oxford University Press, 1984). [Open Library](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL3153829W) - John Piper, *Desiring God: meditations of a Christian hedonist* (1986). [Open Library](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1880193W) - Michael Smith, *The moral problem* (1995). [Open Library](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL3462306W) ## See also - [Moral Motivation vs Moral Grounding](/codex/moral-motivation-vs-moral-grounding/), the distinction this defeater applies - [Subjective Morality Defeater](/codex/subjective-morality-defeater/), where desire-grounding ends up - [Well-Being Cannot Ground Morality Defeater](/codex/well-being-cannot-ground-morality-defeater/), the reply to well-being as the ground of morality - [Divine Command Theory](/codex/divine-command-theory/), the Christian account of what makes obligation binding - [Robert Merrihew Adams](/codex/robert-merrihew-adams/), obligation as the command of a loving God - [Argument from Desire](/codex/argument-from-desire/), a different argument: Lewis on desires that point beyond this world - [Sanctification](/codex/sanctification/), how grace reorders desire - [Virtue Ethics](/codex/virtue-ethics/), rightly ordered love and the good life - [Moral Argument](/codex/moral-argument/), the parent argument
## Common questions this page answers **Q: Is morality just about fulfilling your desires?** Desire explains why people act, but it cannot be what makes an act right. Some duties, like loving enemies, bind people who have no desire to keep them, and if desire made duty, a man who enjoys cruelty would have no duty to stop. **Q: Is a moral duty still binding if I don't want to do it?** Yes. A duty that disappeared whenever the desire did would be a preference. Kant's example of a man who keeps helping others after his sympathy has dried up shows that the duty outlasts the feeling. **Q: What is wrong with ethical egoism and hedonism as foundations for morality?** Both make the agent's own interest or pleasure the measure of right. Since different people's interests and pleasures conflict, both views produce conflicting "obligations" with no fact about who is wrong, which collapses into moral subjectivism. **Q: What does Jesus in Gethsemane show about desire and duty?** In [Matthew 26:39](/codex/matthew-26-39/) Jesus asks that the cup pass from him, a real expressed wish, then says "nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." The text names two wills and places obedience with the Father's, showing that obedience and desire can run in opposite directions. **Q: Is Christian Hedonism the same as saying desire grounds morality?** No. John Piper's Christian Hedonism holds that God is most glorified when people are most satisfied in him. It is a claim about worship and true joy, and it keeps God's commands grounded in who God is. **Q: Is an unbeliever who takes no pleasure in God still obligated to love God?** Christianity says yes: the command to love God is the first commandment for everyone, and [Romans 8:7](/codex/romans-8-7/) describes the law of God standing over a mind that will not submit to it. That is why satisfaction cannot be the ground of the obligation.