ABSTRACT
This is a defense of the reality and importance of desire in explanations of action and analyses of emotion, including moral action and emotion. Recent objections by Thomas Nagel, Don Locke, and Mitchell Staude center on a distinction between two senses of “desire.” This distinction is accepted but shown to be benign. In the process, important differences are brought out between being in a motivational or a feeling state on the one hand and, on the other, being in a state of desire.
