Are People Defined by their Desires?

Okay, maybe that's a strange question to ask.  If I were to ask you about someone, you'd probably tell me such things as their height and weight, how old they are, where they're from, stuff like that.  None of that is related to desires in any way.  But, if I were to ask you, "What is that person like?  Not in physical aspects, but mentally.  What type of person is that person?" you might tell me how they act, how they interact with others, hobbies, things like that.  All of these features can perhaps be explained as a result of desires.  It's more than that though.  I would go so far as to say that one's actions can be explained as the result of one's desires.  So, in the same sense as the phrase "people are defined by their actions," I ask the question, "Are people defined by their desires?"

When you do something, you can explain it as the result of some desire.  You drink a glass of water.  Why?  Well, you wanted to.  You desired to drink a glass of water.  And now, similar to what I discussed about memory organization, you can group your desires by taking smaller, more specific desires, and grouping them into larger, broader desires.  You wanted to drink a glass of water, sure.  But that's because your body was telling you that you were thirsty, and you didn't want to feel uncomfortable from your body telling you you were thirsty.  So, you drank water because you desired to get rid of your discomfort.  But your body makes you uncomfortable so that you will do the things necessary to survive.  So, you drank water in part because you desired to continue living.  Or at least that's one possible reason you might have for drinking water.  Maybe you weren't thirsty at all, but you were in a water-drinking competition, and you were drinking water because you wanted to win the competition because you wanted the fame because you wanted attention because...

For a more fundamental argument, you can define the concept of wants or desires as: the internal reasons behind, or the internal factors that lead to, the decisions you make.  Now, to justify this definition, I would have to argue why this definition matches the general perception of what wants and desires are, which is tedious and difficult.  The counter argument is easy though, if you can find one example where this definition doesn't really make sense, then you've completed the counter argument.  There's one other small note: this definition implies that people do make decisions, which brings up questions such as, "Is there really such a thing as free will?" but that's another topic.  For now it'll just be taken as a given; your desires are the factors that lead to the decisions you make.

And now for that question.  "Why should I care?  What good is this view?"  Well don't worry, of course I have an answer.

In many areas I see this as an intermediate step.  Rather than trying to answer the question, "What causes people to have the personalities they have?" it may be simpler and more effective to break the question into two parts: "What desires characterize an individual's personality?" and "What causes these desires?"  And it doesn't just have to be general personality.  Try putting in personality "disorders", and ask the questions, "What desires characterize a personality disorder?" and "What causes these desires?" Look at any of the links here, and tell me how they are diagnosed, or how they are defined.  They're defined by the small specific personality traits.  I think this is missing a bigger picture.  The understanding of a personality disorder would be so much stronger if you could identify large, general desires that lead to the personality disorder.  Let me attempt to do so with the schizoid personality, simplifying the World Health Organization's 9 characteristics into one desire: the desire to avoid feeling pain from criticism.  This desire overpowers the desire to form connections with others.  The criteria can be explained from the attempts to satisfy the desire to avoid criticism.

1. Emotional coldness, detachment or reduced affect. --- Possible explanation: Emotional distress from being judged is felt stronger than other emotions; the attempt to reduce this leads to what others may see as emotional coldness.
2. Limited capacity to express either positive or negative emotions towards others. --- Possible explanation: Preferences are subject to criticism and are therefore limited; expression of emotion is generally an expression of preference and is limited as well.
3. Consistent preference for solitary activities. --- Possible explanation: Criticism is avoided by being alone.
4. Very few, if any, close friends or relationships, and a lack of desire for such. --- Possible explanation: Same as explanation for 3.
5. Indifference to either praise or criticism. --- Possible explanation: A result of attempting to reduce the feelings felt due to others' judgments.
6. Taking pleasure in few, if any, activities. --- Possible explanation: Same as 2.
7. Indifference to social norms and conventions. --- Possible explanation: Result from being detached from others, or similar to 1?
8. Preoccupation with fantasy and introspection. --- Possible explanation: Same as 3.
9. Lack of desire for sexual experiences with another person. --- Possible explanation: Same as 3.

Now I don't mean to say that this is the absolute reason why people develop the schizoid personality, I'm just using it as an example (although, all the explanations sound very plausible to me...).  If you can understand a broad reason for a personality disorder, then it becomes easier to identify and categorize that disorder, and also easier to understand the variations that exist within people who have the same personality disorder.  This is how I believe that personalities, and personality traits and disorders, should be studied.  Rather than trying to find the small and specific what's (what does a person do and feel in various situations), the search should be for the general why's (why does a person do and feel these things).  And it is this question that I am saying can be answered by desires.  If you want to truly understand people, personalities, and behaviors, then what you want to know is not specific actions and feelings, but the larger why's behind the actions and feelings.

I think it's worth mentioning that that's never an easy question to answer.  Your answer will be heavily swayed by your own views and your own personality, because that is what is easier for you to see.  Here's a rough example: Say you're walking towards a door and someone a bit ahead of you rushes in without holding it open.  What do you take from this?  That person is concerned only with themselves, and so they probably desire having their own time and the things they want and they might be selfish.  Or what about this?  That person was considering the fact that, if you are a considerate person, you might feel pressured to rush so that they won't have to hold the door open as long, and so it might be better not to hold the door open.  If that sounds absurd to you, then there's a whole area of the personality space that will be tough for you to see.  I think this difficulty in seeing alternate views is normal, because, even if you know of the difficulties and the differences and try your best to see things in the way that people who are different from you see them, it's still very hard.  Which is why you can't always place too much faith in your understanding of other people.  If you want the best answer, you should do it as you should science: attempt to find the best answer given what you know, but allow your answer to change when you find another answer more strongly supported by the data.