The Threefold Nature of Desire and Its Implications for Ethics and Theology

Abstract

The study distinguishes three principal forms of desire: bodily desires, desires for perfection, and desires entailed in value-responses. By distinguishing between the self-centered, acquisitive desires for perfection and the inherently self-transcending desires entailed in value-responses, the author lays the groundwork for his most original contributions. First, he argues that if the traditional concept of the good as an object of desire is a formal object of the desire for perfection and if cultivating desires entailed in value-responses is as important for one’s perfection as cultivating one’s desires for perfection, then the traditional notion of the good should be supplemented by the category of value as the important-in-itself. Second, he argues that distinguishing categorically between the desires for perfection and the desires entailed in value-responses opens up the possibility for a philosophical argument for attributing the latter desires to the absolutely perfect being. Here is the core of the argument: if desiring something necessarily means lacking something, then God cannot be both desiring and absolutely perfect; however, if it can be cogently argued that the desires entailed in value-responses are perfections rather than imperfections, then they can be attributed to an absolutely perfect being.

1. Introduction

“As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?” (Ps. 42:1–2, Bible 2021). These famous verses from Psalm 42, as well as many poems from antiquity to the present day, use images of physical desires, such as thirst and hunger, to poetically express different kinds of desire. In the psalm, this desire is for spiritual union with God. Such verses exploit the fact that, despite being radically different, types of desire have certain features in common. However, despite some elements being common to all desires, there are also essential differences between the various forms of desire. This paper aims to draw a clear distinction between bodily desire, the desire for perfection, and a type of desire that has largely been neglected thus far: the desire for a deeper union with the object or person who is the addressee of a specific type of affective intentional act. The German phenomenologist Dietrich von Hildebrand categorized this type of act as an affective value-response.

The paper’s most original contribution is its elaboration of the distinction between the desire entailed in certain value-responses and the desire for perfection. The latter plays a fundamental role in the Western interpretation of love as eros and its transformation into caritas by Augustine. I demonstrate the importance of distinguishing between the noble desire for one’s own perfection—which, however, is ultimately self-regarding—and an even nobler desire for a deeper union with the beloved, which is entirely selfless, by drawing two consequences of this distinction for two fundamental issues in ethics and theology.

The first issue is the question of the conceptual articulation of the most fundamental axiological category: the good, traditionally speaking, or value, in modern terms. Based on the distinction between desires for perfection and desires entailed in value-responses, I argue for supplementing the traditional notion of the good as, ultimately, an object of desire with the notion of value as the important-in-itself. The second issue is whether the concept of desire can literally be attributed to an absolutely perfect being. I argue, based on the aforementioned distinction, that desires entailed in value-responses do not imply imperfection, but rather perfection, and can therefore be attributed to an absolutely perfect being.

2. The Constitutive Feature of Every Desire: The Experience of a Lack, and the Impulse to Fill That Lack by Acquiring What Is Perceived as Missing

Before pointing out the differences between various kinds of desire, it is important to state the common underlying feature of each concrete desire and of all kinds of desire. It seems that we owe to Plato both the first conceptual articulation and the first symbolic expression of this feature. Socrates refers to it in his short exchange with Agathon in Plato’s Symposium. Although the exchange between the two is about the nature of Eros, they are actually talking about the nature of desire. For, unlike the previous speakers in the dialog, Socrates does not consider Eros to be a god, but rather a personification of love in the sense of desire. Thus, for Socrates, the most fundamental characteristic of Eros is the same as the most fundamental characteristic of desire. This most fundamental characteristic is the fact that the desiring subject must not possess the object of his desire.1

This constitutive feature of every desire is not to be understood in the sense of a lack in an objective sense, as, for example, Aristotle understands the privation (steresis) of form (Aristotle 1994–2009, I,7). The kind of lack implied in Socrates’ argument is not simply, or even primarily, that A is not in possession of X as an objective fact. Rather, it is a conscious subject’s awareness of not possessing something it longs to possess. This awareness is usually based on the fact that the subject in question does not actually possess what it experiences as being deprived of. However, this objective lack of X is not, in itself, what constitutes this subject’s desire. The relative independence of the conscious act of desiring from the objective lack of X is demonstrated by the fact that a conscious subject only needs to think that it is deprived of X in order to be able to desire it, even if it is not deprived of it in reality. Thus, to give an example, someone may desire to be loved in return as long as he thinks he is not, even though he is actually loved in return. This means that the necessary condition for desiring something is not that the conscious subject does not possess what it desires, but rather that it thinks it does not possess it. In other words, the necessary condition for desiring an object is the experience of lacking it, rather than lacking it in the objective sense of being deprived of it.

Based on Socrates’ argument with Agathon, this constitutive feature of desire can be refined further. This argument shows that the subjective experience of lack cannot be limited to the mere recognition of not having the desired object; it necessarily entails what I will call a “negative experience.” An example of such a “negative experience” could be an unpleasant sensation such as hunger or thirst, a “painful thought” such as the realization of one’s own limitations, imperfections, deficiencies, etc. I will analyze below what this “negative experience” amounts to in each of the different types of desire. A generalizing way of describing such an experience is to say that we experience a “lack,” a “deficiency,” that we feel that we are “missing” something. In Diotima’s speech, following the exchange between Socrates and Agathon, this type of experience is symbolized by Eros’ origin from his mother Penia (poverty). In this Platonic text, the generative relationship between parent and offspring symbolically represents the awareness of lack as a constitutive feature of desire as a specific type of conscious experience.

Based on this awareness of a lack, or “negative experience,” the conscious subject experiences an impulse in a specific direction. The direction of this impulse is determined by the content of what is experienced as lacking. For example, on the “negative experience” of being hungry, an impulse is built up either in the general direction of “something to eat,” or, if there is something to eat right in front of me and it looks tasty, the impulse is in a specific direction: to eat this food right here in front of me. In the myth of the origin of Eros in the Symposium, this impulse which builds organically on the experience of lack, is symbolically represented by Poros, the father of Eros. Poros is literally “a means of passage,” “way,” “opening.” In Diotima’s speech, this idea of a “way” or “opening” is interpreted as the inventiveness of finding the means to come into possession of what I feel is lacking (Plato 2003b, 203 d). However, if it is interpreted more freely, it could also indicate the “direction” in which the person is made to look and move by the respective impulse.

As already mentioned, the awareness of lack and the impulse to eliminate it is articulated differently in every kind of desire. Nevertheless, both can be viewed as formal constituents of desire as a specific type of conscious act.

3. Bodily Desires

Two classical examples of bodily desire are hunger and thirst.2 They are two of the most basic bodily sensations, yet they differ in quality, intensity, and the way they shape our awareness. Thirst often begins subtly—a dry mouth, a slightly parched throat. As it intensifies, it can become a persistent, almost sharp discomfort. The tongue may feel thick, the lips dry and chapped. There is a narrowing of focus: the mind begins to circle around the thought of water. In extreme cases, thirst can feel like a kind of desperation, a craving not just for moisture but for life itself, because dehydration quickly affects the body’s core functions. It can make the body feel sluggish and the mind foggy. Hunger, on the other hand, often builds up more slowly. It may start with a hollow feeling in the stomach, a slight ache or rumbling. Over time, the body starts to feel weaker, perhaps dizzy. Unlike thirst, which can be sharp and dry, hunger has a deeper, more internal quality—it is a nagging, a kind of emptiness that wants to be filled. It can affect mood—irritability, restlessness. Both hunger and thirst can alter our perceptions, making food and drink smell more acutely, taste better than they normally do, etc.

As we can see from this brief comparative description, the awareness of lack has a slightly different character in each case. The same is true of the impulse towards the object that can fill this lack: food or drink. What these two and all other bodily desires have in common is the apparently paradoxical fact that, on the one hand, they testify to the rootedness of human experience in the physical processes of the human body. On the other hand, they are conscious acts and, as such, irreducible to physical processes. It is this ambivalence that makes the question of whether bodily desire is an intentional act a rich and nuanced one. The answer to it depends on what we mean by “intentional.” In phenomenology, particularly in the tradition of Brentano, Husserl, and thinkers like von Hildebrand, “intentionality” refers to the aboutness of a mental act—its being directed toward an object. So, when we talk about intentional acts, we are speaking of experiences that are directed toward something, like thinking about a tree, desiring a drink, or fearing a threat. Hunger, thirst, and other bodily desires, as bodily states, are not intentional in this sense, or at least, not quite. They are more like sensations or felt bodily needs—they do not, on their own, “intend” or “mean” something. To use the previously introduced metaphor, the “direction” these bodily desires point to is not as “mental” and as “specific” as the intentional relationship between subject and object. For example, hunger is a felt lack or discomfort in the body, not directed at a particular food unless shaped by higher-level acts. Thirst is a sensation, not a desire for water unless mediated by consciousness. Thus, it seems more appropriate to categorize bodily desires, such as hunger or thirst, as pre-intentional or quasi-intentional, in that they can motivate intentional acts, but are not themselves acts of consciousness directed at an object in the way that, say, thinking or imagination are. But they can give rise to intentional acts. Hunger can lead to the desire for food, which is an intentional act. That is, as soon as hunger is thematized or reflected upon, or as soon as we find ourselves longing for a particular food, we are dealing with a proper intentional act.

If the intentionality of physiologically based desires such as hunger or thirst comes from the conscious life of the person, the material content of these sensations, that is, the sensation of the lack and the impulse originating from it in its pre-intentional form, results from physiological processes which, unlike both pre-intentional and intentional acts, are not consciously lived from within. The fact that pre-intentional sensations such as hunger and thirst depend on physiological processes sets them apart from desires for perfection and desires entailed in value-responses. The dynamism of bodily desires originates in the subconscious sphere of physiological processes and, through our intentional relationship with objects, extends to the sphere of external reality. Ultimately, it is because certain physiological processes in my body cause the sensation we call hunger that I focus my consciousness on the outside world in a specific way. I approach it with the pragmatic focus of searching for food. What stands out in my perceptual field is what is potentially capable of satisfying my hunger. In this sense, bodily desires narrow and focus our perception of reality.3 By contrast, the dynamism of the desire for perfection originates in our conscious and intentional relationship with reality. It is not triggered by subconscious physiological processes but by our intentional relationships with objects and persons. Although the way reality is experienced depends on subjective factors here too, these factors are not at the level of physiological processes but are tied to the conscious sphere. Even when these factors are unconscious, such as the causes of value-blindness, they still belong to the sphere of personal consciousness rather than sub-personal physiology.4

4. Desires for Perfection

Just as bodily desires testify to the existential dependence of conscious life on physiological processes, so desires for perfection testify to the human ability to transcend one’s physiological limitations. It seems that the lowest level at which we can find the capacity to transcend one’s immanent teleology rooted in bodily instincts and urges is due to the fact that humans are social animals, as Aristotle famously defined them. Many non-bodily desires stem from our social nature. Their dominant theme is what Aristotle called honor (time): social recognition for who one is and what one does (Aristotle 1985, 1095b22-1096a4). However, since as Aristotle observed, honor “seems to depend more on those who honor than on the one honored” (Aristotle 1985, 1095b25–26), the qualities that are most honored in a given society may not be those that most deserve to be honored. Therefore, whatever is desired with the desire for social recognition will not be desired primarily for its own sake, but for the sake of the social recognition that the desiring person believes he or she will acquire on the basis of the desired object. As a result, many different objects may be desired by this type of desire, depending on the prevailing opinion about what makes one “honorable” in the given society. For this reason, this type of desire for perfection is to be classified more properly as a desire for a perfect social image than as a desire for perfection as such.

Less superficial than the desire for an excellent social image is the desire for some actual perfections. This field is extremely broad, ranging from physical perfection, such as strength, vitality, and endurance, to intellectual perfection, such as brilliance and depth of knowledge, and artistic excellence, such as virtuosity in playing a musical instrument. Unlike bodily desires and desire for a perfect social image, these desires for perfection are triggered by what von Hildebrand called value-responses.5 The object of this type of desire is always the value to which the desiring person gives her value-response. For example, I may admire the artistic excellence of a musical performance, which could inspire my desire to become an excellent musician myself.6 Note that, unlike the desire for a perfect social image, it is the value itself that triggers this desire, not its expediency in gaining social recognition. This does not deny that our desires are often ambiguous in real life. For example, I may want to become a classical guitar virtuoso because I want to fulfill the noble purpose of realizing high aesthetic values through my playing, as well as because I want to be admired as an excellent artist.

In some cases, it is the underlying value-response that primarily triggers the desire for perfection. At other times, it is the experience of one’s cognitive, metaphysical, or moral imperfections that sparks this desire. Experiencing one’s own fallibility in knowledge may give rise to the desire for infallible knowledge. An experience of one’s contingency may give rise to a desire for “eternal life.” An experience of one’s moral weakness may lead to a desire for moral excellence. However, although these desires primarily arise from a sense of lack, this lack would never be experienced without an underlying value cognition and value-response. I would never be able to perceive my fallibility in knowing as a negative trait if I were unable to grasp the value of infallible knowledge, even when it presents itself as an ideal or a limit concept. If I did not understand the superiority of a more perfect existence, I would never be able to experience my contingent existence as deficient. If I could not see the beauty and goodness of moral virtue, I would never be able to recognize my moral weakness as a negative quality. This does not mean that our value-responses are always based on value cognitions. We all know that what sometimes seems worthwhile later turns out to be worthless, or perhaps even worse than that. The claim advanced here is simply that, unlike bodily desires, desires for perfection are ultimately rooted in what a given conscious subject recognizes as worthy of acquisition rather than in physiological processes taking place in the body.

This difference between bodily desires and desires for perfection results in a different kind of teleology in each. The characteristic feature of the teleology at work in bodily desires is that the telos does not have to be consciously sought by the desiring subject in order for it to be pursued and attained. As we have seen in the examples of hunger and thirst, the impulse generated by the respective “unpleasant experience” is directed towards some form of pleasure or the numbing of an unpleasant sensation. However, thanks to the structure of our bodily instincts, this direct end serves the fulfillment of a higher end. For example, the dissatisfaction we call hunger urges me to eat. Most of the time, I eat in order to satisfy my hunger. This is the “end by which” of my action. But without being aware of it, my satiation serves a higher end, namely providing my body with the substances that are necessary for its nourishment. This is “the end for the sake of which” of my action. We will see that in desires for perfection, the object of our desire is always “the end for the sake of which.” This is because, as Spaemann points out, practical reasoning, unlike instinctive stirring, aims directly at “the end for the sake of which” the action is taken (Spaemann 1989, pp. 123–25).

5. Desires Entailed in Value-Responses

Desires for perfection usually arise from value cognitions and value-responses. However, not all higher desires originate from value-responses in this way. Some desires are even more intimately related to value-responses than being occasioned by them. They are inherent in value-responses themselves. In Aristotelian terms, we could say that these desires “potentially exist” in value-responses. Using the terminology of logic, we can say that value-responses are not only necessary conditions for such desires to exist, but also sufficient ones. Although these desires could be said to perfect the desiring subject, they are not motivated by the subject’s striving for perfection. Because these desires are inherent in the value-responses themselves, I dub them “desires entailed in value-responses.”

In his unpublished typescript, “Call of Values,” Dietrich von Hildebrand points out the existence of such desires. He also identifies the value-responses in which they are entailed and tries to explain why some value-responses entail desires while others do not.7 His central idea in this regard is that certain value-responses “necessarily and organically” entail a desire for union with the desired object (or person) that goes beyond the level of union already achieved by the value-response itself. He notes that some value-responses entail such a desire, while others do not.8 For example, an act of kindness deserves appreciation. It would be inappropriate, or even rude, to ignore it. However, showing adequate appreciation for the gesture is all this value-response is about. It does not imply a desire for a deeper union with the person who performed the act of kindness. Similarly, when Jack Dawson sees Rose DeWitt Bukater considering suicide by jumping off the stern of the Titanic, he acts in response to her life’s value. His response does not imply a desire for deeper union with her. The only desire it entails is to stop her from killing herself. However, once Jack and Rose fall in love, their love for each other becomes a prime example of a value-response involving a desire for a deeper union with the beloved.9 In his analysis of the nature of love, von Hildebrand (2009, pp. 123–46) refers to this kind of desire as “intentio unionis.” Other examples of value-responses that entail such a desire for a deeper union with its addressee include love of the beauty of art and nature, and love of a community (von Hildebrand 1977).10

Not only does von Hildebrand offer examples of value-responses that entail a desire for deeper union with their object, but he also attempts to explain why some value-responses entail such desires while others do not. The most effective summary of his attempt to answer this difficult question comes from von Hildebrand himself: “values possess two different aspects; an outer aspect and an inner aspect. In both a fundamental objective element of the value is revealed. In some situations, only one of the two aspects is given to us, in others they are both speaking to us. According to the aspect in which the value addresses us, another type of value-response is demanded. As long as the value presents itself in the outer aspect, two main types of value-response are in question. Firstly, the appreciative type of value-response, the prototype of which is esteem. Secondly the obedience type of value-response, the prototype of which is the will in the strict sense of the term. When the realization or conservation of a good or the averting of an evil is in question, the value-response of will is demanded. When the situation is such that the good is realized and its coming to existence is not at stake, the appreciative element of the value-response is demanded. When the value presents itself in the inner aspect, again two main types of value-response are demanded. Firstly, the affective value-response the prototype of which is joy. Secondly, the value-response in which the union is specifically thematic and where the value-response contains an inner movement which initiates a union surpassing the value-response as such. Whether the first or the second type of value-response is demanded depends on the specific nature of the good, the specific nature of its value, the nature of the awareness of the value, etc. Only in the case of the value-response the prototype of which is love, an intentio unionis issues necessarily and organically from the value-response or, in other words, the value invites us to a new dimension of partaking in the value which surpasses the union which is accomplished in the value-response as such” (von Hildebrand 1977).11

6. Different Role of Value-Response in Desires for Perfection and in Desires Entailed in Value-Responses

The difference between the desires for perfection discussed in Section 3 and the desires entailed in value-responses discussed in Section 4 may seem subtle. One might ask what difference it makes whether a desire is merely occasioned by a value-response, as with desires for perfection, or whether it is necessarily and organically entailed in it, as with desires entailed in value-responses. After all, both necessarily presuppose value-responses. In the next section, I will indicate some of the crucial consequences of this seemingly minor difference. Here, I will explore this difference in more detail and explain what it actually consists in.

The desire for perfection is primarily directed towards the possession of a certain good, which is desired for its (alleged or actual) perfecting effect on the person desiring it. The desire to be perfect is definitely a very noble desire particularly, when it concerns moral or even spiritual perfection. It seems to be an appropriate response to the call of Scripture: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). However, if the desire for perfection is modeled on Platonic Eros, that is, the desire to acquire true goodness and virtue permanently, it is essentially “acquisitive” and ultimately “egocentric” (Nygren 1969, pp. 175–81). While it is not egoistic in the sense of seeking pleasure and self-gratification, it is ultimately self-centered in the sense that it approaches the good from the perspective of its beneficiary and its perfective effect on the desiring subject.

At the same time, however, the fact that these ultimately self-centered and acquisitive desires are impossible without value-responses means that they are necessarily connected with acts which, by their essence, are other-centered. The desire for artistic or intellectual excellence illustrates this feature very well. In order to become an excellent artist or scientist, one must first of all devote oneself to the innumerable partial goals that lie in that field, largely, though not entirely, for their own sake. An aspiring musician must learn to love music, his instrument, his audience, all for their own sake, and not to regard them merely as means to the virtuosity he aims to achieve. He must learn to admire his role models, his “heroes.” He can do so with the overriding motivation that this helps him to become a great artist but the admiration for his role models has either a value-responding (and thus other-regarding) character or it is not admiration at all. And without genuine admiration for his role models and genuine dedication to the respective art, he would never become a true virtuoso. This example illustrates the general rule that, in order to be fulfilled, the desire for perfection requires one to transcend the self-centered search for one’s own perfection and respond to values for their own sake. However, these moments of genuine self-transcendence and selfless dedication in the pursuit of perfection are, in a sense, bent backwards towards the self-interest of the desiring subject. For it is this noble, ultimate self-interest that holds the entire motivational complex together, giving it unity, scope, and a mobilizing force.

By contrast, the desires entailed in value-responses can never become such overarching, ultimately self-centered desires that value-responses would be integrated into. Instead, these desires can only exist as integral and organic components of value-responses themselves. If value-responses were not other-regarding and self-transcending, the desire to unite with their object would never arise. Therefore, these desires are rooted in the most essential aspect of value-responses themselves: their self-transcending, value-oriented nature.

Moreover, unlike the desire for perfection, the desire entailed in a value-response does not stem from the realization that the desiring subject is imperfect in some way. It stems from the delightful experience of fullness on the side of the object: “fullness” or “richness” being here another name for value (i.e., the intrinsic preciousness of a being), or, more specifically, of the “sweet,” attractive aspect of value, i.e., its charm and beauty. It is true that this “experience of fullness” can also give rise to a feeling of lacking something, namely a deeper union with the beautiful object or the beloved person. This only confirms what was said in Section 1: that every desire presupposes an awareness of a lack, or “negative experience.” However, in the case of desires entailed in value-responses, this awareness of a lack does not stem from the subject’s realization of a perceived defect or incapacity. Rather, it stems from the individual’s ability to transcend oneself in pursuit of a deeper union with valuable objects or loved ones. This could be argued to be a form of perfection, both psychologically and metaphysically. As I will propose in the next section, if this argument is sound, it can have significant theological implications.

Once we have distinguished between the desire for perfection and the desire entailed in a value-response, we can ask how these two desires are related to each other, or rather, how they ought to be related. To begin to unravel this, we should recall what was mentioned in passing: that although the desires entailed in value-responses are not desires for perfection themselves, they are nevertheless perfective of the desiring subject. Firstly, they are perfective because they are entailed in value-responses, which could themselves be considered perfective with respect to the conscious subject capable of performing them. Furthermore, they demonstrate the subject’s capacity to transcend itself not only in the sense of giving valuable objects their due, as with estimative value-responses, but also in its ability to form a deeper union with valuable objects and beloved persons. Now, suppose that the person striving for noble perfection experiences these desires and recognizes their objectively perfective trait. She will consequently approve of them and consider them an important, if not essential, element in her pursuit of perfection. However, if this person correctly understands the nature of these desires, she would never try to integrate them into her desire for perfection in any way other than by inwardly approving of the value-responses from which they arise and making room for them in her life.12 This is because she would understand that, by trying to “integrate” these value-responses and the desires they entail into her desire for perfection by turning them into a means to an end, she would hamper and eventually throttle them. Consequently, she would not reach the goal to which she deployed them as a means. This means that, in order to be successful in one’s search for perfection, one must learn to cultivate some desires that are entirely selfless. This insight could be considered part of the virtue of prudence.

7. Implications for Ethics and Theology

In concluding this paper, I would like to briefly mention two notable consequences of what could be argued to be a lack of awareness of the distinction between desires for perfection and desires arising from value-responses in our Western philosophical tradition. I will leave the full elaboration of the first consequence for some later work of mine, and the second consequence for professional theologians.

The first consequence of failing to distinguish more clearly between the desires entailed in value-responses and the desire for perfection is that the most fundamental axiological category in our philosophical tradition, namely the traditional notion of the good, has arguably been influenced too much by the formal object of the desire for perfection and not enough by the formal object of the desire entailed in value-responses. The formal object of the desire for perfection is that which allegedly or in reality perfects the desiring subject. It seems that the traditional notion of “good” was largely articulated in terms of an object of desire for perfection.13

Arguably, Plato’s Symposium is the first Western philosophical text to conceptualize the good in this way. Diotima famously defines desiring love (erōs) as “the desire to possess the good forever” (Plato 2003b, 206a). In the context of her speech, the structural connection between desire and the good implied by this definition is to be understood as meaning that the good is an object of desire for true happiness (eudaimonia), which can only be achieved through the permanent possession of the highest good—ultimately through an ecstatic vision of the idea of beauty—and through true virtue (areté), which is gained through this vision (Plato 2003b, 212a).

The same concept of the good appears in the opening section of the first book of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. The book’s famous opening reads as follows: “Every craft (technē) and every investigation (methodos), and likewise every action (praxis) and decision (proairesis), seems to aim at some good; hence the good has been well described as that at which everything aims” (Aristotle 1985, 1094a1-3). It is precisely the beginning of the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics to which Aquinas refers when, 1700 years later, he reiterates the same definition of the good: “For the essence of goodness (ratio boni) consists in this, that it is in some way desirable (appetibile). Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. i): ‘Goodness is what all desire.’ Now it is clear that a thing is desirable only in so far as it is perfect; for all things desire their own perfection” (Aquinas 2020, I, q. 5, a. 1, corpus).

This passage not only explicitly links Aquinas’s definition of the good to Aristotle’s, it also explicates what is implicit in the understanding of the good held by both Aristotle and Plato: the good is not merely an object of desire (erōs, orexis, epithymia), but the object of desire for perfection.14 Now, the difference in what perfection means for Aquinas, i.e., being in actu as opposed to being in potentia, compared to Plato may be significant, but the salient point is that the definitions are virtually identical in their formal conceptual articulation of the good. The traditional account of the good, particularly as set out by Aquinas, encompasses not only desirability, but also the self-diffusivity of the good. This dimension of the good also has roots in ancient philosophy. It originates in Plotinus’s account of the One-Good as an infinite creative activity that necessarily “overflows” and produces lower hypostases. It seems that Aquinas derived the principle “bonum diffusivum sui” from Dionysius the Areopagite’s On the Divine Names. However, Aquinas’s use of this principle does not appear to extend his understanding of the good beyond the category of an object of desire. Consider, for example, what he says in what is perhaps the most central passage on the topic: the Summa Theologiae, I, q. 5. In article 4, he states that “goodness is described as self-diffusive in the sense that an end is said to move” (Aquinas 2020, I, q. 5, a. 4). Now, the good is an end because it is desirable (cum bonum sit quod omnia appetunt, hoc autem habet rationem finis, I, q.5, a. 4, corpus). Therefore, it is the desirability of the good that causes it to act as an end. We can therefore conclude that Aquinas understood the principle of the self-diffusivity of the good to mean that it is the desirability of the good that makes it “diffusive.” The good is communicated, shared, and participated as it is desired. Therefore, the self-diffusiveness of the good seems to be merely a consequence of its desirability rather than representing a step beyond the concept of the good as an object of desire. This conclusion would need to be confirmed through a more comprehensive analysis of Aquinas’ texts.

It is neither possible nor necessary to document the pervasive impact of the traditional account of the good on our philosophical tradition. Not only the scholastic tradition and its later continuation, but also many contemporary thinkers—especially those associated with virtue ethics—assume the validity of this formal definition of the good as a matter of course. And yet, if cultivating desires entailed in value-responses is crucial for achieving perfection, and if the formal object of these desires is not the good as an object of desire for perfection, but rather value in the sense of what is important in itself—both in terms of what appeals to us in order to give value its due, and what invites and incites us to achieve a deeper union with the valuable object—then it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that we require a more comprehensive understanding of the most fundamental axiological category than the traditional notion of the good as an object of desire for perfection. Therefore, we should consider supplementing this concept by the category of value in the sense of that which is important in itself. For it is value in this sense that is the formal object of desires such as love, which are crucial for achieving human perfection.

This leads to the second consequence, namely interpreting the desire for a deeper union with a loved one as a desire for perfection. Perhaps the most famous example of this interpretation of love is Diotima’s speech in Plato’s Symposium. The following citation from von Hildebrand’s book on love encapsulates the argument that interpreting the lover’s desire for a deeper union with their beloved as a desire for perfection is controversial: “There is perhaps no other element of love that has been more often misunderstood than the intentio unionis [the desire for union with the beloved person]. Already in the Symposium of Plato, where the importance of the values on the object side, that is in the beloved person, is so strongly stressed, the intentio unionis is interpreted as a will to grow by participating in the values of the beloved person. Love is thus only a demi-god, the son of Poros (Plenty) and Penia (Neediness); for it presupposes the relative imperfection of the one who loves, who needs to grow through participation in the values of the beloved person. And so while love is a response to the beauty of the beloved, it is for Plato no real value-response; in particular the intentio unionis is interpreted by him as a longing for the perfection of one’s own person. The intentio unionis is not understood as an element of value-response, but rather as an appetitus. The inner movement of love is not seen as a value-response, as something the source of which is value, as an act of self-donation having a strongly transcendent character, but rather as something that is indeed engendered by the beauty of the other but that in the final analysis turns to the beloved out of an immanent yearning for perfection” (von Hildebrand 2009, p. 123).

The famous conclusion drawn from this potentially controversial interpretation of love as a desire to “grow through participation in the values of the beloved person” is Nygren’s assertion that eros, as a “fundamental motif,” must be completely abandoned in a truly Christian life because this life must imitate God’s love for man (agape), which is entirely selfless and unmotivated by any value of its object (Nygren 1969, pp. 46–48, 61–81). One consequence of Nygren’s (1969) contraposition of eros and agape as two “fundamental (religious) motifs” (pp. 200–34) and identification of the Triune God with agape (pp. 146–59) is the categorical denial of the possibility of attributing eros, or desiring love, canonically expressed in Diotima’s speech in Plato’s Symposium, to God. However, if we interpret love as von Hildebrand does—as an act that essentially involves responding to a value and entails intentio unionis—then we might have conceptual resources at our disposal that enable us to attribute a particular type of desire to God, who is agape. This desire is obviously neither bodily desire nor desire for perfection but rather desire for deeper union with the object of His love, above all with human persons. It seems that at least some prominent Christian theologians recognize the need for such an attribution.

Perhaps most notably, in his encyclical Deus caritas est, Benedict XVI not only attributes eros to God. He also explicitly states that God’s eros is “totally agape”: “The one God in whom Israel believes, on the other hand, loves with a personal love. His love, moreover, is an elective love: among all the nations he chooses Israel and loves her—but he does so precisely with a view to healing the whole human race. God loves, and his love may certainly be called eros, yet it is also totally agape” (Benedict XVI 2005, I, 9).15 The attribution of eros to God, and its identification with agape, is reiterated in the encyclical’s next paragraph: “The philosophical dimension to be noted in this biblical vision, and its importance from the standpoint of the history of religions, lies in the fact that on the one hand we find ourselves before a strictly metaphysical image of God: God is the absolute and ultimate source of all being; but this universal principle of creation—the Logos, primordial reason—is at the same time a lover with all the passion of a true love. Eros is thus supremely ennobled, yet at the same time it is so purified as to become one with agape” (Benedict XVI 2005, I, 10).

One reason why attributing intentio unionis to God seems viable is that the experience of lack implied by this type of desire need not be interpreted as deficiency, but as perfection. As has been shown in Section 5, the experience of lack in desires entailed in value-responses results not from the subject’s discovery of an alleged or actual deficiency, but from its capacity to transcend itself in selfless desire for a deeper union with the other person. Without venturing into theological territory beyond my philosophical expertise, I will simply state that if the mystery of the Christian God is the union of the three divine persons, then a person’s ability to transcend herself in order to enter into a deeper union with another person seems to be, theologically speaking, a perfection, not a defect. Thus, perhaps an argument can be made from this that desire, in the sense of desiring a deeper union with a beloved person, is a trait that can be attributed to a perfect divine being. This could result in a more organic connection between the metaphysical image of God mentioned in the second citation from Deus caritas est and the more existential, biblical image of God. The task of constructing such an argument lies with speculative theology, not phenomenological philosophy. However, as suggested here, perhaps the latter can pave the way for the former by offering conceptual resources.