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After reading this article you will learn about the relationship between Appetites and Actions.
Appetites:
Need:
Organic needs, hunger, thirst, sex, sleep, etc., are also called appetites. They are periodic cravings of the organism, which generally press for activity, and which are attended with unrest or disquiet. When they are gratified, the unrest disappears.
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Appetites generate impulses which are conscious tendencies to movement, and which are not enlightened by the distinct idea of their ends in the lower animals. Both appetites and impulses are attended with a feeling of uneasiness which disappears when they are gratified.
But appetites are periodic, while impulses are not. Further, appetites are organic needs, while impulses arise from appetites, instincts, feelings and emotions.
Appetites in the lower animals are blind but conscious tendencies in which the element of unpleasant feeling is predominant. They are not enlightened by the distinct ideas of their ends. But in the higher animals there is a dim consciousness of the ends.
In children also appetites are at first conscious but blind tendencies unenlightened by distinct ideas of their objects. But gradually the satisfaction of their appetites by particular objects (e.g., milk, bread, etc.) connects them with those objects in the course of experience. Thus their appetites are converted into desires.
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Desires are conscious cravings enlightened by distinct ideas of their objects and spring from any feeling of want due to organic needs, intellectual, moral, aesthetic, and religious cravings. Thus, appetites are different from desires. In grown up children hunger or appetite is converted into a desire for food.
Actions:
(a) Impulse, Volition and Character:
An impulsive action follows an isolated conative tendency unobstructed by any other tendency, whereas a voluntary action chooses one conative tendency and realizes a special end and checks all other conative tendencies and thus involves the control of isolated impulses. In impulsive action there is no idea of an end, whereas in voluntary action there is the idea of an end.
The function of will is to regulate and organize the impulsive tendencies to action. It controls and directs the impulses and reduces them to an order. Will signifies the direction and organization of impulses with a view to realizing an end. Will is character in action.
Character the fixed habit of thought, emotion and volition, and expressed in a volition. When as table character is manifested in a will, it does not involve a feeling of effort. The self easily and quickly chooses one motive and rejects the others and converts it into a volition and an action.
(b) Desire:
Desire is a craving of an agent for the attainment of an object to relieve some want. It emerges when there is a capacity for ideation or memory and imagination. It is a complex mental state consisting of cognitive, affective and conative factors.
The cognitive elements in adult human beings are the idea of the end which will remove the feeling of want, and the idea of the means which will lead to the attainment of the end.
The affective elements are a painful feeling of want and an agreeable feeling arising from the anticipation of its satisfaction, the former predominating over the latter. The conative elements are a craving for the attainment of an end to remove the feeling of want and a tendency to action to realize the end.