Object of Desire & Morality

3.  A word or two on desire.  Intentionality, in and of itself, as a state of being, is not an 'object of desire.'  Hunger, as our prototype, is not an 'object of desire,' except to say that hunger, as such, implies a contra-factual or desired state of being, to not-be-hungry.  Food, of course, is instrumental to the satisfaction of hunger, the desire not-to-be-hungry, and may well be an 'object of desire,' but it is a desire brought into being by hunger, a desire motivated by and made comprehensible by an a priori intentionality.  Food, however, is not the only conceivable 'object of desire.'   A pill, for example, could be instrumental to the satisfaction of hunger, the desire to not-be-hungry, and may well be an 'object of desire,' particularly for one desperate to lose weight.  Either one, conceivably, is sufficient to satisfy the desire to not-be-hungry.   The instrumentality of either instrumental act -- its efficacy or utility -- will always be motivated and measured by the satisfaction of a 'given' intentionality, but neither is both necessary and sufficient, and it is here, in the interstice between the necessary and the sufficient, that we find human freedom.  Hunger, and the emergent desire not to-be-hungry, is before choice, and brings choice into being.  The act instrumental to its satisfaction is open to choice, and bears the consequence of choice.  Some acts are efficacious, and others are less so, or not at all efficacious. 

4.   Implicit in this interstice between the necessary and sufficient is a moral distinction (ala Kant).   Intentionality, as a given, is blameless.  Moral deliberations can only be applied to the instrumental act.  You cannot blame a person for being hungry -- it is, such as it is -- but one can blame him for shooting and eating the neighbor's dog as an act instrumental to the satisfaction of his hunger.  Implicit too is the distinction between the efficacy or the utility of an act in some absolute sense ("dog is delicious, altogether quite satisfying") and its efficacy or utility, its permissibility within a particular socio-cultural setting ("how can you eat someone's pet?" or "how can you take something that doesn't belong to you?" as a measure of moral outrage and the sanctions that follow).  The soci-cultural circumstance enters into the rational calculation of the efficacy of any particular instrumental act, in forming the intention to do this (instead of that).  As an aside, I am giving rational calculation a wide-spread here.  We do not shoot and eat the neighbor's dog because we are not in the habit of engaging in such acts, and there are other, more expedient ways to satisfy one's hunger, and shooting the neighbor's dog simply does not occur to us in quite the way that stopping by Burger Barn might.