The Reading Warehouse

Desire is a rich term meaning wish and want, willingness and relish, appetite and lust. This volume is an effort to analyse the concept of desire and its different practical contexts from a morally philosophic point of view. By analysing multiple definitions and studying underlying motivations, the authors offer a variety of explanations and interpretations.

The volume consists of three main parts. The first part, "Desire and Practice," examines desire as a mental state that seeks personal satisfaction. The second part of the volume, "Desire and Moral Life," explores social, cultural, and literary facets of desire. Finally, in the third part, "Business Ethics and Other Contexts," the authors apply PR axiological principles to the business world, examining the conflict between frugality and consumerist ideology, the role of intuition in decision-making, and the need for design education as the basis of effective planning.

The contributors to this, the newest volume in Transaction's Praxeology series, seek to explore desire in PR axiological terms, with an eye toward the three E's of praxeology: ethics, effectiveness, and efficiency. In doing so, they demonstrate that desire is central for practical activity in general and work in particular.

Timo Airaksinen is professor emeritus (ethics and social philosophy), University of Helsinki, Finland. He is vice-president of the Philosophical Society of Finland.

Wojciech W. Gasparski is professor emeritus of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences and chair in business ethics at Koźmiński University, Warsaw, Poland.