Does desire solely drive behavior?

The week before Mardi Gras break, we were actively discussing Hume and his work titled: From Rationalism to Empiricism. Hume held that desires and emotions ultimately govern human behavior, not reason. Coming to think of it, I don’t necessarily agree with Hume’s claim. Because I, for one, know for a fact that I don’t complete my school work out of pure desire. I complete my assignments simply because they are mandatory and required in order to pass and ultimately achieve academic success. I reason with myself that if I don’t complete my work; I will have to face consequences. Now I know the example I provided is a very basic one, but unless I’m completely misinterpreting Hume, I’ve made my point. And I believe there are many other simplistic examples that contradict Hume’s viewpoint. Now all of this begs to question just how Hume exactly defines desire.

Sensations

Last friday we discussed some of Hume's reasonings. Hume believed that without sensation, ideas are meaningless. Over the break we have all been surrounded with an overload of tastes, colors, and sounds and other sensations. I kept reflecting on Hume's thoughts on perceptions. I cannot deny that all of these things in the moment are more "lively" than anything that we can imagine. And although all of our thoughts and ideas come from things we have experienced, I do not believe that we are incapable of having just as powerful and real moments inside of our mind or soul. Hume talks about everything using the actual senses, however, he does not focus on actual feelings and relationships to others. What about love and hate and courage? These feelings are within the soul and cannot be seen. I would argue that these feelings are just as powerful as actual physical sensations.

descartes' mind/body dualism

I personally am not a fan of Descartes' assumptions and conclusions about God being a demonic, and deceiving creator. I believe his value of logic and the dualism of the mind and body to be sensible, but to doubt all senses and to then conclude that God uses us as creatures to be tricked and toiled with is simply arrogant. It seems that he esteems the mind, but sees the body as a product of evil, and is used only to deceive our minds. It is true that we, as human beings are essentially minds, in that our soul constitutes who we are as individuals, but we are human because of our bodies. Therefore, although our minds and bodies are two separate entities, humans are a harmonic combination of body and mind. In contrast to Descartes' belief, we indeed are our minds, but we are also our bodies, "and God said that it was good."