  A competing way of thinking about desires holds that some or all desires are desires for objects, not states of affairs. A desire for tea is simply for tea, not for any state of affairs involving the tea. This competing way of thinking has the advantage that it takes seriously the way we ordinarily talk about desires and think about them. It is far more natural to say that I desire tea than to say that I desire that I have some tea, and perhaps this naturalness is indicative of something deep about the nature of desire. Furthermore, it might well seem that non-human animals have desires without being able to grasp the propositions a grip on which we so readily attribute to human beings (Thagard 2006).