  Conflict can arise, however, when one asks whether desires or preferences are more fundamental; John Pollock has recently brought attention to this dispute (Pollock 2006). Decision theorists have tended to treat pairwise preferences as basic: the basic attitude is that of preferring A to B (e.g., von Neumann and Morgenstern 1944). Most other theorists of desire have treated desires as basic: the basic attitude is that of desiring A. If desires are basic, and desires have strengths, then it is easy enough to determine preferences from them: if I desire that my father be healthy to a high degree, and I desire that I do my laundry to a low degree, then it follows that I prefer my father's health to doing the laundry, all else being equal. But if preferences are basic, then deriving something like desires from them becomes an interesting task (discussed briefly above, in Section 2.3).