Desire and ethics

This paper argues that it is problematic for the future of Deleuze studies that it is difficult if not impossible to answer the question `what is the right thing to do?' from a Deleuzian perspective. It then argues that one of the key reasons Deleuze studies has made limited progress in this area is its over-emphasis on desire and the corresponding tendency to extrapolate 'ought' from 'is', which as Hume showed is a category mistake. It proposes that to develop a workable ethical discourse from Deleuze's work we need to rethink how we read his work and approach it afresh.