Changing A Desire

Worldview (something ideological in nature that does not have to be believed due to emotion unless a person allows this of themself), external circumstances, psychological/emotional flexibility, and willpower are all factors that can lead to a person voluntarily, directly changing their own desires.  Some of these factors are internal to someone's consciousness; some are external and still have an impact on the mind though they do not originate from there.  Some, the ideological ones, are objectively true or false if they align with reality and yet can have a dramatic effect on someone's priorities and, consequently, their subjective intentions and desires.  Whichever desires one is experiencing, either way, can be known with absolute certainty by rationalistic self-awareness, for one's mind is directly experienced, as long as one is free of assumptions.

Every desire of one's heart can change.  Yes, it might be unlikely for some people or some specific inclinations or preferences to do so.  This is nonetheless logically possible, as firm and penetrating as a given desire might be--or might only superficially seem to someone who fails to look to reason and deep introspection over initial, unfocused, passive experience from which they stoop to assumptions.  These impulses could shift even without any philosophical or circumstantial changes.  There is no logical necessity in them remaining constant from one second to the next.  Not the desire for knowledge, safety, excitement, sex, food, leisure, and more is one inevitably locked into a person's mind.  Hell, these desires and others are not even by necessity shared by all people, and certainly not at all times.

One person might want to kill and another does not.  One person might want to kill out of active, intentional disregard for life, while another might do so because they rightly or wrongly hold that they are morally obligated or permitted to do so.  A person might easily desire to know reason and its inherent truths, some other person hating the thought of core reality not being dictated by whims and wishing otherwise.  Someone might long to engage in productive professional endeavors as their friend or sibling wishes to avoid professional labor at all costs.  Any such feeling, motivation, or goal might vanish, intensify, or lessen without warning and no matter what another part of a person might simultaneously hope for.  If someone seeks to change their desires for moral reasons, however, not only will they find that they cannot always just will it away, but a rational person can realize that desire is not even what truly needs to be changed.

Desire alone does not necessarily make someone evil since it can be involuntary and perfectly controlled so that it does not influence worldview or treatment of other beings (or even oneself, such as with the desire to self-harm).  There might still be some things that bother someone about themself even if only on a wholly subjective, morally irrelevant level, like if someone wishes to murder for whatever reason but also wishes that they did not have this impulse while knowing that logical truths and any existing moral obligation do not depend on their preferences.  It is only the desire to act on, to give in to, such a desire that would or even could by default be fought and altered by personal effort.  This might require nothing more than immediate willpower or it might take sustained intentionality.

There is still no way to guarantee one can automatically, universally change one's the more underlying desires--the desire to murder, for example, and not the subsequent desire to fight this preceding want--simply by, ironically, desiring this outcome, no matter a person's worldview or subjective wishes.  This is something that some individuals could be proficient at while others struggle with immensely, and from moment to moment or desire to desire, a person might find that his or her mental status in this regard fluctuates.  What would need to always stay resolute despite all variance of emotion or longing is alignment with the objective truths of reason and a commitment to whatever obligations exist, no matter how difficult it is to maintain this.