The phrase "act on desire" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it when discussing the idea of taking action based on one's wants or urges.
Example: "In order to achieve your goals, it's important to act on desire and pursue what truly motivates you."
Alternatives: "follow your desires" or "respond to your urges".
There are, in particular, circumstances in which an agent may be subject to, and act on, desires and wants that are themselves compulsive in nature (e.g., as with a drug addict or kleptomaniac).
For like an unhappy junkie, I can act on desires which I desire not to desire.
She argues against the moral ignorance position by noting that cultures are both created and transmitted by the people in them, that people modify or even radically revise them through their individual actions, and that people often act against cultural norms and sometimes act on desires that are in line with these norms but in ways not sanctioned by the culture (305).
The immense psychic pain some children and teens experience can even lead them to consider and act on desires to physically harm themselves.
If one considers whether such a second-order desire is intrinsic or instrumental, the most reasonable conclusion is typically that the desire is instrumental: I desire not to act on my desire to yell because I desire to not have rocks thrown at my window, and I see not acting on my desire to yell as a means to not having rocks thrown at my window.
In such situations, it is said that my desire not to act on my desire to yell is a realizer desire: a desire for an end that would count as one possible realization of an intrinsic desire.
But in this case, the relation between my intrinsic desire and my desire not to act on my desire to yell is not quite an instrumental relation.
Thus, a desire to yell at a drunken reveler who disturbs my sleep is a first-order desire, while a desire that I not act on my desire to yell at the drunken reveler is a second-order desire.
It's how we interpret and act on that desire, not the desire itself, that creates the "conflict," along with the circumstances of life — illness, kindergarten, divorce, autism, middle school — that change the pressures.
What further facts about the situation could make it the case that, in entering the room, S acts on her desire to get her glasses, and that citing that desire provides a true reason-explanation of her action, while she does not act on her desire to wake R, and citing this latter desire does not give us a true reason-explanation of what she is doing?
