The Grammar of ‘Need’

Abstract

It is at least plausible to assume that objective human needs exist in some sense. Yet there can be no doubt that our common-sense understanding of what sorts of things needs are is varied and often confused and ambiguous. This is due in part to the fact that the word ‘need’ is employed in everyday language in such diverse ways. One of the most common usages refers to needs as drives with which we have little choice but to conform. Another conceptualises needs as goals which for some reason or other it is believed that everyone either does or should try to achieve. It is this universality which supposedly differentiates needs from preferences or ‘wants’. We shall argue that the former is at best misleading because of its overly deterministic conception of human biology. Our primary concern therefore will be to clarify the latter and to illustrate the relationship of the grammar of statements about need to our previous discussion of relativism. It is this grammar which will inform our own theory of human need developed in Part II.