A
need is
something"Something" is a song released by The Beatles in 1969. It was featured on the album Abbey Road, and was also the first song written by George Harrison to appear on the A-side of a Beatles single. It was one of the first Beatles singles to contain tracks already available on a long playing album,...
that is
necessaryNecessary may refer to:* Something that is a required condition for something else to be the case, see necessary and sufficient condition.* A necessary truth, something that cannot fail to be true, see logical possibility....
for humans to live a healthy
lifeLife is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have self-sustaining biological processes from those that do not—either because such functions have ceased , or else because they lack such functions and are classified as "inanimate."In biology, the science of living organisms, "life"...
. Needs are distinguished from
wantIn economics, a want is something that is desired. It is said that people have unlimited wants, but limited resources. Each person has wants. You might want a laptop while your best friend may want a desktop computer. Thus, people cannot have everything they want and must look for the best...
s because a deficiency would cause a clear negative outcome, such as dysfunction or death. Needs can be
objectiveThe word objective may also refer to:* Objective , the achievement of a final set of actions within a given military operation* Objective pronoun, a noun as the target of a verb* Objective , an element in a camera or microscope...
and
physicalPhysical can mean any of the following things below:* Any entities which are composed of matter and/or energy, as well as the physical properties of those entities; and not merely items of thought or belief....
, such as food and water, or they can be
subjectiveSubjective may refer to:* Subjectivity, a subject's perspective, particular feelings, beliefs, and desires*Subjective experience, the sensory buzz and awareness associated with a conscious mind*Subjective case, grammatical case for a noun...
and psychological, such as the need for
self-esteemSelf-esteem is a term used in psychology to reflect a person's overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth.Self-esteem encompasses beliefs and emotions...
. On a societal level, needs are sometimes controversial, such as the need for a nationalized health care system.
A
need is
something"Something" is a song released by The Beatles in 1969. It was featured on the album Abbey Road, and was also the first song written by George Harrison to appear on the A-side of a Beatles single. It was one of the first Beatles singles to contain tracks already available on a long playing album,...
that is
necessaryNecessary may refer to:* Something that is a required condition for something else to be the case, see necessary and sufficient condition.* A necessary truth, something that cannot fail to be true, see logical possibility....
for humans to live a healthy
lifeLife is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have self-sustaining biological processes from those that do not—either because such functions have ceased , or else because they lack such functions and are classified as "inanimate."In biology, the science of living organisms, "life"...
. Needs are distinguished from
wantIn economics, a want is something that is desired. It is said that people have unlimited wants, but limited resources. Each person has wants. You might want a laptop while your best friend may want a desktop computer. Thus, people cannot have everything they want and must look for the best...
s because a deficiency would cause a clear negative outcome, such as dysfunction or death. Needs can be
objectiveThe word objective may also refer to:* Objective , the achievement of a final set of actions within a given military operation* Objective pronoun, a noun as the target of a verb* Objective , an element in a camera or microscope...
and
physicalPhysical can mean any of the following things below:* Any entities which are composed of matter and/or energy, as well as the physical properties of those entities; and not merely items of thought or belief....
, such as food and water, or they can be
subjectiveSubjective may refer to:* Subjectivity, a subject's perspective, particular feelings, beliefs, and desires*Subjective experience, the sensory buzz and awareness associated with a conscious mind*Subjective case, grammatical case for a noun...
and psychological, such as the need for
self-esteemSelf-esteem is a term used in psychology to reflect a person's overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth.Self-esteem encompasses beliefs and emotions...
. On a societal level, needs are sometimes controversial, such as the need for a nationalized health care system. Understanding needs and wants is an issue in the fields of
politicsPolitics is a process by which groups of people make decisions. The term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, but politics has been observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic and religious institutions...
, social science, and
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
.
Psychological definition
First, to most psychologists, thought of as something required or as a need is as a psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a goal and the reason for the action, giving purpose and direction to behavior.
The most widely known
academic model of needsMaslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology, proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation, which he subsequently extended to include his observations of humans' innate curiosity....
was proposed by psychologist
Abraham MaslowAbraham Harold Maslow was an American psychologist. He is noted for his conceptualization of a "hierarchy of human needs", and is considered the founder of humanistic psychology.-Biography:...
. In his theory, he proposed that people have a hierarchy of psychological needs, which range from security to self-actualization. However, while this model is intuitively appealing, it has been difficult to operationalize it experimentally. It was further developed by
Clayton AlderferClayton Paul Alderfer is an American psychologist who further expanded Maslow's hierarchy of needs by categorizing the hierarchy into his ERG theory . Alderfer categorized the lower order needs into the Existence category...
.
The academic study of needs was at its zenith in the 1950s. It receives less attention among psychologists today. One exception is
Richard SennettRichard Sennett is the Centennial Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, the Bemis Adjunct Professor of Sociology at MIT and Professor of the Humanities at New York University. Sennett is probably best known for his studies of social ties in cities, and the effects of urban...
's work on the importance of
respectRespect denotes both a positive feeling of esteem for a person or other entity , and also specific actions and conduct representative of that esteem. Respect can be a specific feeling of regard for the actual qualities of the one respected...
.
One of the problems with a psychological theory of needs is that conceptions of "need" may vary radically between different cultures or different parts of the same society. One person's view of need may easily be seen as paternalistic by another.
Objective definition
A second view of need is represented by the work by
political economyPolitical economy originally was the term for studying production, buying and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government. Political economy originated in moral philosophy...
professor Ian Gough. He has published on the subject of human needs in the context of social assistance provided by the
welfare stateThere are two main interpretations of the idea of a welfare state:* A model in which the state assumes primary responsibility for the welfare of its citizens...
http://www.bath.ac.uk/soc-pol/staff/profiles/ian-gough.html. With medical ethics professor
Len DoyalProfessor Len Doyal is emeritus professor of medical ethics at Queen Mary, University of London and an advocate of euthanasia. He has advocated that involuntary euthanasia should be legal under certain circumstances...
http://www.ihse.qmul.ac.uk/staff/staff.php?action=cv&uid=244, he also published
The Theory of Human Need.
Their view goes beyond the emphasis on psychology: it might be said that an individual's needs are representative of the
costs of being human within society. A person who does not have his or her needs fulfilled -- i.e., a "needy" person -- will function poorly in society.
In the view of Gough and Doyal, each person has an objective interest in avoiding serious harm that prevents the endeavor to attain his or her vision of what's good, no matter what that is exactly. This attempt requires the ability to
participate in the societal setting in which an individual lives. More specifically, each of needs to have both physical health and personal autonomy. The latter refers to the capacity to make informed choices about what should be done and how to implement that. This requires mental health, cognitive skills, and chances to participate in society's activities and collective decision-making.
How are such needs satisfied? Doyal and Gough point to eleven broad categories of "intermediate needs" that define how the need for physical health and personal autonomy are fulfilled:
- Adequate nutritional food and water
- Adequate protective housing
- A safe environment for working
- A safe physical environment
- Appropriate health care
- Security in childhood,
- Significant primary relationships with others
- Physical security
- Economic security
- Safe birth control and child-bearing
- Appropriate basic and cross-cultural education.
How are the details of needs satisfaction determined? The authors point to rational identification of needs using the most up-to-date scientific knowledge; the use of the actual experience of individuals in their everyday lives; and democratic decision-making. The satisfaction of human needs cannot be imposed "from above."
This theory should be compared to the
capability approachThe Capability Approach began life in the 1980s as an approach to welfare economics.In this approach, Amartya Sen brought together a range of ideas that were hitherto excluded from traditional approaches to the economics of welfare.Initially Sen argued for:* the importance of real freedoms in the...
developed by
Amartya SenAmartya Kumar Sen CH , is an Indian Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics-winning economist, and Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University. He is also a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge...
and
Martha NussbaumMartha Nussbaum is an American philosopher with a particular interest in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, political philosophy and ethics....
. Those with more internal "assets" or "capacities" (education, sanity, physical strength, etc.) have more capabilities (more available choices, more positive freedom). They are thus more able to escape or avoid poverty. Those with more capabilities fulfill more of their needs.
Other views
The concept of
intellectual needIntellectual need is a specific form of intrinsic motivation; it is a desire to learn something. Although it is a difficult concept to grasp, it has been recognized as critical in effective education and learning...
has been studied in
educationEducation in its broadest sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual...
.
In his 1844
Paris Manuscripts,
Karl MarxKarl Heinrich Marx was a Germanphilosopher, political economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist, communist and revolutionary, whose ideas are credited as the foundation of modern communism...
famously defined human beings as "creatures of need" or "needy creatures" who experienced suffering in the process of learning and working to meet their needs
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/preface.htm. These needs were both physical needs as well as moral, emotional and intellectual needs. According to Marx, human development is characterised by the fact that in the process of meeting their needs, humans develop new needs, implying that at least to some extent they make and remake their own nature. This idea is discussed in more detail by the Hungarian philosopher
Ágnes HellerÁgnes Heller is a Hungarian philosopher. A prominent Marxist thinker at first, she moved onto a liberal, social-democratic position later in her career...
in
A Theory of Need in Marx (London: Allison and Busby, 1976). Political economy professor Michael Lebowitz
http://www.sfu.ca/economics/faculty/mike_lebowitz.html has developed the Marxian interpretation of needs further in two editions of his book
Beyond Capital.
http://www.palgrave-usa.com/Catalog/product.aspx?isbn=0333964292.
Professor
György MárkusGyörgy Márkus is a Hungarian philosopher, a student of Lukács and a member of the "Budapest School" of socialist philosophy. He completed his philosophical training at Lomonosov University in Moscow in 1957...
systematized Marx's ideas about needs as follows: human beings are different from animals because their vital activity, work, is mediated to the satisfaction of needs (an animal who manufactures tools to produce other tools or his/her satisfactors), which makes human being a universal natural being capable to turn the whole nature into the subject of his/her needs and his/her activity, and develops his/her needs and abilities (essential human forces) and develops himself/herself (a historical-universal being). Work generates the breach of the animal subject (needs)-object fusion, thus generating the possibility of human conscience and self-conscience, which tend to universality (the universal conscious being). Human being's conditions as a social being are given by work (but not only by work) (it is not possible to live a human being without a relationship to others): work is social because human beings work for each other with means and abilities produced by prior generations (a universal social being). Human beings are also free entities able to accomplish, during their lifetime, the objective possibilities generated by social evolution, on the basis of their conscious decision. Freedom should be understood both in a negative (freedom to decide and to establish relationships) and a positive sense (dominion over natural forces and development of human creativity, of the essential human forces. To sum up, the essential interrelated traits of human beings are: a) work is their vital activity; b) human beings are conscious beings; c) human beings are social beings; d) human beings tend to universality, which manifests in the three previous traits and make human beings natural-historical-universal, social-universal and universal conscious entities, and e) human beings are free.
In his texts about what he calls "moral economics," professor Julio Boltvinik Kalinka asserts that the ideas exposed by
David WigginsDavid Wiggins is a British moral philosopher, metaphysician, and philosophical logician working especially on identity and issues in meta-ethics. His 2006 book, Ethics. Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality defends a position he calls "moral objectivism".Wiggins read philosophy at...
about needs are correct but insufficient: needs are of a normative nature but they are also factual. These "gross ethical concepts" (as stated by
Hilary PutnamHilary Whitehall Putnam is an American philosopher who has been a central figure in analytic philosophy since the 1960s, especially in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science...
) should also include an evaluation:
Ross FitzgeraldRoss Fitzgerald is an Australian academic, historian, novelist and political commentator.Author of 32 books, in 2009 Professor Fitzgerald co-authored "Made in Queensland: A New History", published by University of Queensland Press and also "Under the Influence, a history of alcohol in Australia",...
's criticism of Maslow's ideas rejects the concept of
objectiveThe word objective may also refer to:* Objective , the achievement of a final set of actions within a given military operation* Objective pronoun, a noun as the target of a verb* Objective , an element in a camera or microscope...
human needs and uses instead the concept of preferences. They assume, just like many other logical positivists, that values cannot be rational and assert, therefore, that the definition of
poverty thresholdThe poverty threshold, or poverty line, is the minimum level of income deemed necessary to achieve an adequate standard of living in a given country...
, a task charged with values, is an arbitrary action of researchers, an assumption which implies a narrow view of poverty.
Marshall RosenbergMarshall Rosenberg is an American psychologist and the creator of Nonviolent Communication, a communication process that helps people to exchange the information necessary to resolve conflicts and differences peacefully...
's model of Compassionate Communication, also known as
Nonviolent CommunicationNonviolent Communication is a process developed by Marshall Rosenberg and others which people use to communicate with greater compassion and clarity...
(NVC) makes the distinction between universal human needs (what sustains and motivates human life) and specific strategies used to meet these needs. In contrast to Maslow, Rosenberg's model does not place needs in a hierarchy. In this model, feelings are seen as indicators of when human needs are met or unmet. One of the intended outcomes of Rosenberg's model is to support humans in developing an awareness of what life-sustaining needs are arising within them and others moment by moment so that they may more effectively and compassionately find strategies to meet their own needs as well as contribute to meeting the needs of others.
People also talk about the needs of a community or organization. Such needs might include demand for a particular type of business, for a certain government program or entity, or for individuals with particular skills. This is an example of
metonymyMetonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept. It comes from the , , "a change of name", from , , "after, beyond" and , , a suffix used to name figures of...
in language and presents with the logical problem of
reification1846 "act of materializing" from L re, stem of res "thing"Reification may refer to:*Reification , making a data model for a previously abstract concept*Reification , fallacy of treating an abstraction as if it were a real thing...
.
See also
- Fundamental human needs
Fundamental human needs, according to the school of "Human Scale Development" developed by Manfred Max-Neef and others , are seen as ontological , are few, finite and classifiable...
- Maslow's hierarchy of needs
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology, proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation, which he subsequently extended to include his observations of humans' innate curiosity....
- Need theory
McClelland's Need Theory, created by a psychologist David McClelland, is a motivational model that attempts to explain how the needs for achievement, power, and affiliation affect the actions of people from a managerial context...
(McClelland)
- Want
In economics, a want is something that is desired. It is said that people have unlimited wants, but limited resources. Each person has wants. You might want a laptop while your best friend may want a desktop computer. Thus, people cannot have everything they want and must look for the best...
- Murray's system of needs
In 1938 Henry Murray published his system of needs in Explorations in Personality in order to describe personality. He states that humans have all basic needs and that everyone has unique varying dispositional tendencies towards a level for each need...