Understanding Human Need 2e. Dean, Hartley
2.1Bee and human societies compared
3.1The etymological roots of the word eudaimonia
3.2Poverty and suffering with dignity
4.1The wants and needs of the apothecary and Romeo
4.2Ryan and Deci’s three basic psychological needs
4.3Deontology and ontology
4.4Nussbaum’s list of ‘central capabilities’
5.1Adam Smith on the meaning of ‘necessaries’
5.2The International Labour Organisation’s pragmatic definition of ‘basic needs’
5.3Famous referenda: majority self-interest versus minority needs
5.4Brasília Teimosa (‘Stubborn Brasilia’) squatter settlement
5.5The Burston Strike School
7.1The Speenhamland means-test and the measurement of need
7.2The UN Multidimensional Poverty Indicator (MPI)
7.3Social constructions of difference
This book will necessarily discuss an array of technical terms and abstract concepts. To define all of them would require a glossary almost as long as the book itself. Included here, therefore, are short explanations addressed to the different adjectives that may be used to define ‘need’. Even this list is not exhaustive. Insofar as these key terms intersect and overlap, these definitions may help to clarify the connections and differences between them: often terms overlap with or are virtually synonymous with other terms, or else terms can be used in quite different ways. Where other terms have been mentioned in the book these will usually have been defined within the text and their definitions may be accessed via the index.
absolute need: Most often used to denote the opposite of ‘relative’ need. It may refer to whatever may be held to be absolutely necessary for physical survival or for minimal human dignity, though as with the term ‘absolute poverty’, definitions of absolute necessity vary.
agency need: Used in relation to a person’s need of individual freedom and a capacity for autonomous action. The opposite of individual ‘agency’ may usually be thought to be constraining social ‘structure’, but when used in conjunction with ‘need’, its opposite may sometimes be considered to be ‘vital’ need, thus drawing a distinction between free human consciousness and the determinants of biological life.
axiological need: A term used to refer to the need for experiences that have inherent value and that make life worthwhile. It can be contrasted with ‘existential need’, but it may also be linked with ‘ontological need’ when it is concerned with the meaning of that which a person values.
basic need: May be used as a synonym for ‘absolute’ need or to denote the opposite of ‘higher’ need. The term generally refers to whatever may be fundamentally necessary for survival and the avoidance of harm. Confusingly, perhaps, it is sometimes also used as a synonym for ‘universal’ need, not so much in the sense referred to later in this glossary but as a way of referring to the elemental needs that every human being has.
circumstantial need: A term accorded a specific meaning in this book and which refers to need that is ‘thinly’ conceived and is practically interpreted. For policy purposes, what people need is here judged in relation to what is minimally and morally justifiable in the specific context of an individual’s personal circumstances. (Some philosophical texts may use the term more generally as a synonym for what is defined later in this glossary as ‘substantive’ need and contrast it with constitutional need – a term not used in this book – namely needs that are in some way socially or institutionally constructed.)
common need: A term accorded a specific meaning in this book and which refers to need that is ‘thickly’ conceived but is practically interpreted. For policy purposes, people’s needs here stem from their social nature; to the requirements that attend one’s belonging within a society or community and which are defined in terms of the functions and experiences one has in common with others.
comparative need: A form of need defined with reference to any relative deficit established through the comparative analysis of the living standards or the services received in different places, by different communities or by different social groups. One’s comparative needs may be defined with reference to the things one lacks but which other people have.
cultural need: May be used to refer to needs which are culturally constituted and stem, for example, from the requirements of a particular religion or belief system, or to needs satisfiers which are culturally relative and stem, for example, from specific social customs or cultural practices.
derivative need: Can be used to denote the opposite of ‘basic’ need, but like the term ‘intermediate’ need, it refers to the things people need in order to satisfy more basic needs. Money, for example, is a need we derive from our need to buy food and clothing.
discursive need: Need that has been constituted through discourse; through the meanings people generate between themselves when they talk or communicate with one another and through their shared practices and conventions. Need constructed through popular discourse may sometimes be described as ‘socially constituted’. Need constructed though political discourse may sometimes be described as ‘ideologically constituted’.
existential need: A protean term with, potentially, a multitude of definitions. It is used fairly conventionally throughout this book to refer simply to that which is needed for human existence, equating broadly with ‘physical’ need and its various synonyms, and it is used in contrast to ‘axiological’ and ‘ontological’ needs. Other users of the term, however, have expanded it to incorporate these and other wider meanings of human need.
experiential need: Refers to need as it is experienced. The term combines the meaning of ‘felt’ need on the one hand and ‘substantive’ need on the other.
expressed need: A ‘felt’ need that has been formulated as a personal or political demand.
false need: The opposite of ‘true’ need. The term is used with reference to things people want, demand, or think they need but which are (in the opinion of the observer) not needed. False, ‘artificial’, or ‘manufactured’ need may sometimes correspond to ‘subjective’ need in the sense that it may occur when people are addicted, deluded or misguided, but critics contend that any need that is genuinely experienced as a ‘felt’ need cannot be dismissed as false.
felt need: A term that is broadly synonymous with ‘subjective’ need and which refers to needs that are subjectively experienced by an individual or intersubjectively experienced by a group.
higher need: Often used to denote the opposite of morally inferior, base or ‘basic’ needs. The concept refers not to luxuries, but to more refined human needs, such as intellectual, creative or spiritual pursuits.
inherent need: A term developed throughout this book to refer to needs that are inherent to the human individual not only because she is a biological organism, but by virtue of her very humanity. The notion of inherent need requires a theory or idea of personhood and of what it means to be a person. Such theories or assumptions may well be implicit, but they are usually given: they are established or prescribed abstractly, or from the top-down.
instrumental need: A term that means much the same as ‘derivative’ need or ‘intermediate’ need, in that it refers to things we must have or do not for their own sake but as a means of surviving or avoiding harm. The meeting of instrumental need is a means to an end.
intermediate