What is a need?

[Barney]

Ayn Rand keeps using the word 'need' in her novel, but Ondrej has a problem with the word. He thinks that, philosophically, it is a meaningless word. You don't need anything. Need it for what? Some things you would simply die if you didn't get, some things would make your life very inconvenient and unpleasant. Other things would simply make you look less great in front of your friends, and perhaps hurt your self esteem.

So I ask: is it better never to use the word 'need' for anything? Is it a useless word, best taken out of the dictionary?

[Ondrej]

No, I don't think banning speech helps. It only elevates the importance of the word. I'm simply advocating that we think and speak clearly about what we mean. And what we, or at least I, try to mean by it is something which is not true. I try to mean something more than "want", something fundamentally different. But on closer inspection this is not true. Once you decide that you "need" something you can justify to yourself great expense. Once you justify that someone else "needs" something you can justify the exertion of great power over others to meet those needs. But you arrive at these positions by motivation of the word "need", without having clearly and carefully examined what it really is.

[Barney]

That is an attitude I can get on board with. I think it is always helpful to examine words carefully, to ask what we really mean by them, but also to push them to their limits - as you have done with the word 'need.' I plan to do that also with the word 'force' since it is one you are fond of using about the government.

Really the word 'need' always carries with it the subclause 'in order to'. As you have aptly pointed out, it is meaningless to say that you 'need' something if there is no 'in order to' attached, even implicitly. It is like saying 'I mean' without saying what you mean, or like saying 'the man has' without saying what he has.

I suggest that there are three common levels on which the word 'need' operates:

• At the most fundamental level, a 'need' is something without which you would die. Sooner than if you had it. Air, water, food, warmth, that sort of things. Here the implicit subclause is 'in order to live'.

• At the next level, a 'need' is something without which life would be miserable, brutal, and unfulfilling. Here the implicit subclause is 'in order to be well and function with minimal human dignity'.

• Above this, there is a level where a 'need' means something without which you would be less well-off than your peers. Here the implicit subclause is 'in order to be like the people I know'. I have less sympathy for this one, but it is the one we probably mean most often.