Why do we confuse 'needs' for 'wants' and vice versa?
I really would like to know, as to why people confuse needs for wants and wants for needs?
To define something as a need seems to place it of such high priority as to devote time towards it, where that time and effort could have devoted to other tasks.
For me, there are four things that count as needs:
-Water
-Food
-Shelter
-Medication
...whilst the rest remain as wants. But, here is a question to the reader:
When I have satisfied all my needs, then should my focus shift towards the entertainment of wants? How do you go about satisfying wants if all your needs are met?
It seems to me that at this point, that needs get redefined when they seem all satisfied, as the things we find it hard to do without. Such as, coffee, tea, pizza, etc.
Interestingly enough, does money count as a need?
To define something as a need seems to place it of such high priority as to devote time towards it, where that time and effort could have devoted to other tasks.
For me, there are four things that count as needs:
-Water
-Food
-Shelter
-Medication
...whilst the rest remain as wants. But, here is a question to the reader:
When I have satisfied all my needs, then should my focus shift towards the entertainment of wants? How do you go about satisfying wants if all your needs are met?
It seems to me that at this point, that needs get redefined when they seem all satisfied, as the things we find it hard to do without. Such as, coffee, tea, pizza, etc.
Interestingly enough, does money count as a need?
Comments (59)
Negative, Sire. Shawn is what it is, and not gonna make further changes.
What can you do without?
Have you considered the infamous Maslownian hierarchy of needs?
I have; but, on point would be the issue of self-realization. Is that an occurrence when a want gets transferred into a need, once fulfilled?
Yeah, it's simple enough. So, what do you think is the issue here? The ego or what?
Aristotle noted that people suffering from an illness experienced their needs and what they wanted differently from when they were healthy.
With each individual, the matter of what "healthy" involves elements "needed" by the organism as such and another element peculiar to a particular situation at a certain time.
From that point of view, separating needs from wants is inseparable from distinguishing any moment from another.
Doesn't "need" and "want" just have to do with the "why"? You are referring to physiological needs, but need is just a word...it is a "need" if there is an attached necessity.
I want a baseball jersey.
I need a baseball jersey in order to participate in tomorrow's game.
I need food TO LIVE. (notice to just say "I need food" is largely meaningless unless we add the implied "or I will die")
Otherwise, I want food, is typically more accurate.
Or from a developed world perspective it could change to, "I need food or I will feel uncomfortable".
And I would say all of this is why these two words are often confused. We get lazy with our language.
Quoting Shawn
That would seem to be human nature to me...whether we SHOULD is different, but it seems to be human nature that once we don't worry about needs we find other things to occupy our minds...things we like or WANT in our lives.
Quoting Shawn
However you want :razz:
Quoting Shawn
For sure. Instead of "I need food to live." It becomes "I need pizza for happiness." But if any amount of happiness is dependent on eating pizza, then I think "need" still works grammatically.
Quoting Shawn
As it is the most direct way (in our current world) of attaining the four needs you described, I would say yes as a shortcut. The long answer - we want money because it allows us to easily fulfill our needs. Or perhaps - Money is needed if I wish to obtain my needs without breaking the law?
Sorry if this whole thing is just the High School English teacher answer :grimace:
Please expand on this term for me to understand it better.
Thanks.
Yes! And, it is that facet of human nature that worries me. It is reckless and insatiable, and needs to be controlled. Would you agree with my pejorative here?
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Well, yes. Pragmatically, to interchange want and need seems fine and dandy; yet, it seems to me that there's an issue with treating something with such a strong propositional attitude, as a "need".
Can anyone chime in on the internalist account for the definition of a "need" contra a "want"?
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Yeah, it's interesting to note that the desire for money is often due to a want, and not a need, since needs are already de facto easily satisfied, given our socio-economics of satisfying wants.
What do you think?
I need some air.
What about emotions?
I'm not the right person to answer this question. Sorry.
Why? Don't you feel emotions?
I think the gist of the issue is that common feeling of insatiability manifest in "Can I have some more?"
Why do we ask for more?
When you need or want things, it is not happening in a vacuum. If you say you need to eat you also want to eat. A distinction is made but it doesn't put the lack of food into an absolute category unless we are talking about starvation.
On a good day, the various responses to needing and wanting food are mixed up with other things. In that way, it is a relationship of relative factors and expectations balanced against other needs and desires.
On a bad day, you need to eat or die.
So, one can make different categories to assign the absence of food to correspond to different conditions or accept that we can only distinguish qualities of this kind in the most terrible set of circumstances. And the latter is an acceptance of a relativity that cannot be continued for the time being.
This is where I differ. I believe that needs stand absolutely above wants, and are hence are not subject to any sense of relativity of absence. My desire for water and my need for it doesn't make a difference as the same amount of effort is required to maintain their replenishment.
Yes, the need is prior to the "desire" for something but noticing that doesn't separate the two in an absolute fashion.
For the most part, we want what we need. The way they get mixed up with each other is important to learn about. The qualities don't care what box we put them in.
I contest that there is a strict dichotomy here, a need is fundamentally different than a want. Wants are like superlatives stemming from a mischaracterization of a need in disguise.
I don't know why people ask for more. It just dawned on me that there really is no difference between wants and needs, not at least in ways that would be surprising.
You mentioned
1. Food
2. Shelter
3. Water
4. Medication
I added
5. Air
I suppose we could talk about this in terms of the rich and the poor with the accepted wisdom being the poor are about fulfilling needs and the rich, already having their needs fulfilled, are simply pandering to their wants.
My question is how do needs differ from wants? It appears to me that the adding what can be roughly called quality & luxuriousness to a need transforms it into a want. Think of it; the difference between a poor family and a rich family can be said to be that between living in a hut and living in a mansion, that between eating burgers and eating gourmet meals, that between wearing unbranded apparel and wearing branded clothes, that between drinking tap water and drinking bottled spring water, that between breathing polluted air and breathing clean mountain air. All in all, the rich differ from the poor, wants differ from needs, only in degrees of quality and luxoriousness i.e. wants and needs are not distinguished by kind but by degrees(of quality & luxoriousness). So, asking for more is simply a want for increasing the quality and luxoriousness of needs.
Surely, there is a difference between the two, no? I outlined in the OP how they differ in terms of needs taking more of a priority of the will to entertain than wants.
I guess, I'm asking how much of a difference is there between the two, and you posit that it's not that big a deal. Or is it?
Hmmmm, I see your concern, and certainly agree for MOST people, but I think there is another aspect that leads to harm (I am not saying I have any clue what that is, but I will give a short argument why I am not convinced shifting from living for needs to living for wants is automatically negative).
The greatest deeds in history were wants not needs. Gandhi didn't need a hunger strike. To be fair the worst deeds in history were not needs either.
Hmmmm, I am unsure again.
I got it...isn't it our WANTS that separate us from the other animals? Still not necessarily a good thing...but maybe it is a defining aspect of humans. We may have to learn to deal with this side of ourselves as opposed to thinking we can eliminate it completely.
Quoting Shawn
Probably good to get more philosophical perspectives...I think I approached this a bit more from a grammar perspective :grimace:
Quoting Shawn
This may be your point, but this made me think that our society has so muddled the lines between needs and wants, that it is hard to really tell the difference sometimes. Take a 13 year old who has 10 friends and they all have xbox and playstation...they now NEED at least one of those devices or they may lose some friends.
Quoting Shawn
You left out air.
and maybe entertainment.
I don't know how a person changes between living in a small hut and living in 300 bedroom mansion? Both are shelter, right?
Yeah, they are a shelter; but, needs have to get done first, no?
And, philosophy!
Absolutely, I don't deny that needs come before wants. All I'm trying to get across is that they differ only in degree and not in kind. Basically, wants are just better incarnations of needs and by "better incarnations" I refer to the additional qualities that needs acquire that up the price tag, turning them into wants. These additional qualities could be anything from aesthetic considerations to better performance; whatever the exact nature of the additional quality the upshot is a hefty price tag that effects the transformation of needs like bread, potable water, living in a hut and a first-aid kit into wants like cake, vintage wine, owning a castle and having a personal physician on one's payroll.
I must add that wants and needs are usually distinguished in terms of necessity in re living and if that's the case then some versions of shelter as in a castle of one's own, some versions of food as in expensive caviar, some versions of water as in Acqua di Cristallo, and some versions of medicine as in a personal physician and nurse, aren't necessities and ergo will fail to qualify as needs. Nevertheless, this in itself is not sufficient to show that there are major differences between wants and needs. Au contraire, that wants and needs differ not in the sense of what it is that's desired but only in the sense of what extra feautres are in attendance is remarkable in itself.
All that aside, it seems the notion of wants also includes the desire for personal development; some try to pass this off as people whose needs have been met and thus free, can engage in higher pursuits such philosophy, music, and art to name a few. Whether these are wants or needs may depend on what standards we employ to measure what living means. High standards and philosophy, music and art become needs; lower the bar and these are simply wants.
A need is something that is necessary in order to achieve something else. If staying alive is the only thing you aspire to achieve, all you need is food, water and possibly medication.
Why is shelter added to your list? It suggests that some comfort is also needed, but why stop at shelter? Once you have introduced an item that aims at more than mere survival, there is no end to what could possibly count as a need.
By the way, do you need to stay alive? That is already a prejudice. You certainly want to, but why call it a need in itself.
Needs are just relative to your aims. There are no absolute needs, and everything could be a potential need.
If you want X, you need Y. If you don’t want X, you don’t need Y.
Everybody wants happiness, and whatever might lead to happiness is needed. When a person says he needs something, he is actually saying that he believes this thing would lead to happiness. He needs money because he thinks money could buy something that would make him somewhat happy.
Now, he may be wrong in his believe that this thing would make him happy. Then you could tell him: No, you don’t really need that thing.
No, it's typically the opposite. The key phrase is that those things are 'intrinsic needs' that are along the motivational scale of hierarchy.
An example of the distinction between wants and needs would be if someone says: " I want to be married; I don't need to be married". That assumes their basic needs in life have been met.
Beyond that, we will always have a tension of existence, or a constant life of striving. We are hard wired to never be satisfied. When one need is met, another takes it's place. Think about if we were not hardwired to have wants and needs, what would that look like?
Similarly, there will come a time when having, is not so pleasing as wanting:
You forgot social acceptance. As a social species, human beings need social interactions. Many people will do almost anything to get attention from others. Attention from others would qualify as "medication" for their low self esteem.
I tend to believe that biology is the source of our needs and our wants (art, politics, etc.) etc. are cultural manifestations of our biological needs.
I think, what you're really saying is that preferences dictate the attainment of needs. Is that correct?
If so, then I don't believe that we are all created equal in that regard. I mean by this the fact that some people have it handed down to them as to what they can entertain as desirable in terms of monetary gain or financial disposition.
Would you agree with that?
How does one counter the need for more wants, when all one's needs have been fulfilled and satisfied?
lol
We can't. It's another unresolved paradox about the human condition. Something beyond logic. Kind of like the Heraclitus quote: "Change is the only constant in life.".
You see, life is not very logical. One must learn to embrace paradox, or become totally disillusioned by the need to lie to oneself over same.
Perhaps another question to consider there would be, is that then, a want, or a need? In other words, should we lie to ourselves out of a want or need for something; to protect us from something?
Cognitive science is fascinating, no?
But, the question itself contains the answer! Isn't that awesome?
If one asks, why do I want more, then doesn't that indicate that one has all their needs met???
Very Nice, oh great one!
Or, could that be, that we are no longer human then???
Yet another question could be, why do I wonder whether my wants and needs should be met?
Are you saying that we strive for more because it is what we want?
Isn't that depressingly circular?
Very Nice, once again! Very Existential I must say!!!!
How can we escape this....do we distract ourselves with pain/pleasure...or do we seek meaning some how...or do we engage in intellectual pursuits...or do we engage with each other...or... .
Is life dynamically circular-as apposed to static(?) In other words, I'm trying to picture life without the need to have wants and needs...
I think the correct response is to treat the issue with moderation. Meaning that one will always want things, but as to remain realistic as to never endanger what one already has in terms of his or her needs met.
Playing it safe??
What would endangerment entail?
Confusion of wants with needs along with shifting ones priority from an unmet need to a want.
Shit happens all the time I suppose. Wishful thinking etc. Really sad that we do this all the time.
There's a reason they put snack bars at the end of ones shopping routine.
Yes they are different. There are good reasons why we make distinctions between them.
But accepting that doesn't necessarily move us closer to understanding your question about how needs get to be confused with desires.
Problems like substance abuse, for example, are not solved by saying things like: "Snap out of it, you don't need that cocaine."
And, that seems to be a big issue in my view. To take two diametrically opposing things and then mix up their importance is an issue because, well... they are different in nature, no?
Quoting Valentinus
Yeah, that's a hard one. But, a good start is realizing that one doesn't need them, even though they get fraught as needs in many cases, don't you think?
There are ways to present them as "diametrically" different. There are ways to approach the differences as parts of various psychological frameworks. For myself, the value of any approach is ultimately phenomenological. Am I getting closer to what is going on?
Quoting Shawn
Every addict already knows they don't "need" it. Every addict also knows they do. Finding the leverage point to apply a pry bar in the situation is about finding resources and potential for change.
In terms of living a more stable and fulfilling life I treat the difference between wants and needs as almost imperative. Is this Kantian in nature?
Quoting Valentinus
I suppose the issue here is that the addict thinks they need it, and the realization that they don't. I suspect a profound change is required for one to accustom oneself to boredom or find some new outlet in terms of a release from stressors.
I don't think deciding why people are addicted, as presented by your remark about stressors, will advance the methods to help them.
You want to separate every bodies' problem as the result of incorrect stuff they think. That sort of thing is surely involved.
But don't stand in a temple and tell others how it must be.
Well, a good starting point is asking as an addict, why does one think they need it? Some insight needed I suppose?
Yes, one's preferences do decide what are needs and what are wants but the list of needs in your OP represents a universal truth insofar as needs are concerned.
I think our systemic needs are more basic than this. We don’t need food, shelter and medication as such, but we do need the availability of nutrition as a supply of energy, vitamins and minerals as well as water and resources to regulate energy use and make repairs, in order to sustain the most basic chemical processes of the organism. But if survival is our goal, then even satisfying this list can sustain us only for a time, and simultaneously fail to fully ‘satisfy’ what may be a more fundamental impetus to life. I think this is why we decide to upgrade certain wants to the level of ‘need’: because we don’t really understand what it is that we still need. It’s a guessing game, almost.
Our system isn’t structured to maximise survival, or even dominance. In my view, it’s structured to maximise awareness, connection and collaboration instead. This is evidenced by a demonstrated capacity to access, process and integrate complex information and build elaborate environmental and social structures that can incorporate, imitate and collaborate with everything with which we interact. It’s also evidenced by a demonstrated capacity to prioritise these complex processes above striving to meet even this ‘basic’ list of needs, sometimes to the point of death, without necessarily understanding why.
Something about it feels very Kantian in my view. I don't know how else to put it.
Conflating the two is the issue, no?
Quoting Possibility
How can this be true? Are you saying the are social instinct overrides the desire to survive. Yes, this seems to be true in regards to some of human behavior to sacrifice ourselves for the "greater good", whatever that may-be.
Quoting Possibility
How do you explain that fact? Why is it that rational behavior as defined in economics or elsewhere in sociology is defined as utility maximization. This all seems superficial and overly simplified in my view.
Needs and wants - to the extent that the wants of some are satisfied by using others as a means to that end, in the process preventing the needs of those who serve as the means from being met - are Kantian.
Please elaborate.
One of Kant's moral maxims is to never treat another person solely as a means to an end or to treat other people, just as you consider yourself to be, as ends in themselves.
Ergo, people are fully justified to satisfy their needs and wants, just as you are. To then use people only as a means to satisfy your needs or wants (which is worse since it's like killing not for food but for fun) you would be violating a Kantian moral code.
Think of slavery: white slave owners had their needs fulfilled and slaves were nothing more than a means (since the needs of slaves were ignored) to satisfy the wants of the slavemasters.
What I’m saying is that the structural model we use is inaccurate, and fails to account for anomalies. It isn’t that ‘social instinct’ overrides ‘survival instinct’, but that the ‘instinct’ model itself needs to be overhauled in order to understand the relation. The way I see it, a six-dimensional model of awareness/ignorance, connection/isolation and collaboration/exclusion has the capacity to explain the underlying impetus to atomic, molecular, chemical, biological, social and mental relations or structures, including abiogenesis, evolution and consciousness.
Quoting Shawn
Because value systems are relative and isolated by structures such as language, logic, emotion, morals and beliefs. Sociology separates these value systems and examines each one with regard to human behaviour, but rarely in relation to each other, and usually below the level of subjective experience. Because the Uncertainty Principle applies at this complex level of potentiality/value.
And constraining the sociological view is this ignorant assumption based on Darwinian evolutionary theory and our most basic fears: that the ‘purpose’ of life is to survive, to procreate and ultimately to dominate.
There is a hypothetical relational structure that encompasses an ‘objective’ view of all possible existence - that’s what we’re ideally striving to figure out. But it’s easier to assume the relational structure we’ve built so far is complete, and simply ignore, isolate or exclude any conflicting information.
I could go tail chasing over this, but I think that about sums it up?
Take salt, fat and sugar. We crave them because in evolutionary terms they were scarce in nature. Now we practically have them on tap, but we still need them, but the demand doesn’t balance with the availability anymore.
It would be a wonderful thing if we all spent more time trying to train ourselves to ‘educate’ ourselves. The conundrum is ‘learning’ hurts at first so we have a tendency to avoid its initial humiliating punch in the face ... I guess that is what makes life both interesting though, just takes time to suffer enough and appreciate suffering for SOMETHING. The ‘something’ could literally be anything; that’s all our problems :D
And, the converse too!
Quoting I like sushi
Hence, what do you mean by this, as I feel it's an important point.
Quoting I like sushi
Isn't this a tad bit sado-masochistic? I don't see the point of wanting something if the means to get it is fraught with suffering...
I meant now we have enough salt, fat and sugar we nevertheless still possess the desire to glut on it. Our cravings for something hard to come by and essential to life makes sense, yet once it becomes easily acquired we need to stem that urge or possibly suffer ill-health.
Sado-masochistic? Not at all. The most important things in life come at a cost. Learning that is a less painful path than not learning it as far as I can tell. We view pain as a lesson sometimes and others as something to avoid and guide us to something ‘better’.
Of course I’m suggesting people chop their arms off or anything. Fear is a great guide. If you fear something, step up to it. Most fear disguises itself as humiliation or guilt, and not learning how to navigate these emotions is immediately less painful. Facing up to yourself and accepting your flaws and shortcomings as a human being is a painful and necessary business in my experience. Ignoring it is MUCH worse in the long run.
Think about something simple like learning algebra. At first it is frustrating and makes you feel stupid and useless (that is painful), but once you bring your urges to ‘give up’ under control and harness yourself you’re met with a literal rush. Learning your limits is essential to living a good life, and learning your limits is painful if you over or under step - which we all do. It’s tough to train yourself and task that never ends (at least not for me!). It’s also a joy too.
Insert several dozen pithy sayings here if you wish. I’m not one for aphorisms myself as they tend to be more interested in surface details rather than plumbing the depths of probable and possible.
There are always exceptions, expect when there are none! :D