ABSTRACT
The economist’s way of thinking about welfare, briefly summarized in Chapter 2, requires little in the way of a theory of need. It might even be argued that the economist’s concept has nothing to do with need, since the emphasis on choice tends to replace need with preference. In this world, there are no needs, no requirements of life, but only preferences.1 Along a continuum with need at one end, preference occupies the opposing pole. The continuum to which I have just referred takes us from what is indeterminate, arbitrary, and contingent to what is necessary and determined. When emphasis is placed on the contingent end of this spectrum, the language used is more likely to be that of preference, or possibly want, rather than need.2 If we are to use the language of need, then our problem is to understand how need is determined so that the urge it expresses is real and not a mere inclination such as might be expressed in the language of preference.3
