ABSTRACT
An assumption running through these essays is that ‘need’ is a justifying expression in
arguments about social policy, so that if we can establish that something is a need it will
follow that it ought to be provided, if possible by society or by some individual or group
on whom falls the duty of satisfying the need. If this is so, it is obviously important to
establish what needs people have. This in turn raises two problems. One, discussed in an
earlier chapter, is the problem of finding anything that one can legitimately call a need without making moral assumptions. The other, to be discussed here, is the question of
whether what people seriously believe that they need corresponds to what they ‘really’
need. Some aspects of this have been discussed in the previous chapter; in the present
context we shall take up the most radical answer to the problem, the idea that people may
be systematically mistaken about their needs, because the standards that define need in a society are themselves false standards. Can false consciousness about need be so
pervasive?
