How about the difference between a need, a necessity and a requirement?

A need is something that is not bound by a timeframe. A necessity is a need framed by time, beyond which there may be negative consequences, while a requirement is a formal need.

Mahesh:

The difficulty in answering this question is that although someone may need a ride to work, it is not necessarily a necessity; I agree that the desire is often a negative effect when discussion monetary luxuries (e.g. trying to fill an empty space within one's self with materials; ‘I have to have that Jaguar’). But, the desire, for some becomes an obsession; with which the individual cannot differentiate between craving and necessity. Then the desire becomes a priority, which feels like a necessity, and as you stated, has a negative effect. Such as the term House-poor.

However, the question becomes very complicated differentiating between the need as an “absolute craving of man to possess while the necessity is also a craving without which man manages to survive.” Simplistic when discussing a personal vehicle; challenging when discussing the need and necessity for an alcoholic beverage or a "fix" of heroin....in one case the "need" for a drink vs the 'necessity" of imbibing a drink containing ethanol are one in the same if the individual is endanger of Delirium tremens . In which case, "which is craving and necessity become an equal priority?”

Very interesting question. --Marilyn

In an epistemological framework, the necessity is of logical nature, while need is utility in scientific sense. Although we may distinguish between logical necessity and empirical necessity, it is a sort or equivalence between the epistemic necessity-need and the empirical necessity-need, which can be seen in my ante-respondents' examples. In short, a transport mean is a necessity for moving from one place to another, in the following sense: The sentence "If a man moved from one place to another, then he used a transport mean" (including his own legs) expresses a necessary truth. It is also a need. Necessity implies need, conversely not.

When considering this question I am much inclined to agree with Catalin when he writes about the need and necessity in an epistemological framework. In case of living beings (preferably sentiant), the necessity implies need but not converselly (as Catalin observed), however the necessity-need polarity does not hold when applied to unanimate beings. The apple has to (it is necessary for an apple on an apple-tree on Earth to fall on Newton's head), but it does not need to do it, because the need requires will. I think the distinction between the need and necessity in case of living beings (like humans) is much more complicated. I guess that necessity in this case is something that can be done automatically, instinctively, like eating or drinking. Only by an act of will (excluding cases like illness) we may disregard this necessity and for example, starve ourselves to death.

Definitely, the biological and psychological senses must be considered, and Maciej distinguished very well between the two terms under these senses. The will component is another element of distinction, as Maciej observed. In common speech, there is no sharp distinction between need and necessity and looking back to the original question, it seems that Mahesh aked it for clarifying dictionary definitions, by invoking the priority. Summarizing thus far, the elements of distinction would be priority, logical implication, and will. Not all of them applying for each sense considered: biological, psychological, or epistemological.

I think that Catalin made e very good case for the elemets, which could be successfully used for distinguishing necessity from need, at least in some sensess considered. Catalin also mentioned a very important problem in this discussion, namely that in common speach there is no sharp distinction between necessity and need, thus the difference between the two may not be "felt" by the common user of the language, thus even if someone finds some way to distinguish these two terms, the common spech will not have appropriate tools for expressing the difference in an unequivocal way.

I feel the fuel for the humans to perform activity is the interchanging of the positions of the factors from the class of need and necessity. As the difference is very meak in its perspective, they are spoken interchangably in common practice and is not distinguished. I feel the situation which may be single and collective effect of Biological, Psychological and Spistemological and other factors in which the individual is subjected to will determine the will, thus changing the priority of need to necessity or vice-versa.

Need and Want are often counter posed. Both are primarilly used as verbs as in "I need some thing or state of affairs" or "I want some thing or state of affairs" Humans tend to need or want what they believe will bring them "happiness", defined in some way. (See Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics on happiness.) Both self-defined needs and wants are subjective, and one can be mistaken about whether what they identify as needing or wanting will, in fact, bring them "happiness" or make them better-off overall.

Many conceptions of distributive justice include certain "basic needs" as being due individuals regardless of any desert factor, and simply by virtue of the fact that one is a human being. It is these basic needs which I would indentify as necessities. An attempt is made in all conceptions of distributive justice that provide for the provision of basic needs or necessities to define them objectively, as those things or states of affairs without which a person would not have human dignity.

One influential definition of human dignity is Kant's. A person is an end in him/herself and it is wrong morally to use a person as a means to an end. Necessities might be defined, according to this Kantian view of human dignity, as what is necessary, at a minimum, for a person to have in order to both value themselves as ends and to decrease their vulernerability to use by another or others as an means to serve to the interests of others.

Dear David,

It is true what you had mentioned and it is also true that all definitions of need, want, necessity, etc are infact with respect to the means that an individual believes to provide him with happiness. It also depends on what happiness is also being defined by him.

Dear Mahesh,

For Aristotle, happiness is that at which all human actions are ultimately aimed, because happiness is intrinsically valuable, that good in itself and not good simply as a means to some further good. Also for Aristotle, happiness is objective, not subjective. For him, many, if not most, people are simply mistaken about what they identify as good and about its relationship to happiness.

We need not agree with Aristotle about the objective nature of happiness, the highest good, but can agree that many people are mistaken about what will bring them happiness. Assuming value pluralism, there is still validity in the distinction between those things or states of affairs which are intrinsically good and those which are merely instrumentally good, i.e., good as a means. Good health, for example, is both intrinsically and intrumentally good and seems to be an essental component of any defintion of happiness.

On the other hand, those who obtain pleasure (one intrinsic good) from inficting pain upon others because they enjoy the suffering of others, are immoral, considered to be mentally disordered, and mistaken about the nature of happiness. Therefore, while happiness involves a degree of self-definition, there are a set of core values which appear be an essential part of what any human being, or human community, defines as happiness.

Sorry, missed word in 1st sentence: "....is intrisically valuable, that IS, good in itself and not good simply as a means to some further good."

Dear Sir,

I do agree with the aspect that there are a set of core values which appear to be an essential part of the definition for happiness. But don't you think that the intrinsic good what you speak is an unhealthy condition and is actually suffering from a larger mental agitation resultant of one major unwanted event which is being tried by the effected individual to overcome it. Such people are infact not happy at all. They are in a constant search for happiness and hence the need and necessity along with happiness will be different from those of normal human beings. But this is not acceptable by us as it will disturb us along with them. But their definitions is defined by the values used by them. Isn't it?

I did not give a careful philosophical consideration to the two but for me, necessity has to do with the basics (i.e.food, roof over my head, etc), "need"works more on a "superior" psychological level (one may feels she "needs" the latest iphone., but is this a necessity or a society induced "need"?)-on the Maslow pyramid needs may well be on the superior levels. Although both are psychological, the necessity is often dictated by your physical body while need is more "social"

The question "needs" to be asked in terms of one's potential, and the "need" to reach it, or certain benchmarks for a given purpose, which may be bigger than the person themself, which begs the question of epistemiology. It's been said that if you treat a dolphin like a dumb fish, it learns to act like one.

I would rather hold for more accurate to consider NEED as a state of being that is requiring a change. The NECESSITIES are all those possible items or means to enable that change of states. That good example was with a person feeling hungry [NEED], a kind of state of feeling weak and the food he may take are the [NECESSITIES] to make the transition to a state of more energy. Thus a necessity is a what it takes to bridging states of being.