Answer to Question #167521 in Economics for Saabiriin

Question

Use Aristotle’s distinction between needs and wants to evaluate your own consumption 

patterns.

Answer 1

We know from our shared experience that people differ in their desires and that in everyday speech we use the word “good” to refer to the things we want to get.

If we think one thing is more desirable than another, we think it is better. And out of several desirable things, there is one that seems to us the best.

Such reflections led Aristotle to the conclusion of common sense: both concepts - good and desirable - are inextricably linked.

The assertions that the good is the desired and the desired is the good are the same axioms as the postulates of Euclid in geometry.

Let me remind you that the problem we are considering is the differences in people's desires, which complicate the proof that people have the same final goal in the form of striving for a good life, or happiness. To solve it, Aristotle shows us that human desires are diverse and that what is true for one kind of desire will not be true for another.

Need is what allows a person to survive as a biological species, and desire is a conscious demand, generated by civilization, for some good, which is often not paramount.