needs

adv.
Of necessity; necessarily: We must needs go.

[Middle English nedes, from nede, from Old English nēde, genitive of nēd, necessity. See need.]

A need refers to what is required in order to do something or achieve some state of being. ‘Human needs’, for example, have been taken to describe requirements which must be satisfied if harm to an agent is to be avoided. Thus theorists have spoken of needs for food, drink, shelter, and even love, on the grounds that deprivation of any of these ‘goods’ will constitute harm to an individual. A strong defence of the notion of needs contrasts it with the notion of wants. Needs are universal, wants reflect the variety of circumstance and taste. Need-satisfaction is fundamental to welfare, want-satisfaction desirable but less urgent—and therefore needs have normative priority over wants. It is possible to be ignorant of one's needs, but not of one's wants.

There is, however, widespread scepticism about the distinction between needs and wants. Sceptics suggest that the notion of needs is socially relative and that of harm morality-dependent; that alleged needs may be met at so many different levels that they cannot define a baseline for considerations of welfare; that there is no less subjectivity in acknowledging needs than in asserting wants; and that purported needs merely represent someone's (contestable) view of the requirements of human flourishing. Although, in general, socialist political thought has been more sympathetic than other traditions to the notion of needs, and more willing to build theoretical prescriptions upon it, some contemporary radicals, particularly those concerned with societal shaping of our perceptions of ‘need’, are to be numbered amongst the sceptics.

— Andrew Reeve

Something is needed for some end if the end cannot be achieved without it. If living things are thought of as having a set of real or true ends, as in Aristotelian teleological accounts of human beings, then their real or true needs will be whatever is required for those ends to be achieved. The meeting of needs can then be the foundation of an ethic. The difficulty is to shake the idea loose from its Aristotelian underpinnings. Without those, the idea of a need is apt to dilute into the idea of an interest or a desire. See also capabilities.

IN BRIEF: adv. - In such a manner as could not be otherwise; Wants; Requires.

For a person to build a rich and rewarding life for himself, there are certain qualities and bits of knowledge that he needs to acquire. — Earl Nightingale

Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The adverb has one meaning:

Meaning #1: in such a manner as could not be otherwise
  Synonyms: inevitably, necessarily, of necessity

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special needs