Needs as Causes

Facts about need play some role in our causal understanding of the world. We understand, for example, that people have basic needs for food, water, and shelter, and that people come to be harmed because those needs go unmet. But what are needs? How do explanations in terms of need fit into our broader causal understanding of the world? This paper provides an account of need attribution, their contribution to causal explanations, and their relation to disposition attribution.