The division between necessary and empty desires has no assured measure.

Objects to

Sorting assumes a stable criterion: on one side the natural and necessary desires, on the other the empty ones to be dismissed.
But this boundary shifts endlessly. Yesterday's comfort becomes today's need; what a hermit judges superfluous, another holds vital. The division seems to depend less on the nature of the desire than on the habits one lives by.
Sorting one's desires then risks being merely a way of justifying the standard of living one is used to: we call « necessary » what we do not want to lose, and « empty » what we have already managed to do without.

Therefore So the wisdom of sorting might be only an arrangement with oneself, disguised as a measure of nature.

Deepenings

Natural, necessary, empty

distinguishes three kinds of desire: the natural and necessary (to eat, to be sheltered, to be free of pain), the natural but unnecessary (fine dishes rather than bread), and the empty ones, with no natural limit (wealth, fame).
The objection does not deny the list, it denies that it is given in advance: where to place the desire for knowledge, for beauty, for recognition? Nature, here, does not decide alone.

Possible resolutions of the objection

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Challenges

Problem