A Theory of Human Need
Published on 10. October 1991
Book
Paperback/Softback
XVI, 381 pages
978-0-333-38325-4 (ISBN)
Description
Rejecting fashionable subjectivist and cultural relativist approaches, this important book argues that human beings have universal and objective needs for health and autonomy and a right to their optimal satisfaction. The authors develop a system of social indicators to show what such optimization would mean in practice and assess the records of a wide range of developed and underdeveloped economies in meeting their citizens' needs
Reviews / Votes
'An ambitious and very welcome book...[which] combines a tight argument and a wide-ranging application...This will prove a major text not just in terms of the theory presented and the data that is summarised but in the research questions it poses.' - Nigel Parton, Times Higher Education Supplement '[A] scrupulous and sophisticated case...for the ascription of universal needs...What is important and original...about [Doyal and Gough's] project is that it not only tells us what our basic needs are...but offers empirical criteria for the meeting of these goals...' - Kate Soper, New Left ReviewMore details
Edition
1991
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
540 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-333-38325-4 (9780333383254)
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Len Doyal | Ian Gough
A Theory of Human Needs
Book
08/1991
Palgrave Macmillan
€52.62
Article exhausted; check different version
Persons
Len Doyal, Ian Gough
Content
Prefaces.- Introduction.- PART I: RELATIVISM AND THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN NEED.- Who Needs Human Needs?.- The Inevitability of Human Needs.- The Grammar of Human Needs.- PART 2: A THEORY OF HUMAN NEED.- The Basic Needs of Persons.- Societal Preconditions for Need Satisfaction.- Human Liberation and the Right to Optimal Need Satisfaction.- Optimising Need Satisfaction in Theory.- PART 3: HUMAN NEEDS IN PRACTICE.- Measuring Need Satisfaction.- Health and Autonomy Intermediate.- Needs Societal Preconditions for Optimising.- Need Satisfaction.- Charting Human Welfare.- PART 4: THE POLITICS OF HUMAN NEED.- Towards a Political Economy of Need Satisfaction.- The Dual Strategy.