Part One: Understandings and concepts
2The needs of humanity
3The thin and the thick of need and needing
The distinction between ‘thin’ and ‘thick’
Thin needs and hedonic notions of well-being
Thick needs and eudaimonic notions of well-being
4Needs in theory
Classic human individualist theories
5Needs in practice
6Human need and social policy
A taxonomy of needs-based approaches
Human needs and welfare ‘regimes’
Part Two: Implications and debates
7Unmet needs and social disadvantage
Poverty and inequality: the distribution and accumulation of material resources
Exclusion and misrecognition: the construction and demarcation of social divisions
Dehumanisation: processes of alienation, oppression and exploitation
8Articulating needs as rights
Reconceptualising social citizenship
9The politics of human need
A different politics of demand
List of figures, tables and boxes
Figures
6.1A taxonomy of needs-based approaches
6.2A taxonomy of welfare regimes: their assumptions, principles and priorities
8.1A taxonomy of currently prevailing rights-based approaches to human need
8.2A speculative taxonomy of the historical manifestations of social rights
Tables
1.1Binary distinctions between different kinds or levels of need
4.1Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
4.2Max-Neef’s matrix of fundamental human needs and satisfiers
4.3Doyal and Gough’s theory of human need: a summary
5.1Bradshaw’s taxonomy of need: an interpretation
5.2Expression through participation
7.1Development, poverty and inequality in rich and poorer countries
7.2Social disadvantage as the denial of human fulfilment
8.1Thin/formal versus thick/substantive