Insofar as the distinction between absolute and relative needs is concerned with the extent of human needing – both in a quantitative and a qualitative sense, this raises questions of measurability on the one hand and philosophy on the other. How much do we need and how far do our needs extend? Should human need be minimally or optimally satisfied? Is it enough that we should be able minimally to survive or is it important that we should be allowed, or even encouraged, so far as possible to flourish (Ignatieff, 1984: Introduction)? Another way of thinking about this – and one we shall be adopting – is to distinguish between thin needing and thick needing (Drover & Kerans, 1993: 11–13; I. Fraser, 1998; and see Walzer, 1994). The terms are, of course, metaphorical, and one of the analogies that has been used to explain them relates to the difference between a thin insipid soup that, though it may be nutritious and wholesome, is not as thoroughly satisfying as a thick rich soup – skilfully or lovingly made – which appeals to our sense of taste and enjoyment. It is a distinction between what might respectively be called minimalist and expansive interpretations of need and of needing.
When it comes to the characteristics of need, human beings are simultaneously both biological and social creatures. We have biological or physiological needs on the one hand, but we have socially derived needs on the other. In practice, because we are embodied social beings (K. Ellis & Dean, 2000), it can be difficult to draw a line that distinguishes between these two kinds of need. But one element of the absolute/relative distinction is a distinction between physical sufficiency and social acceptability. We have bodily needs, but our needs have social meaning and significance. Psychological ‘drives’, for example, may be subject to cultural ‘taboos’. We can’t escape from our bodies, but some of the things that define us as human derive from our social context; from our inter-relationships and interdependency with other human beings; from the dynamics of human history and development. Therefore, the second distinction we shall draw is between, on the one hand, needs that are conceptually or theoretically defined – from the ‘top-down’ – as inherent to the human person and, on the other, needs that may be experienced or practically observed or interpreted – from the ‘bottom-up’ – in the course of everyday lives and processes.
The naming and claiming of human need
Social policies are concerned with the ways in which human needs are met. And academic social policy is concerned with the critical analysis of that continuing process. What we call social policy emerged during the 20th century with the development of capitalist welfare states in the global North (T. H. Marshall, 1950), albeit that there have been different kinds of welfare state (Esping-Andersen, 1990) that have reflected different and sometimes conflicting approaches and priorities in terms of their underlying understandings of human need.
It is clear, however, that throughout the world – even within the welfare states of the global North – needs have been going unmet, and theorists and practitioners alike have sought better to understand and address the processes that fuel the enduring systemic disadvantages that remain evident, most especially in parts of the global South. However, the concept of human need has remained relatively under-theorised. Attention has been paid to the role of rights-based approaches to the alleviation of poverty and the prevention of disadvantage, albeit that connections between understandings of human need and the framing of social rights have by and large been ambiguous (but see H. Dean, 2015). Throughout history, human beings have in a multitude of ways and with varying degrees of success been finding how to care for one another and to meet their own and each other’s needs. Long before the invention of the welfare state, it was through the processes of naming and claiming needs, the social negotiation of claims and the mutual recognition of needs that human beings have survived.
What we now call social policy and the framing of social rights may, in retrospect, be seen as integral to human life and the naming and claiming of human need. The understanding of needs is critical to an understanding of what it means to be human.
The argument sketched out earlier informs the structure of this book and key distinctions that underlie the ideas that are developed throughout it. The book falls into two parts: the first is concerned with concepts and understandings; the second with implications and debates.
Part I begins in Chapter 2 with an explanation of the concept of humanity and of the human species’ constitutive characteristics that will inform the approach this book takes to human need. Chapter 3 will draw out the key distinction – between ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ needs and needing. Particular meaning is attributed to the distinction by articulating it with different understandings of human well-being. The discussion draws on classic philosophical arguments and current debates about the nature of ‘happiness’ and what might be meant by human ‘dignity’. Chapters 4 and 5 draw out the key distinction mentioned earlier between theoretical ‘top-down’ and practical ‘bottom-up’ approaches to need. The former relates to needs that are held by philosophers, ideologues and scholars to vest in, or inherently belong to, the human subject; the latter to needs that are understood, inferred or expressed by or on behalf of people themselves. Clearly, the two approaches interact and are related, but it is the ongoing nature of that relationship that matters. Chapter 6 brings the threads of this discussion together by articulating the crudely sketched needs-based approaches outlined earlier in this chapter with the key conceptual distinctions explored in the intervening chapters; it illustrates how each approach is manifested in different kinds of social policy intervention; and it reflects upon how in the current era recent events and debates regarding welfare and well-being may unfold.
In Part II, Chapter 7 firstly revisits debates around the disadvantages that occur when human needs go unmet and the processes by which, throughout human history, advantage has accrued to some segments of humanity at the expense of others. It will consider how this is manifested through the poverty, exclusion, inequalities and injustices that affect human societies and in terms of systemic mal-distribution of resources and, more fundamentally, the ways in which at every level human needs are differentially recognised and fulfilled. Chapter 8 explores how needs-based approaches can be translated into or articulated through rights-based approaches, and advances a new way of theorising the nature of social rights and global justice. Chapter 9 re-examines the politics of human need and argues in favour of a radical humanist ‘needs-first’ ethic.
Each chapter concludes with a summary of its main points. This may assist not only student readers but those who wish first to browse the book to determine its principal contribution. Readers interested in a framework within which to situate competing interpretations of need may wish to focus on Chapters 3 to 6. Readers interested in policy implications may wish to focus on Chapters 7 and 8. Readers from across the social sciences and beyond, it is hoped, will wish critically to engage with the radical humanist approach to needs developed principally in Chapters 2 and 9. And posed at the end of each chapter are two ‘challenging questions’: invitations to the reader to engage with the contested and contestable dimensions of the discussions this book presents.
This chapter has:
•Provided some insight into the complexity of human need as a term that is used in a variety of different and contradictory