Understanding Human Need

Human need is a central but contested concept in social policy and the social sciences. This book provides an accessible overview of the subject using concepts and debates from philosophy, psychology, economics, sociology and elsewhere. It presents a unique integrative model that characterizes the m [...]
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Human need is a central but contested concept in social policy and the social sciences. This book provides an accessible overview of the subject using concepts and debates from philosophy, psychology, economics, sociology and elsewhere. It presents a unique integrative model that characterizes the main approaches and shows how they may be reflected in different sorts of social policy goals. The author engages with recent concepts and debates that have in some respects eclipsed the conventional discussions of the past, but which should be understood for the ways in which they advance or contribute to our understanding of human need: they include debates about human wellbeing and 'happiness'; poverty, social exclusion and global inequality; human difference, the diversity of needs and the concept of human capabilities. Most crucially, the book explores debates about the ways in which human needs may be translated into rights and discusses how social policy and a social rights approach can be more explicitly informed by a politics of human need.The book offers essential insights for contemporary students of social policy, but will also be of significant interest to students and academics in other social science disciplines and to policy makers and political activists beyond academia.