‘A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be’
– Abraham Maslow
In the field of humanistic psychology, a particular concept has been pervasive within the last few decades.
Some of you may know this as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs; a framework which offers an account of human needs that are ubiquitous across time and place. In offering such a framework, its proponents would suggest, we can also understand the (supposedly) universal ways in which we alleviate our deficiencies and pursue growth through a common process.
For those who are not aware of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, I will offer a brief explanation. This hierachy defines ‘human needs’ within several categories, with some needs considered more basal or more complex than others – as the original theory suggests, people are drawn naturally to attempt to fulfill their more basal needs first, and to then seek fulfilment for their more complex needs.
At the bottom of the hierarchy are our physiological needs – food and water, sleep, shelter, the air we breathe. The fundamentals of our continued survival in any sense of the word.
Beyond this, we find our need for safety. We seek to be healthy, secure, in an environment that does not threaten us.
After this, we find our needs for community and belonging. Whether this is in the form of family, friendship, or other types of intimate others – we seek to live comfortably among others, with connection, in a place that reinforces our value to the world.
And after this we find our need for self-esteem. Respect, achievement, freedom; these aren’t always assured in the lives we live, but we all – especially those not deficient in the other needs – would seek more than simply comfort with our communities but comfort with ourselves.
Beyond all of these needs, in a term that has been given a great deal of weight by philosophers and psychologists alike, is our need for self-actualisation. Self-actualisation, among other things, can be thought of as our need to be fully ourselves in the truest notion of the term. To have a sense of purpose, direction, self-identity, and an ethic to live by that brings forth flourishing unique to your individual circumstance. It is precisely for the existence of this need that Maslow referred to the common state of society as a ‘psychopathology of the average’; as self-actualisation was seen as both integral to the healthy functioning of the person and yet a need few have seriously maintained in their own life.
Though Maslow was highly influential, the exacts of his theory have been the subject of much critique and, furthermore, doubt. There are some who find the framework disagreeable, and many others who seek to rework the framework in accordance with new findings – including Maslow himself, who tweaked this theory over time.
I find something more interesting here than the exacts of the theory, however. It is perhaps obvious enough that it could be left to the domain of folk wisdom, but this framework puts into words an idea that I think has only become more relevant in the world as the years have passed and we have become ever more interconnected – the fact that there are some needs integral, simply, to being human, and not to living in the context of a certain background or culture.
Doubtlessly, our culture and background contribute a great deal to our needs. The degree to which Western cultural influences have been normalised across the world makes it easy to not think much about it – but even something as seemingly universal as the cash we carry in our pockets is derived from the needs that our civilisation constructs for us.
But in all cases, I would argue, you can narrow down these extrinsic needs to a more intrinsic need. Money gives us food, shelter, comfort, security in a chaotic world – those are the things we really need. Our cultural needs all tie back together to more fundamental needs that aren’t so readily segregated by the place we live in.
To the point of the matter: I find this all so interesting because of what it implies for our (very recent) history of human rights.
It’s perhaps a question that could cause some offense in a congenial social environment, but a relevant question to our lives nonetheless is: what is the purpose of human rights? What exactly are we trying to achieve when we place these impositions on both our individual actions and our order of our governments?
I think a simple answer is that human rights are born from a recognition that we should, within the constraints of the power we have, assure a minimum quality of wellbeing for people simply on the basis of being sentient – and thus capable of experiencing wellbeing. Some would argue over an is-ought problem and claim that we can’t prove anyone deserves a minimum quality of life – but I don’t really intend to go over such arguments here. While people suffer in poverty and sickness around the world, and we sit in our armchairs in the privilege of a society that has granted us so much built upon our foundations of mutual benefit, I would simply say that such arguments are immature and wastes of time in a world that needs practical action, now.
But there is still a relevant source of debate here: what exactly would our practical actions be, in this regard? If we want to assure a minimum quality of wellbeing for all people, within our powers, what exactly can we do to ensure it?
Some would argue that a universal declaration of human rights, like the one established by the United Nations, is ill-conceived for this purpose – because needs are culturally relative, and thus, any moralism about universal treatment will subsume the needs of some with the needs of others.
You perhaps see where my line of thought on this discussion led. Different places, different cultures – they can have very different expectations for a well-lived life. There is merit to the idea that you could not simply give a person the life of someone in a separate country, with separate ideals and communities and beliefs, and expect them to find the same goodness of living.
But I don’t think this is a strong argument against the universality of human rights. Because, as I have argued, our needs for flourishing narrow down into common ground – whether precisely in the form that Maslow argued for or not, it is hard to argue that there is any person on earth who will be better equipped to flourish in the midst of starvation than in a bountiful community.
If we conceive that the value of human rights is in its ability to ensure the minimum quality of wellbeing for people, and that wellbeing is attained through satisfaction of needs, then any such account of human rights must come also with an account of human needs. Psychologists, inevitably, will continue to debate the exacts of such an account, as they have for many decades now – and my own words on the topic could offer little. But I believe what we have already seen should give us confidence, if nothing else, that a universal conceptualisation of human rights is tenable. And I would perhaps consider no moral grounding to be more humanistic than that which allows us all to flourish together.