A Theory of Human Need (Critical Perspectives) - Tapa blanda

"[The authors] have combined critical analysis with common sense to engage the reader in an effort that reawakens optimism about what reliance on belief in our common humanity could accomplish.' --Eric Holtzman, Ph.D."I have read "A Theory of Human Need" with great interest and enjoyment. I consider it the most important contribution to the subject in many years. It is particularly strong in defending an objective conception of need in the face of the recently voguish tendency to treat needs as subjective and purely culturally determined. The book's capacity to integrate economic, physiological, and philosophical arguments is particularly gratifying.' --Herbert Gintis, Ph.D."This book will have an important place in the academic world. It is one of the first of a new crop of books that take up the concerns with need expressed in the 1970s and then abandoned in the 1980s. It is one of the few books that uses both anglophone and continental philosophy (e.g. Rawls and Habermas) fluently to address contemporary problems....There is really no book I can think of that tries to combine philosophical analysis and policy in this area in the way Doyal and Gough do.' --Sonia Kruks, author of "Situation and Human Existence " "Well argued and clearly written....Geographers who compare social conditions around the world, and recognize the lack of a theoretical basis to such comparisons, will find that Doyal and Gough satisfy that need very well.' -- The Professional Geographer "A sophisticated argument that is philosophically sound and verifiable in its use of empirical data....This is a book to be pondered and seriously considered by anyone interested in the human condition and the dilemmas that everyone involved either in academic and/or practitioner work with human rights and individual needs in collective settings must confront.' -- Policy Currents " The authors have combined critical analysis with common sense to engage the reader in an effort that reawakens optimism about what reliance on belief in our common humanity could accomplish.' --Eric Holtzman, Ph.D. "I have read "A Theory of Human Need" with great interest and enjoyment. I consider it the most important contribution to the subject in many years. It is particularly strong in defending an objective conception of need in the face of the recently voguish tendency to treat needs as subjective and purely culturally determined. The book's capacity to integrate economic, physiological, and philosophical arguments is particularly gratifying.' --Herbert Gintis, Ph.D. "This book will have an important place in the academic world. It is one of the first of a new crop of books that take up the concerns with need expressed in the 1970s and then abandoned in the 1980s. It is one of the few books that uses both anglophone and continental philosophy (e.g. Rawls and Habermas) fluently to address contemporary problems....There is really no book I can think of that tries to combine philosophical analysis and policy in this area in the way Doyal and Gough do.' --Sonia Kruks, author of "Situation and Human Existence " "Well argued and clearly written....Geographers who compare social conditions around the world, and recognize the lack of a theoretical basis to such comparisons, will find that Doyal and Gough satisfy that need very well.' --"The Professional Geographer" "A sophisticated argument that is philosophically sound and verifiable in its use of empirical data....This is a book to be pondered and seriously considered by anyone interested in the human condition and the dilemmas that everyone involved either in academic and/or practitioner work with human rights and individual needs in collective settings must confront.'--"Policy Currents "

Rejecting relativist approaches, this book argues that physical health and individual autonomy are the necessary preconditions for participation in any society. The authors not only argue that optimal satisfaction of these basic human needs is a fundamental right of all our planet's citizens, but also that not meeting these needs can, and will, lead to moral and political disablement.
Integrating theory and practice, the book presents a system for cross-cultural needs measurement, as well as a set of requirements for ameliorating human impoverishment. It then describes an innovative 'dual strategy' which recognizes the economic importance of both market forces and central planning, and the political importance of both state intervention and a flourishing democracy.