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A Theory of Human Need

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc eBooksPublished 1 January 1991
Len Doyal, Ian Gough
Citations1,073

Abstract

Rejecting fashionable subjectivist and cultural relativist approaches, this important book argues that human beings have universal and objective needs for health and autonomy and a right to their optimal satisfaction. The authors develop a system of social indicators to show what such optimization would mean in practice and assess the records of a wide range of developed and underdeveloped economies in meeting their citizens' needs.