Philosopher Mark Alfano identifies needs—”minimal conditions for human lives to be worth living”—and capabilities—”the range of powers that transform a life of bare coping to one of flourishing”—as two distinct sources of human values:
Values answer to needs and capabilities. Something is valuable to the extent that it satisfies needs and supports capabilities, disvaluable to the extent that it frustrates needs and undermines capabilities. (@2020gellnerMorality, p. 420)
Examples of needs include gross biological constraints and physical needs like air, water, food, shelter, clothing, and touch, as well as “more sophisticated and enculturated necessities”; examples of capabilities include literacy, numeracy, emotional competence, practical reason, some material and political control.
References
- Weil (1949), The Need for Roots
- Nussbaum (2000), Woman and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach
- Alfano (2016), Moral Psychology: An Introduction
- @2020gellnerMorality, “Debate: Morality is fundamentally an evolved solution to problems of social co-operation”