What Maslow Got Wrong?

Hello Everybody!

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) was a psychologist most famous for developing the hierarchy of needs, which casts a long shadow over us. In this system, these needs form a pyramid and follow a path from bottom to top. This means that one must meet those needs at the bottom before they can concentrate on the level up from there, and people keep meeting needs and climbing until they reach the top: self-actualization.

I want to clarify that I don’t take any substantial issue with the basic ideas of the different needs. However, the way they are presented has, perhaps, inadvertently influenced people’s attitudes about the importance of the list of needs. Even though the ultimate goal is self-actualization, we act like as long as people have their physiological needs—the “most” important—then they have enough. We can easily see this in how people talk about prison, but we don’t have to go into that harsh a context. We can see this in discussions about people’s different financial statuses, educational backgrounds, and even with their treatment at work.

Here are the two concerns I found with his presentation of the hierarchy of needs. First, while the word “needs” isn’t wrong, it causes focus on the wrong thing. It gets us to think about what will keep people alive and not what will help them thrive. The way he asserts the goal of meeting needs as existing at the top seems to influence us to assume and accept that not everyone will make it to self-actualization. So, we should hope only that their most basic needs are met.

People like to make lists about which things are better or more important. It helps us organize our lives and prioritize our goals. We order our favorite things, from guitar players to movies to political candidates. Most of the time, people admit to the subjectivity of their preferential order. However, regarding needs, people are more influenced by which ones are deemed most important. It’s as if to say that as long as someone’s physiological needs are met, our work as a society is done. My quibble with the word needs may be somewhat nitpicky, but I think the second issue is more substantial.

The second problem is the word hierarchy. Calling it a hierarchy influences our attitudes even more than the word “needs.” Indeed, people could technically survive (i.e., stay alive) without friends, meaning, or beauty, but what kind of life would that be? In other words, the bottom level of Maslow’s hierarchy only concerns survival, not flourishing. When viewed this way, people living paycheck to paycheck are essentially told that they cannot think about friendship, art, knowledge, or anything else until they work hard enough to care for their basic needs.

This way of thinking limits human beings. Sometimes, when looking for a better job, cultivating a friendship could be an incidental way of finding a new job. Looking at a beautiful sunset could inspire the hope we need to keep going in the face of adversity. Framing it as a hierarchy reduces our lives to a series of steps. First, meet these needs. Then, meet the next level of needs. Furthermore, it isn’t clear when someone has fully met the needs of one level to proceed to the next. I think this picture of the hierarchy of needs, while not terrible, is misleading.

An Alternative Way to Think About Human Motivation

People tend to agree that human beings possess some primary motivations. The theory of natural law, which has roots in Aristotle, provides a more compelling picture. In philosopher John Finnis’ book Natural Law and Natural Rights (1981), he lists seven basic goods for human action: life, knowledge, play, aesthetic experience, sociability (friendship), practical reasonableness, and ‘religion’. There might be room to disagree with the specifics of his list, but complete agreement on the list is not crucial for us here. Plus, it should be noted that he deliberately puts religion in single quotes to include all religious faiths but also non-religious concerns about the ultimate meaning of life.

Unfortunately, natural law theory has been limited to primarily Catholic philosophers because starting with these seven goods does not require a religious commitment. However, it has a secular version waiting to be unearthed, which is beyond our scope here. This theory offers a more promising understanding of human motivation and combats the concerns mentioned above. It provides a hopeful prospect for a secular version, which could potentially broaden its application and impact.

First, rather than needs, this theory refers to these ideas as goods or reasons for action. The advantage of calling them basic goods is that it doesn’t imply that we must attain one level before moving to the next. The combination of these basic goods moves us toward flourishing, a far better goal than mere survival. Maslow’s end is for people to achieve self-actualization, but someone struggling to find employment cannot “flourish” in his system, as presented. For the basic goods approach (confirmed by experience), someone may be looking for work, but they can still find meaning and enjoyment in a transcendent sunset.

Second, instead of a hierarchy, which suggests a necessary progression from lower to higher, the goods can and should all be pursued. However, the goods need not be pursued equally at every moment; some may be pursued more at different times. There isn’t a predetermined linear progression to get to the top. There isn’t a top. This perspective liberates us from a rigid hierarchy, allowing for a more flexible and dynamic pursuit of the goods. For example, while in college, someone may pursue the good of knowledge more than aesthetic experience. The main thing is that woefully neglecting any one of the goods would hinder someone’s capacity to flourish. Pursuing the goods is not a mountain to climb—life is not linear. There’s more of a back and forth among the goods anyone pursues throughout their life. Different circumstances and chances may direct someone’s attention to different goods at various times.

Conclusion

Substantially, I’m not too concerned with Maslow’s basic ideas of different needs, but the way he presents them infiltrates our approach to many things. In the context of work, we assume that since making money allows people to meet their physiological needs, they should be satisfied because those are the most important. However, when we consider work from the context of basic goods, we realize that people are more complicated than that linear picture. We are glad to have a job that helps us secure our physical needs, but we can also pursue other goods at work, such as knowledge, sociability, and play.

I want to end by saying I don’t have it all worked out here. I certainly didn’t present the complete theory of Maslow or natural law. These are some thoughts I’m working through, and I value constructive criticism, alternative thoughts, and reasoned objections. What I think is true is that Maslow’s idea of the hierarchy of needs has infiltrated our collective thinking, for better and worse. Perhaps my issue, in the end, is not with Maslow but with how others have used his hierarchy. We should reconsider whether it is the best way to frame human motivation. I sense that it is not.

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