<< Abstract List

Biological Adaptation in Human Societies
A 'Basic Needs' Approach

Peter A. Corning, Ph.D.
Institute for the Study of Complex Systems
119 Bryant Street, Suite 212
Palo Alto, CA 94301 USA

Phone: (650) 325-5717
Fax: (650) 325-3775
Email: pacorning@complexsystems.org

© JOURNAL OF BIOECONOMICS 2:41-86 (2000)

"I do not think we have adequately determined the nature and number of the appetites, and until this is accomplished the inquiry will always be confused."

Socrates Quoted in The Republic (Plato)

"One way or another, we must take a stand on what the most central areas of human life are..."

Robert Erikson

The ground-zero premise (so to speak) of the biological sciences is the assumption that survival and reproduction is the basic, continuing, inescapable problem for all living organisms; life is at bottom a "survival enterprise." Whatever may be our perceptions, aspirations, or illusions, this tap-root assumption is applicable to the human species as well. Survival is the "paradigmatic problem" for all human societies; it is a prerequisite for any other, more exalted objectives. A key concept in biology is "adaptation" -- commonly meaning both the functional requisites for survival and reproduction and the specific means that are employed for doing so by a given organism in a given environment; an organism is, quintessentially, a "bundle of adaptations." Although the term "adaptation" is also familiar to social scientists, until recently it has been used only selectively, and often very imprecisely. Here a more rigorous and systematic approach to the concept of adaptation is proposed in terms of "basic needs." The concept of basic human needs has a venerable history -- tracing back at least to Plato and Aristotle. It has been a common theme in the philosophical and political dialogue over the past two millennia, and in the course of this century it has been more or less explicitly associated with a wide variety of social welfare policies and programs in Western societies. Yet the development of a formal theory of basic needs has lagged far behind. The reason, in a nutshell, is that the concept of objective, measurable needs is inconsistent with the theoretical assumptions that have dominated economic and social theory for most of this century, namely, "value-relativism" and "cultural determinism." A hallmark of neo-classical economics, for instance, is the assumption that economic behavior can best be explained in terms of the efficient pursuit of personal "tastes", "revealed preferences," or "subjective utility," not in terms of some external criterion of needs satisfaction or objective utility. Nevertheless, there have been a number of efforts over the past 30 years to develop more universalistic criteria for basic needs, both for use in monitoring social well-being ("social indicators") and for public policy formulation. Here I will advance a strictly biological approach to operationalizing the concept of basic needs, which is referred to as the "Survival Indicators" paradigm. It is argued that much of our economic and social life (and the motivations behind our revealed preferences and subjective utility assessments), not to mention the actions of modern governments, are either directly or indirectly related to the meeting of our basic survival needs. Furthermore, these needs can be specified to a first approximation and supported empirically to varying degrees, with the obvious caveat that there are major individual and contextual variations in their application. Equally important, complex human societies generate an array of "instrumental needs" which, as the term implies, serve as intermediaries between our primary needs and the specific economic, cultural and political contexts within which these needs must be satisfied. In fact, categorical distinctions can be drawn between (a) primary needs, (b) instrumental needs, (c) perceived needs, (d) dependencies and (e) wants, although in practice these categories often overlap. An explicit framework of "Survival Indicators," including a profile of "Personal Fitness" and an aggregate index of "Population Fitness," was proposed elsewhere. Here this framework is briefly elucidated and updated. Some comparisons and contrasts are also drawn between the Survival Indicators framework and various alternative formulations, along with a discussion of some prospective steps for further development; it is stressed that there is still much work to be done and much room for improvement. Finally, it is suggested that a basic needs paradigm could provide an analytical tool (a "bio-logic") for examining more closely the relationship between our social, economic and political behaviors and institutions and their survival consequences, as well as providing a predictive tool of some importance.

Download/View Full Paper: PDF

< Prev  |  Next >