Maslow's Hierarchy

I've been stewing over the previous post and have found it difficult to proceed further along the topic without more detailed consideration of needs, desires, and interests. Unable to define them from a purely philosophical perspective, I defer to psychology.

It merits mention that philosophy and psychology are closely inter-related, such that one often intrudes on the other, and generally, the consequences are less than optimal (a psychologist's take on philosophy, and vice-versa, tend to be sloppy and inaccurate), and so it's important to state that my intent here is not to redefine psychology, but borrow upon it until a purely philosophical answer can be found.

Even so, it cannot be borrowed without some modification. Primarily, Maslow's theory is considered to be a hierarchy of needs, and I find that the distinction of "need" from "desire" is hazy at best, and moreover, it is of no consequence to ethics. And so, my intent is to translate Maslow's hierarchy of needs into a hierarchy of interests, and set aside the classification of an interest as a need or a desire.

Maslow's theory was that there are a broad array of human needs that can be depicted as a hierarchy, such that the lowest level of need is of primary interest to the individual, and that it is generally the case that the individual will be inclined to fill his lowest level of need before seeking to fulfill needs on a higher level.

This would translate to the subject of ethics as the motivation to serve an interest (or "satisfy a need"), and to prioritize certain interests over others (addressing basic needs before seeking to fulfill higher ones).

The lowest level of the hierarchy, hence the highest level of priority to motivation, are "physiological" needs, which arise from the immediate necessity of sustaining life: the need to eat, drink, breathe, sleep, and react to medical emergencies that pose immediate threat to life and well-being. The needs at this level can be further prioritized by their immediacy: the need to breathe being more pressing than the need to eat.

At the next level are the needs that Maslow considered to be essential to safety and security. These are still based on physiological needs, but seek to fulfill future needs rather than immediate ones: the need to avoid injury or treat medical conditions that are not an immediate threat, the need to establish stores of food and water for future consumption, etc.

The next level are social needs, which are also derived from physiological needs, but in the context of other people. Specifically, the individual is motivated to enter into relationships with others that will help him to fulfill his future needs more efficiently: family, neighbors, community, employer, etc. It is at this level that the motivation begins to become blurred, as psychology insists that an individual has a "need" to belong to social units that is not directly related to his ability to fulfill his physiological needs.

The next level of needs pertain to esteem, which is a purely psychological consideration. This deals with the emotional fulfillment of the individual: self-esteem, the respect of others, confidence in his abilities, and a sense of achievement.

The highest level of needs pertain to self-actualization: the development of abilities that did not previously exist, and are not directly related to physiological needs. Though it seems to me that this is related to esteem (a person gains abilities to increase the same factors, respect, confidence, sense of achievement), I may be overlooking the reason for differentiating them.

From a perspective of ethics, the first three levels of Maslow's hierarchy are acceptable in their objectivity. I do not think it could be argued that these "needs" represent genuine and objectively valid motivations.

However, the purely psychological elements of the highest two levels (and the psychological rather than physiological element of the third) are more difficult to accept as a basis for objective evaluation. I don't dispute that humans are motivated by such things, but find it difficult to include them in objective assessment of interests as they are tautologies (a person desires to belong to a group simply because they desire to belong to a group).

Borrowing upon Maslow's hierarchy, I will accept for the time being that there are four "levels" of interest, in order of highest to lowest priority:

1. Interests that are served in order to satisfy immediate physiological needs
2. Interests that are served in order to directly impact the ability to meet future physiological needs
3. Interests that are served in order to directly impact the ability to meet future physiological needs by means of others
4. Interests that are served for reasons unrelated to physiological needs

I have a sense that this will hold up under a liberal amount of scrutiny, and will suffice for the evaluation of ethics in most situations.