Lecture

Human Needs and Wellbeing

Graph Chat

Chat with Graph Search

Ask any question about EPFL courses, lectures, exercises, research, news, etc. or try the example questions below.

DISCLAIMER: The Graph Chatbot is not programmed to provide explicit or categorical answers to your questions. Rather, it transforms your questions into API requests that are distributed across the various IT services officially administered by EPFL. Its purpose is solely to collect and recommend relevant references to content that you can explore to help you answer your questions.

Description

This lecture explores the concepts of human needs, satisfiers, and wellbeing, discussing the essential distinction between needs and desires, the role of sufficiency in sustainability, and the analysis of human needs through various eudaimonic schools of thought. It delves into the importance of meeting human needs within planetary boundaries, the central role of provisioning systems, and the Decent Living Standards approach. The presentation also covers the operationalization of wellbeing, the Mandala of Protected Needs, and the Sustainable Development Goals related to wellbeing.

Official source

Related concepts (32)

Eudaimonia

Eudaimonia (Greek: εὐδαιμονία eu̯dai̯moníaː; juːdɪˈmoʊniə), sometimes anglicized as eudaemonia or eudemonia, is a Greek word literally translating to the state or condition of 'good spirit', and which is commonly translated as 'happiness' or 'welfare'. In works of Aristotle, eudaimonia was the term for the highest human good in older Greek tradition. It is the aim of practical philosophy-prudence, including ethics and political philosophy, to consider and experience what this state really is, and how it can be achieved.

Sustainability

Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long time. Specific definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Experts often describe sustainability as having three dimensions (or pillars): environmental, economic, and social, and many publications emphasize the environmental dimension. In everyday use, sustainability often focuses on countering major environmental problems, including climate change, loss of biodiversity, loss of ecosystem services, land degradation, and air and water pollution.

Well-being

Well-being, or wellbeing, also known as wellness, prudential value, prosperity or quality of life, refers to what is intrinsically valuable relative to someone. So the well-being of a person is what is ultimately good for this person, what is in the self-interest of this person. Well-being can refer to both positive and negative well-being. In its positive sense, it is sometimes contrasted with ill-being as its opposite.

Planetary boundaries

Planetary boundaries are a framework to describe limits to the impacts of human activities on the Earth system. Beyond these limits, the environment may not be able to self-regulate anymore. This would mean the Earth system would leave the period of stability of the Holocene, in which human society developed. Crossing a planetary boundary comes at the risk of abrupt environmental change. The framework is based on scientific evidence that human actions, especially those of industrialized societies since the Industrial Revolution, have become the main driver of global environmental change.

Six-factor model of psychological well-being

The six-factor model of psychological well-being is a theory developed by Carol Ryff which determines six factors which contribute to an individual's psychological well-being, contentment, and happiness. Psychological well-being consists of self-acceptance, positive relationships with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, a feeling of purpose and meaning in life, and personal growth and development. Psychological well-being is attained by achieving a state of balance affected by both challenging and rewarding life events.

Related lectures (64)

Wellbeing and Human Needs: Exploring Sustainable Satisfaction

Examines the relationship between wellbeing, human needs, and sustainable satisfaction through the lens of sufficiency.

Energy, Human Needs and Wellbeing

Delves into the interplay between energy, human needs, and sustainability, emphasizing sufficiency and social wellbeing.

Sustainable Development Goals: Individual and Collective Actions

Emphasizes the role of individual and collective actions in achieving sustainability through the Sustainable Development Goals and the successes of the Millennium Development Goals.

Planetary Boundaries: Biodiversity and Sustainability

Explores planetary boundaries, biodiversity, and sustainability, emphasizing the impact of crossing boundaries on Earth's system.

Human Wellbeing: Energy, Needs, and Sustainability