Physical Health and Autonomy

Abstract

How can the satisfaction of basic needs be empirically evaluated? The reader will recall the distinction drawn in Chapter 4 between the ultimate goal presumed by our theory — the avoidance of serious harm regarded as the fundamental and sustained impairment of social participation — and the basic needs for physical health and autonomy. These needs were seen to be the universal conditions for achieving this goal. Our intention here is to operationalise physical health and autonomy and to suggest cross-cultural indicators of both.¹