| title: | Justification with need. (Circular situation at the justification with need and validity of the justification.) |
|---|---|
| reg no: | ETF5495 |
| project type: | Estonian Science Foundation research grant |
| subject: |
6. Humanities |
| status: | completed |
| institution: | TU Faculty of Philosophy |
| head of project: | Valdar Parve |
| duration: | 01.01.2003 - 31.12.2003 |
| description: | Objectives: We intend to study justifications (targeted to allocation of resources etc.) basing on the "needs" in social policies, health care policies, sport policies etc. We focus on circularity situations in those justifications being aware that politician, health care manager, sport manager, city planner etc. usually do not to pay attention on the circularity problem and on the theory of need used by them. Our starting position: A person (who is using "need" in political etc. justification) gives to the concept of need the content that the target group is easy to share in his view (1). Diametrical situation is possible that the most familiar method determines the ontological status of the "need" without asking whether there could be correct the different theories of need (2). "Need" is used to justify the social activities. But it is unclear whether the proposed "need" is the goal, the object needed, or the desire of the people towards whom the activity is directed to. (3) The agent projected his idea what the need is onto the position of need of the recipient who would have had a need in that particular position in agent's view. We are interested to ascertain the actual situation in justification with need in our society. We are aware that "need" was interpreted at least in three ways in socially sensitive areas: as an object (1), as a goal (aim) (2), and as a tension (3). In spite of the aim of the applicant to see "need" mainly as a human tension, nonetheless, the object theory (and sometimes the goal theory) of need proceeds to play the first violin in the present social-political and health care deliberations. That is an ontologically presupposition that makes logically senseless to speak about "satisfaction of needs" because in that case the object (i. e. medicine, pure drinking water) must be satisfied. (We agree that some logically defective justifications may be reasonable in political sense.) Goals, results, benefits of the project: We are going to decrease the role of the object theory of need that was augmented in last decades because it is giving better chance to the people with insufficient theoretical competence to enter into theoretical discussions and decision-making concerning allocation of resources.The project has special value for the professional development of the junior research fellow who enters into the international discourse on needs. |
| project group | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| no | name | institution | position | |
| 1. | Valdar Parve | TU Faculty of Philosophy | docent | |
| 2. | Marek Volt | University Tartu | doctorand | |