The debate about the needs, and the issue of “human nature”(Having as a backdrop the question about the possibility of a new civilization)

Abstract

This paper addresses the philosophical question of human nature, whose answer depends on the possibility of changing economic, political and social rights, more or less profound and widespread. In this context, we will examine the behavior of the modern consumer, whose needs, aspirations and desires and how to meet them now, seem to constitute an insurmountable obstacle for generating such processes of change. If the mode of being of the modern consumer would be fair and consistent expression of human nature, it would be unrealistic to pretend an ethical refinement that could make viable a new and higher civilization. To answer the question, an analysis of human needs and the various theories that conceptualize it in such terms to justify the economic institutions that dominate modern societies, is undertaken. A new conception of human needs, based on a philosophical rethinking of «human nature» will lead to a new way of conceiving the processes of human development, both at personal as well as at social and civilizatory level.