Conceptualising Meaningful Work as a Fundamental Human Need

Abstract

I begin by claiming that the widespread institution of meaningful work is a proper moral and political project, which is attentive to contemporary concerns for the nature and organisation of work.1 My reasons for making meaningful work for all a political project is grounded in a normative argument that being able to experience one’s life as meaningful is a fundamental human need, which, under present economic arrangements, is extremely difficult for most people to satisfy if their work lacks the structure for meaningfulness. I shall argue that meaningful work is a fundamental human need because it satisfies our inescapable interests in being able to experience the constitutive values of autonomy, freedom, and dignity. By requiring social organisation to ensure that all work is structured for meaningfulness, I distinguish my approach from liberal political theorists, for whom meaningful work, whilst an important ideal, is an individual preference which may or may not be expressed in any particular conception of the good life, and thus cannot be the legitimate target of state intervention without coming into conflict with the principle of liberal neutrality. Instead, I propose that meaningful work is a fundamental human need within a liberal perfectionist framework (cf. Roessler, 2012).