ABSTRACT
The debate over individual autonomy not only refers to an internal cognitive process, but also to factors external to the self which affect the ability to exercise autonomy.328 3290The latter includes having sufficient material resources to implement an individual's self-determined life-plans. However, it is usually thought to be unrealistic and undesirable for the state to provide the resources needed to implement all specific life-plans. Apart from being financially prohibitive, this would result in unjust redistributions (as well as no doubt being undesirable for many other reasons). For example, if middle-class aspirations are generally more expensive than those of the working-class, and this in turn influences what life-plans are chosen, then the middle-classes would need to correspondingly receive greater resources from the state than the workingclasses in order to fulfil their greater expectations.329 30
Consequently, justifications of state provision tend not to be based on a maximum principle that life-plans be fulfilled as much as possible. More commonly, justifications are for a minimal level of resources defined as being essential, on the basis that the need for minimum resources has a priority over wants. However, this lexical ordering is difficult to define
substantially, not least because the concept of need (like the concept of want) is highly elastic. For Plant:
The ambiguity attached to the meaning of 'needs' means that it is possible to have a number of substantial definitions underpinning justifications for social policy. For example, the idea of 'universal' needs (i.e. needs which are common to all cultures and times) will cover a narrower range of resources compared with more 'relative' definitions. This is because the latter, in addition to a concern with universal needs, also uses the economic and cultural expectations of a particular society as a yardstick. Despite these differences, I will argue that post-1945 social security policy has never provided only for universal needs for, say, physical sustenance and protection. It has also distributed resources for fulfilling additional life-plans, but those which are considered by the norms of a particular society to be the least ambitious. Moreover, both these conceptions of need (i.e. absolute and relative) form part of most if not all justifications of the welfare state, but the political rhetoric of the Centre-Left and the New Right artificially polarises the debate by emphasising one at the expense of the other.
