Abraham Maslow

Wilber's View

Maslow's needs hierarchy is one of Wilber's recurring proof-texts for the claim that development proceeds through a fixed sequence in which each new level solves the previous level's central problem while introducing a new one. Wilber treats the progression from safety/power needs to belongingness needs to self-esteem needs to (eventually) self-actualization and beyond as "precisely the same Great Holarchy in modern form" — the same nested, transcend-and-include structure he finds everywhere else in SES, just recovered independently by a psychologist studying human motivation rather than a philosopher studying holons. He pairs Maslow consistently with Loevinger (belongingness needs alongside the "conformist" self; self-esteem needs alongside the "conscientious" self) and credits Maslow, alongside Baldwin, Werner, Graves, Piaget, and Loevinger, as one of the researchers who — only in the second half of the twentieth century — finally gave stage-development theory a rigorous empirical basis it had previously lacked.

In Sex, Ecology, Spirituality

One can't help but notice that this hierarchy of "deficiency needs" or "scarce resources" bears striking resemblance to Abraham Maslow's (and Jane Loevinger's and others') present-day ontogenetic needs hierarchy—from safety/power to conventional security/belonging to personal/egoic value to existential meaning.

— Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, ch. 5

The deeper or higher motivations are not simply given from the start; one has to grow, develop, and unfold to effect these changes (just as in Maslow's needs hierarchy, which is precisely the same Great Holarchy in modern form).

— Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, ch. 11

"Who am I?" becomes, for the first time, a burning question, and the self-esteem needs emerge from the belongingness needs (Maslow), or a "conscientious" self emerges from a "conformist" mode (Loevinger).

— Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, ch. 6

See Also

• loevinger — the ego-development stages Wilber runs in lockstep with Maslow's needs hierarchy
• great-chain-of-being — the structure Wilber says Maslow's hierarchy recovers "in modern form"
• kohlberg — the parallel moral-stage sequence completing the same preconventional/conventional/postconventional arc