| | I like what Steve said about going (or growing) through different levels of needs.
At the bottom of the pyramid of needs, there is the physical need for survival -- and whatever it is that that entails for each kind of living thing. For a plant, these needs might be sunlight, minerals, and water. A "hierarchy of needs" for plants would not be as tall as Maslow's is for humans -- it would have just one or two levels. Also, for humans in early stages (early stages of life or prehistorically-early stages), the hierarchy wouldn't be as tall.
Aristotle spoke about the differences -- differences with regard to "living well" -- of plants, animals, and humans. Growing tall and sprouting leaves are some indication that a plant is "living well" as a plant. So what does it mean to live well as a human? Aristotle said, at least, that humans aren't living well unless they are exercising their rational capacity.
So, what about Christopher's question of evaluating the flourishing of anyone? I propose to look at the person's virtue.
For humans to live well, they need to be value-driven -- going after values in a somewhat-orderly fashion. It's difficult to take stock of the values in someone else's life for at least two reasons -- we're not the valuers of the values in his life (the problem of mind-reading), and he's not necessarily personally-responsible for some of the values in his life (the problem of feeling accomplished, or not -- which is part of flourishing).
There's the straightforword value-attainment -- the getting of values somehow -- and there's value-attain-ability (the ability to gain value). It is the person's increasing virtue which increases the ability to attain values in life.
Think about someone who doesn't grow much as a person. They don't build much character. They jump from "friend" to "friend" because they're never consistently honest with anyone -- and these "friends" come to understand a lack of trust to and from him (dissolving the friendship, one after another). This man ends up alone and unsuccessful in life. At any given time, it would be easier to look at his character (his virtue) than it would be to look at his values (e.g. friends vs. no friends).
In fact, you can predict his level of value-attainment by looking at his level of virtue (built character).
Ed
(Edited by Ed Thompson on 6/25, 8:39am)
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