Who Is Included in Maslow’s Good Society?

Abstract

This article describes Maslow’s vision of a Good Society and how engrained a humanistically oriented psychological science aimed at creating a Good Society has become in the contemporary practice of humanistic psychologists and psychologists more broadly. Although Maslow’s vision of a humanistically influenced psychology aimed at creating a Good Society has led to progress, it is not without fault. One major limitation of Maslow’s argument for a humanistically oriented psychological science aimed at creating a Good Society is Maslow’s pathologizing views regarding sexually diverse individuals and his contention that their sexual orientation or behaviors make those individuals unhealthy. This limitation is discussed, and current humanistic psychologists are encouraged to draw from Maslow’s vision for a Good Society to make further progress in the field of psychology while recognizing that, as humanistic psychologists, we must neither exclude any group of individuals from a part of a Good Society nor deem those individuals unfit for self-actualization.