The aim of The Ford Foundation is to advance human welfare. The Study Committee's conception of the basic elements of human welfare is presented below.

Fundamental to any consideration of human welfare is human survival. All efforts to prolong life, to eradicate disease, to prevent malnutrition and famine, to remove the causes of violent accidents, and, above all, to prevent war, are efforts to forward the welfare of man.

The improvement of physical standards of living is clearly a basic part of human welfare. Living standards can be considered high enough only when the inhabitants of this country and the entire world have been freed from undue anxiety about the physical conditions of survival and from inordinate preoccupation with obtaining those conditions. Of course, the goals of human welfare are not merely survival and the improvement of physical standards of living. Not until the physical requirements of life and good health are well met may men progress toward the fullest realization of their mental, emotional, and spiritual capacities. All are essential to the achievement of human welfare.

Human dignity—Basic to human welfare is the idea of the dignity of man—the conviction that man must be regarded as an end in himself, not as a mere cog in the mechanisms of society. At heart, this is a belief in the inherent worth of the individual, in the intrinsic value of human life. Implicit in it is the conviction that society must accord all men equal rights and equal opportunity to develop their capabilities and must, in addition, encourage individuality and inventive and creative talent.