Needs satisfaction has an important bearing on moral agency. This chapter follows Maslow’s distinction between physical needs, safety needs, love and belonging needs, esteem needs and self-actualization needs. Although need deprivation does not automatically cause destructive behaviour, it creates pressures and evoke negative emotions such as frustration and desperation that might lead into destructive behaviour. For example, physiological wants could become so all-consuming that it blocks out the moral judgement of an individual, while in the case of psychological needs, harmful compensatory or substitutionary fulfilments could be used to compensate for thwarted psychological needs. Chronic safety concerns tend to evoke aggressive emotions, and fight responses, while love deprivation is a proven source of psychopathology. Low self-esteem causes inner conflict and fragility and might elicit anti-social behaviour, while self-actualization frustration could incite disenchantment. This chapter argues that need pressures are one of the major sources of South Africa’s moral crisis.