FILAMER CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY

College of Computer Studies

Roxas City , Capiz

GEC 7

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY

Module 6: Human Flourishing as Reflected in Progress and Development

Overview

The quest for human progress and flourishing has always been at the center of civilization. People
always seek to live better lives and provide a better life. In the process, they seek to live lives of
meaning and aspire to fulfill their potential. Although societies are made up of heterogeneous
individuals with different preferences, people reliably organize themselves into groups, communities or
nations in an effort to improve the status quo ( progress ).

According to Nicholas Christakis, human flourishing in its broadcast sense means that it is about
everyone having a chance to climb the ladder of success. In essence, the dreams is about aspiration,
opportunity, progress, and not just material comfort alone. It is something greater than yourself while
still maintaining a strong sense of personal agency.

By “progress” means the combination of economic, technological, scientific, cultural, and

organizational advancement that has transformed our lives and raised standards of living over the past
couple of centuries.

Humans of today are expected to become “man of the world”, supposed to situate himself in a global
neighborhood, working side by side among institutions and the government to be able to reach a
common good.

Objectives

At the end of this module, the students should be able to:

1. Critique human flourishing vis-à-vis the progress of science and technology.

2. Explain Hickel’s paradigm of “de-development”.
3. Differentiate it from the traditional notions of growth and consumption.

Modules Contents

Human Flourishing as reflected in Progress and development ( Jason Hickel )

 Jason Hickel challenges us to rethink and reflected on a different paradigm of de-development.

 It is about time that we rethink our stands of development if we truly want to live a good life.
  SDGs are about to offer a fresh plan for how to save the world, but beneath all the types, its
business as usual. The main strategy for eradicating poverty is the same growth.
 Growth isn’t an option any more-we’ve already grown too much. Scientists are now telling us
that we’re blowing past planetary boundaries at break week speed. And the hard truth is that
this global crisis is due almost entirely to over consumption in rich countries.
 Instead of pushing poorer countries to “catch up” with rich ones, we should be thinking of ways
to get rich countries to “catch down” to more appropriate levels of development. We should
look at societies where people live long and happy lives.
 Jason Hickel was a famous Anthropologist who said that advanced science and technology
means finding ways to enhance human flourishing with minimal pressure on the planet.
 He also said that we need to do and invest in more efficient technology and a team scientists
who can come up with good technology in order to enhance human flourishing such as in
advertising, promotion of product and resources.
 He also explained how human condition affects economic growth; that is human flourishing in
harmony with the planet.
 He said “developing” poor countries means to re-develop poor countries, meaning that instead
of pushing poorer countries to “catch up “ with rice ones, we should be thinking ways to get rich
countries to “catch up” with rice ones, we should be thinking ways to get rich countries to “catch
down” to more appropriate levels of development.
 He further described that there is clear racial imbalance at play as average, the votes of people of
colour are worth only a tiny fraction of their counterpart. It is called as a facial dictatorship.

Self-Evaluation

After reading and understanding the article of Jason Hickel, answer the following questions on the
space provided. Nations?

1. What is the main objective of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations?

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2. What is the standardized unit that measure resource and waste?

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 3. What is the standard response to eradicating poverty?

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4. What is the threshold of the Earth for adequately sustaining life?

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5. What are two indicators of the quality of life given in the article ( Jason Hickel ) ?

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6. How would the different areas of the world react to the idea of “de-development”?

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Questions for Reflection

1. How do we improve our lives and yet reduce consumptions?

2. Why must we change our paradigm of growth and consumption to that of “de-
development”?

Supplementary Activity

Watch the video clip titled “The Magician’s Twin”: CS Lewis and the case Against Scientism.
Reflect on the notions of development that may evolve into scientism. In pairs and take note of your
thoughts on the video clip with the following guide questions:

1. What is scientism?
2. Why is science more dangerous to magic?
3. What do we need for the sciences to be good?

References

McNamara, DJ., Valverde, V.M., and Beleno, R. III. (2018). Science, Technology and Society,

Philippines. C & E Publishing House, Inc.

Video Clips/Slides. The Magician’s Twin: CS Lewis and the Case Against Scientism.