Human Flourishing in the Digital Age

What is it to live a good life, and how do recent and future advances in technology present both challenges and opportunities for human flourishing? This course puts students on the cutting-edge of research at the intersection of the philosophical study of well-being and the ethics of technology. The course begins with an overview of the main theories of welfare and then moves to units in which we consider various technological advancements and their relevance for human flourishing. A central feature of the course is for students to reflect on their own values and plans for their lives in the context of the ubiquitous use and rapid development of technology. We will discuss topics such as the experience machine, gamification, autonomous weapons systems, robot companionship, artificially intelligent systems as moral agents/patients, privacy and surveillance, automation as a potential threat to workers, superintelligence and the singularity, and the use of algorithms, especially in the criminal justice system, as instruments of racial inequality. Main texts include Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, S. Matthew Liao’s edited volume Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, David Edmonds’ Future Morality, and Ruha Benjamin’s Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. By the end of the course, students will be able to explain and evaluate the main theories of welfare, analyze whether and how particular technological advances will threaten or promote human flourishing, and devise practical strategies for improving the quality of their own lives.