MODULE 5 – HUMAN FLOURISHING AS REFLECTED IN PROGRESS AND

DEVELOPMENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES:
At the end of this module, the students will be able to:

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

MODULE OUTLINE:

Forget ‘developing’ poor countries, it’s time to ‘de-develop’ rich countries (Jason Hickel)
The Magician’s Twin: CS Lewis and the Case against Scientism

Forget ‘developing’ poor countries, it’s time to ‘de-develop’ rich countries

Heads of state gathered in New York in September 2015 to sign the UN’s new
sustainable development goals (SDGs). The main objective is to eradicate poverty by 2030.

Given all the fanfare, one might think the SDGs are about to offer a fresh plan for how to
save the world, but beneath all the hype, its business as usual. The main strategy for eradicating
poverty is the same: growth.

Growth has been the main object of development for the past 70 years, despite the fact
that it’s not working. Since 1980, the global economy has grown by 380%, but the number of
people living in poverty on less than $5 (£3.20) a day has increased by more than 1.1 billion.
That’s 17 times the population of Britain. So much for the trickle-down effect.

Orthodox economists insist that all we need is yet more growth. More progressive types
tell us that we need to shift some of the yields of growth from the richer segments of the
population to the poorer ones, evening things out a bit. Neither approach is adequate. Why?
Because even at current levels of average global consumption, we’re overshooting our planet’s
bio-capacity by more than 50% each year.

In other words, 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 breakneck speed.
And the hard truth is that this global crisis is due almost entirely to overconsumption in rich
countries.

Right now, our planet only has enough resources for each of us to consume 1.8 “global
hectares” annually – a standardized unit that measures resource use and waste. This figure is
roughly what the average person in Ghana or Guatemala consumes. By contrast, people in the

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US and Canada consume about 8 hectares per person, while Europeans consume 4.7 hectares –
many times their fair share.

What does this mean for our theory of development? Economist Peter Edward argues that
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 at relatively low levels of income and
consumption not as basket cases that need to be developed towards western models, but as
exemplars of efficient living.

How much do we really need to live long and happy lives? In the US, life expectancy is
79 years and GDP per capita is $53,000. But many countries have achieved similar life
expectancy with a mere fraction of this income. Cuba has a comparable life expectancy to the US
and one of the highest literacy rates in the world with GDP per capita of only $6,000 and
consumption of only 1.9 hectares – right at the threshold of ecological sustainability. Similar
claims can be made of Peru, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Tunisia.

Yes, some of the excess income and consumption we see in the rich world yields
improvements in quality of life that are not captured by life expectancy, or even literacy rates.
But even if we look at measures of overall happiness and wellbeing in addition to life
expectancy, a number of low- and middle-income countries rank highly. Costa Rica manages to
sustain one of the highest happiness indicators and life expectancies in the world with a per
capita income one-fourth that of the US.

In light of this, perhaps we should regard such countries not as underdeveloped, but
rather as appropriately developed. And maybe we need to start calling on rich countries to justify
their excesses.

The idea of “de-developing” rich countries might prove to be a strong rallying cry in the
global south, but it will be tricky to sell to westerners. Tricky, but not impossible. According to
recent consumer research, 70% of people in middle- and high-income countries believe
overconsumption is putting our planet and society at risk. A similar majority also believe we
should strive to buy and own less, and that doing so would not compromise our happiness.
People sense there is something wrong with the dominant model of economic progress and they
are hungry for an alternative narrative.

The problem is that the pundits promoting this kind of transition are using the wrong
language. They use terms such as de-growth, zero growth or – worst of all – de-development,
which are technically accurate but off-putting for anyone who’s not already on board. Such terms
are repulsive because they run against the deepest frames we use to think about human progress,
and, indeed, the purpose of life itself. It’s like asking people to stop moving positively thorough
life, to stop learning, improving, growing.

Negative formulations won’t get us anywhere. The idea of “steady-state” economics is a

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geared toward quality instead of quantity. One that is more sophisticated than just accumulating
ever increasing amounts of stuff, which doesn’t make anyone happier anyway. What is certain is
that GDP as a measure is not going to get us there and we need to get rid of it.

Perhaps we might take a cue from Latin Americans, who are organizing alternative
visions around the indigenous concept of buen vivir, or good living. The west has its own
tradition of reflection on the good life and it’s time we revive it. Robert and Edward Skidelsky
take us down this road in his book How Much is Enough? where they lay out the possibility of
interventions such as banning advertising, a shorter working week and a basic income, all of
which would improve our lives while reducing consumption.

Either we slow down voluntarily or climate change will do it for us. We can’t go on
ignoring the laws of nature. But rethinking our theory of progress is not only an ecological
imperative, it is also a development one. If we do not act soon, all our hard-won gains against
poverty will evaporate, as food systems collapse and mass famine re-emerges to an extent not
seen since the 19th century.

This is not about giving anything up. And it’s certainly not about living a life of
voluntary misery or imposing harsh limits on human potential. On the contrary, it’s about
reaching a higher level of understanding and consciousness about what we’re doing here and
why.

Activity

1. What is the main objective of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations?
2. What is the standardized unit that measures resource use and waste?
3. What is the standard response to eradicating poverty?
4. What is the threshold of the Earth for adequately sustaining life?
5. According to the majority of people in middle- and high-income countries, what puts the
planet and society at risk?
6. How many hectares should each of us consume annually based on the resources available in
the planet?
7. What are two indicators of the quality of life given in the article?
8. What crisis in the planet would force us to slow down if we do not do so voluntarily?
9. According to Hickel, what must be done instead of urging poor countries to “catch up” with
rich ones?
10. How would the different areas of the world react to the idea of “de-development?”

The Magician’s Twin: CS Lewis and the Case against Scientism

More than a half century ago, famed writer C.S. Lewis warned about how science (a good
thing) could be twisted in order to attack religion, undermine ethics, and limit human freedom. In
this [half-hour] documentary “The Magician’s Twin: C.S. Lewis and the Case Against
Scientism,” leading scholars explore Lewis’s prophetic warnings about the abuse of science and
how Lewis’s concerns are increasingly relevant for us today.

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 Lewis was not anti-science, but was opposed to 'Scientism', which may be defined as the
"wrong-headed belief that modern science supplies the only reliable method of knowledge about
the world and also … that scientists should be the ones to dictate public policy and even our
moral and religious beliefs simply on the basis of their scientific expertise."

Science has many positive aspects. To many, the abilities of science seem almost
magical. In The Abolition of Man, Lewis claimed that serious magical endeavor and serious
scientific endeavor are twins. Although this seems strange, there are some key similarities (as
well as differences).

Science as power is the most dangerous aspect of science's similarity to magic, which
threatens the future of civilization itself. The critical difference between science and magic is
that science 'works'.

In the film, West and other scholars outline Lewis' thoughts, based on his writings, on
how science was being and could be further corrupted.

Lewis made an unusual comparison, saying science and magic were twins because of
their ability to function as a religion, their encouragement of a lack of skepticism, and their quest
for power.

A second way magic and science are similar, according to Lewis, is that they both
promote a type of credulous thinking. "Lewis pointed out that in the modern world, people will
believe almost anything if it's dressed up in the name of science," West explained.

This applies to Freudianism, which Lewis satirized in his work The Pilgrim's Regress,
and evolutionism – the popular idea that matter could "magically transform itself into complex
and conscious living things through a blind and unguided process," as the documentary
describes.

"The idea that a blind and purposeless process without a mind can produce things like
human beings that have minds and produce moral beliefs and things that sometimes go against
our need for physical survival ... really was an outlandish one, according to Lewis," said West.
“How could a mindless process produce minds? To think that it could, really just shows how
gullible people can be in the name of science.”

Lastly, in the same way that magic is about the quest for power over the universe, much
of modern science has also been devoted toward power over the world, Lewis observed.

In that sense, Lewis felt that science was more dangerous than magic since at the end of
the day magic failed, West pointed out.

"Modern science has the potential that you really can control people if you find the right
drugs or find the right treatments, you can manipulate them," said "The Magician's Twin" author.
"If you don't have some other way of protecting and limiting what you do in the name of science,

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some ethical basis that isn't dictated by science itself that could control it, then you are facing a
really bleak future."

Later in his life, Lewis, who died in 1963, became alarmed by the rise of scientific
authoritarianism. He was concerned about the rise of a new class of experts speaking in the name
of science and dictating everything.

Lewis, an atheist turned Christian, was a consistent champion of following an argument

“Lewis, I think properly so, was frightened by that potential within science and that's why
he stressed why we really need to understand the limits of science. We aren't just blind matter in
motion. We're part of a designed universe that actually sets limits on what we should and
shouldn't do,” said West.