Fair questions all. Nussbaum's list keeps changing, which is human and understandable, but points to the difficulty of anyone saying what the objective conditions for human flourishing really are. Actually, the list is pretty good, as far as it goes. Any such list, however, puts people in the position of objects: we will give you this set of conditions and you will have the opportunity to liberate/fulfill yourself. It is this posture that I would regard as sterile. (There is more than a whiff of this in Marxism, too -- which is not surprising, since Marx drew significantly on Aristotle.) I am more in tune with Dewey's notion that the concrete conditions for human fulfillment are unknown in any specific historical moment, and that only a democratic process of trial and error, along with respectful dialogue among equals, can approach them. This is an activist conception, and it avoids the political problems that inevitably arise when one group decides what is in the "objective" interests of another. Peter ps: One indispensable portion of the democratic group, of course, is exactly those professionals (education, public health, environmental science, etc.) whose personal and collective commitments are to the sorts of substantive goals described by Mumford/Sen/Nussbaum et al. Obviously, it is not simply a case of The Democracy of the Masses versus The Paternalism of the Experts. Believe me, I wrestle with this problem all the time in my incarnation as a public health economist. frances bolton wrote: > > Peter wrote: > > > Mumford gives technology > >an extraordinarily political reading; he thinks through the implications > >of technical choices for human liberation and healthy lifeways (which he > >sees as linked). > > Enjoyed your comments on Mumford, Peter. Whenever I start thinking about > this stuff, I begin to wonder if "technology" is a meaningful term, or if > we're just talking about material culture, or a particular intersection of > political economy and material culture. I suspect it's the latter. A rather > harsh acquaintance of mine refers to Mumford's work as "handwaving." > > (SNIP) > > > >Unfortunately, lurking behind his analysis is an uninterrogated reliance > >on the notion of objective human needs, a sort of human flourishing > >perspective. There is much to be said for this approach (Sen and > >Nussbaum have been saying a lot of it), but its great flaw is that it is > >fundamentally paternalistic, and therefore politically sterile. > (SNIP) > > I'm curious as to where you see the paternalism in Nussbaum & Sen. When I > read her development stuff, I get nervous about all the universal claims, > but then I look at that list of things which comprise human flourishing** > for her, and it's hard for me to argue with them. Are they paternalistic > simply because Nussbaum is the one who formulated this list of universal > goods? I wonder if c. and h. might be enough to protect against the > inevitability, if not the possibility, of political sterility. Actually, > maybe you could say some more about what you mean by political sterility. > > Frances > > **for those who haven't read her, here's (an edited version) of her list: a. > living a life of normal length, b. avoiding unnecessary and nonbeneficial > pain, c. using the senses, thinking, imagining, reasoning, d. being able to > have attachments to things and persons outside oneself, e. being able to > form a conception of the good and to engage in the planning of one's own > life, f. being able to show concern for other persons, being able to laugh > and play, g. being able to live one's life and nobody else's, h. being able > to live one's life in one's own context and surroundings, i. being able to > live with concern for and in relation to the world of nature.
