I would regard “material standard of living” as subset of “human flourishing”. It does not include many things that are essential to human flourishing: love, friendship, character, sex, compassion, knowledge, community, etc.
"Remember that Progress Studies does not assume that progress is the most important thing in this or any other world: only that it is important enough to study rigorously."
Please be sure to remind us of this limitation occasionally! :-)
As I read your four bullets of concern, I was looking for one saying something along the lines of "who decides and what definition do we use?" and of course the rest of the post addressed that. Read minds much? Not one of my strongest skills. :-(
One might think of “human material progress” as an infrastructure (like electricity, sanitation, etc) that better enables individuals to pursue “human flourishing”
I like the idea of self-improvement being an off-shoot of Progress. Of course, someone can improve or not regardless of whether society is experiencing Progress.
I use the term Upward Mobility to mean a higher standard of living for an individual. That is much easier to do in a society that is experiencing Progress.
Since this came up in the discussion of another post, would you consider the future as depicted in Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" to be an example of progress?
Interesting question. I have actually never read the book. I rarely read fiction. I am strictly a non-fiction guy.
What do you think?
Keep in mind progress is not about one static time. It is about change over time. In other words, you cannot have progress at Time A, but you can have progress between Time A and Time B. That does not translate well into fiction, which is usually about one specific time.
I think part of the confusion is over what the difference is between “Human flourishing" and "material standard of living". Are we defining our terms the same?
I place lifespan, child mortality, dental care, curing of ailments such as eyesight and disabilities, happiness, satisfaction with life, freedom from coercion, equality of opportunity, literacy, education, knowledge, lack of disease, sanitation, freedom from crime, environmental quality, and so on as empirically measurable dimensions of “Human Flourishing”.
You seem to be calling them "material standards of living." If this is correct, then I think you are using a misleading label. Please help me understand.
Thinking about "human flourishing", one thought was could it be defined as when (almost) everyone has achieved more self actualization (the top Maslow criterion)? Then that just moves the problem over to defining self actualization: "To Maslow, self-actualization is the ability to become the best version of oneself. Maslow stated, "This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming." Which leads to defining "best" (or "better") for each of us.
I may be a decently competent engineer, husband, father, and citizen, but a lousy NBA player or opera singer; and also have no real inclination to participate in or attend NASCAR racing. [I no longer read fiction, either :-) ]
And part of getting or being "better" is accepting and overcoming some challenge from a past stage to a later or current one. I suppose we can call that personal progress, even if it is outside of a more feasible (and metric oriented) Progress Studies. Then again, some challenges can be "metricized", such as obtaining a skill or college degree, where some data is available, while data on the number of 10 year- old's who mastered the clarinet is almost certainly more difficult to obtain - but maybe not impossible??
I agree it is reasonable that people would be concerned about all 5 levels at once, but with greater concern for the more immediate needs over those that might be deferred. The boundaries between levels is probably fuzzier as you go up the scale of achievement and abstraction.
Would progress be related to a perceived human need? Like the need to develop a way to master produce steel because humans percived they needed railroads? Such a perception would allow an excuse for coal mines and develop cars to transport the coal to factories.
I would regard “material standard of living” as subset of “human flourishing”. It does not include many things that are essential to human flourishing: love, friendship, character, sex, compassion, knowledge, community, etc.
"Remember that Progress Studies does not assume that progress is the most important thing in this or any other world: only that it is important enough to study rigorously."
Please be sure to remind us of this limitation occasionally! :-)
As I read your four bullets of concern, I was looking for one saying something along the lines of "who decides and what definition do we use?" and of course the rest of the post addressed that. Read minds much? Not one of my strongest skills. :-(
One might think of “human material progress” as an infrastructure (like electricity, sanitation, etc) that better enables individuals to pursue “human flourishing”
I like the idea of self-improvement being an off-shoot of Progress. Of course, someone can improve or not regardless of whether society is experiencing Progress.
I use the term Upward Mobility to mean a higher standard of living for an individual. That is much easier to do in a society that is experiencing Progress.
Since this came up in the discussion of another post, would you consider the future as depicted in Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" to be an example of progress?
Interesting question. I have actually never read the book. I rarely read fiction. I am strictly a non-fiction guy.
What do you think?
Keep in mind progress is not about one static time. It is about change over time. In other words, you cannot have progress at Time A, but you can have progress between Time A and Time B. That does not translate well into fiction, which is usually about one specific time.
Great discussion!
I think part of the confusion is over what the difference is between “Human flourishing" and "material standard of living". Are we defining our terms the same?
I place lifespan, child mortality, dental care, curing of ailments such as eyesight and disabilities, happiness, satisfaction with life, freedom from coercion, equality of opportunity, literacy, education, knowledge, lack of disease, sanitation, freedom from crime, environmental quality, and so on as empirically measurable dimensions of “Human Flourishing”.
You seem to be calling them "material standards of living." If this is correct, then I think you are using a misleading label. Please help me understand.
From your list I would consider the following to be associated with “material standard of living”:
lifespan, child mortality, dental care, curing of ailments such as eyesight and disabilities, lack of disease, sanitation.
All of the above are “of the body.”
I would not consider the following to be associated with “material standard of living”:
Happiness, satisfaction with life, equality of opportunity, knowledge, environmental quality, freedom from coercion.
I can see the argument for education, literacy being in either group. In my book, I treated them as part of material standard of living.
I think this clarifies where our difference is on definitions.
Thinking about "human flourishing", one thought was could it be defined as when (almost) everyone has achieved more self actualization (the top Maslow criterion)? Then that just moves the problem over to defining self actualization: "To Maslow, self-actualization is the ability to become the best version of oneself. Maslow stated, "This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming." Which leads to defining "best" (or "better") for each of us.
I may be a decently competent engineer, husband, father, and citizen, but a lousy NBA player or opera singer; and also have no real inclination to participate in or attend NASCAR racing. [I no longer read fiction, either :-) ]
And part of getting or being "better" is accepting and overcoming some challenge from a past stage to a later or current one. I suppose we can call that personal progress, even if it is outside of a more feasible (and metric oriented) Progress Studies. Then again, some challenges can be "metricized", such as obtaining a skill or college degree, where some data is available, while data on the number of 10 year- old's who mastered the clarinet is almost certainly more difficult to obtain - but maybe not impossible??
As for Maslow’s theory I have heard from my wife that there is considerable evidence that Maslow was wrong about the concepts being in a pyramid.
In other words, people do not need to achieve one level to be concerned about the next level.
I agree it is reasonable that people would be concerned about all 5 levels at once, but with greater concern for the more immediate needs over those that might be deferred. The boundaries between levels is probably fuzzier as you go up the scale of achievement and abstraction.
Would progress be related to a perceived human need? Like the need to develop a way to master produce steel because humans percived they needed railroads? Such a perception would allow an excuse for coal mines and develop cars to transport the coal to factories.
Certainly, perceived human needs will lead to increased demand which pushes up the price. Then the high prices give an incentive to innovate.