What Is Human Flourishing?
This essay is the second in a series from The Savage Collective, a new publication aiming to promote flourishing lives among working-class Americans by examining and improving the conditions of labor in the Machine Age. Part One is available here.
During the first few months of The Savage Collective, we will be writing a series of “foundational” essays that outline the philosophical commitments that undergird our writing. These essays will cover topics ranging from “What is a good job?” to “What is good technology?” In this first installment of these foundational essays, we give our best answer to the question “What is Human Flourishing?”
What Is Human Flourishing?
William Blake, God Blessing the Seventh Day (1805)
The Savage Collective aims to promote flourishing lives among working-class Americans. At The Savage Collective, we understand a flourishing person to be one who engages in a good life well lived. This seems basic, but what does this really mean?
We answer this question by developing a theory of the person. The Savage Collective is interested in what it means for a human person to live well as opposed to a squirrel or a bug or a flower. Once we know what a person is, then it becomes more apparent what it might mean to live a good human life. In the following sections, we present four propositions about the nature of the human person. We conclude the essay by building on these four basic propositions to develop a formal definition of flourishing that will be the framework for The Savage Collective. Our writers will return regularly to these propositions and the resulting definition of flourishing as we examine the social and spiritual conditions faced by working-class Americans in a Machine Age.
Proposition One: Persons as Subjects and Objects of Action
To better understand the nature of the human person, we must explore what it means for humans to act in the world. When we observe persons in action, we learn much about what a human person is. Human action provides the foundation for understanding human motivation and capacities, such as why and how we pursue certain goals in the world. In every human action is a subject who acts in the world with purpose and intent. There can be no human action without a human person performing that action. At the same time, there is always an object being acted upon. When something or someone is the object of action, they are being impacted and changed through the action of another. When the object of action is another person, each person trades back and forth between being the subject and the object of action, especially when the action is working in a mutually generative way. I am acting on you, and you are acting back on me. We are mutually impacted by the reciprocal nature of human action.
Sometimes, that object is a nonpersonal entity, like a tree or a road. Yet, even if the object of that action is not human, the subject is still molded and shaped through the interaction with these objects of action. What do we mean by this? Envision this: my family (Grant) has a river cottage on the Allegheny River outside of Emlenton, PA. One of the central features of my time at the cottage is cutting firewood. To do this, my son and I venture out into the woods in search of fallen trees. We then spend the day with chainsaws and axes performing the action of “cutting wood.” The subjects are my son and I. We are cutting the wood. The object is the wood. However, as the subjects, my son and I are being acted upon merely by participating in this action. By cutting wood, the muscles in our shoulders, back, and arms are being strengthened. We are strengthening not only our bodies but also our souls. We are growing in fortitude and perseverance as we work to achieve a task. We are both fully the subjects and objects of this action in the world.
Proposition Two: Persons Are Motivated to Pursue Goods in the World
In their essence, human persons are “teleological” beings. The actions we perform are rooted in and motivated toward the pursuit of certain goals or ends. The goals that most fundamentally drive human action in the world are basic natural goods, which are goods desired for their own sake (basic), shared by persons as persons (natural), and constitutive of a good life well lived (good). Many theorists have attempted to make lists of these basic natural goods. In his book, To Flourish or Destruct, sociologist Christian Smith thoroughly analyzes humanity’s basic natural goods from across a myriad of disciplines, and argues that all can be placed into the following general categories:
1. Bodily survival, security, and pleasure
2. Knowledge of reality
3. Identity coherence and affirmation
4. Having meaningful impact in the world
5. Morality
6. Social belonging and love
A good life is marked by the active pursuit and attainment of these basic natural goods. It is important to note, however, that the mere pursuit and attainment of these goods is not sufficient. They must be pursued in the right way. Most actions in the world that are not conducive to flourishing are the pursuit of the basic natural goods in ways that are either 1) too much or 2) in the wrong way. For example, opioid addiction, much of the time, is a pursuit of bodily pleasure (or at least the avoidance of pain) to such an extent that the person sacrifices other basic natural goods. Likewise, we may prioritize goods that are not basic. Other goods that we might pursue, such as efficiency and convenience, are merely instrumental goods that help us achieve basic natural goods but are not themselves basic. Our lives become disordered when we pursue instrumental goods at the expense of basic natural goods. Much more on this in later essays.
Proposition Three: Persons are Embodied Souls Oriented toward Other Persons
Winslow Homer, Crossing the Pasture (1871–72)
We should understand that the form and shape of the basic natural goods are fundamentally determined by the various parts that constitute a whole person. Namely, The Savage Collective understands the human person to be an embodied soul that is oriented toward other persons. We, undeniably, have a body: a system of physical organs that constitute the matter of the person. Our heart beats, our lungs expand, and our skin shields. In this way, we are very much animals. Yet, packed away into our thick skull is the organ that seemingly sets us above all other animals: the brain. Due to its size and complexity, the brain is the organ that most differentiates our bodies from other animal bodies.
Just as each human has a body, each has a human soul. The soul is the immaterial aspect of the human person that activates human capacities within the body, enabling us to act in the world. Because the soul acts through the body, the body and the soul are inseparable. They are not the same thing, but they cannot exist without each other. The body is the medium through which the soul acts, and it is the soul that gives vital powers to the body.
Human persons, as constituted by bodies through which the embodied souls act, are inherently oriented towards others. We are social beings in two specific senses. For one, human sociality is instrumental as our relationships help us meet specific needs. We need others in order to pursue many of the basic natural goods constitutive of human flourishing. So, we need each other as individuals. However, we also need each other through the institutions we construct that help ensure that the basic social preconditions of flourishing are in place.
But, we don’t just “use” each other to meet our goals. We are also constitutionally social. In To Flourish or Destruct, Christian Smith says it this way:
“Persons do not merely use others in relationships to maintain their lives, in order to pursue some other impersonal goal, like increased pleasure or securing more material goods. Persons are steeped in personal social relationships as a good end in itself, because that is what any normal, thriving person simply is and does.”
Proposition Four: Central to Human Flourishing is the Development of Innate Capacities
The soul acts through the body to enable persons to perform unbelievable actions in the world through a unique set of human capacities. These capacities are varied and are ordered in complexity. Some of our capacities are quite simple, such as subconscious being and conscious awareness. We share these with other lower order animals. However, humans have intricate and complex capacities that transcend other animals. Human persons are capable of symbolization, language use, abstract reasoning, moral awareness, and truth seeking. Arguably, the highest of all human capacities is our ability for interpersonal communion and love. These person-specific capacities are baked in from persons’ origins in an undeveloped form (i.e., “potentiality”). Central to human flourishing is the development of these capacities. The realization of potential capacities sits at the very center of a flourishing life. Human persons flourish as they bring to fruition their innate human capacities through action in the world. Virtuous actions are those that activate human capacities toward the pursuit of the basic natural goods.
Conclusion: What Then Is Flourishing?
Having explained our four central propositions about the human person, we can now more clearly see what it would mean for persons to flourish, to live good lives, and to be well lived.
Flourishing consists of the realization of basic, natural goods constitutive of human personhood emerging from our nature as fully embodied souls oriented toward others through the perfection of human capacities by virtuous action facilitated by the presence of supportive social preconditions.
This definition of flourishing will guide our writing at The Savage Collective. We will examine the extent to which labor and other aspects of working-class life support the pursuit of flourishing through the promotion of basic natural goods. All of this will be grounded in the belief that a flourishing life is not simply the provision of material goods but also deeply embedded in considerations of the soul of the persons within the context of relationships with others. Also, central to our writing, will be a close look on the perfection of human capacities. To simply receive basic natural goods will not cause us to flourish. We must develop and perfect our capacities. Throughout the course of our writing, we will explore the social systems that support and degrade the lives of working-class Americans in the twenty-first century.
If you are interested in our vision of flourishing, here are some more books to discover:
Burgos, Juan Manuel. 2018. An Introduction to Personalism. Translated by R. T. Allen. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press.
Crawford, Matthew B. 2010. Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work. New York: Penguin.
Crawford, Matthew B. 2020. Why We Drive: Toward a Philosophy of the Open Road. New York: Mariner Books.
Maritain, Jacques. 1947. The Person and the Common Good. Translated by John J. Fitzgerald. New York: Charles Scribner's sons. https://www3.nd.edu/~maritain/jmc/etext/CG.HTM
Smith, Christian. 2015. To Flourish or Destruct: A Personalist Theory of Human Goods, Motivations, Failure, and Evil. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Smith, Christian. 2010. What Is a Person? Rethinking Humanity, Social Life, and the Moral Good from the Person Up. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wojtyla, Karol. 1979. The Acting Person. Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Company.
Wojtyla, Karol. 1993. Love and Responsibility. Translated by H. T. Willetts. (London: William Collins Sons and Co., 1981; San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993.)
Grant Martsolf is a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing. Formerly, a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, Grant is a social scientist with particular interest in how the transformation of labor from primarily manufacturing to service (especially health care) has impacted the lives of working-class men.