How to flourish in a broken world
We can always aim to flourish in life, even if happiness feels impossible, says philosopher
*Originally published on Sept. 21, 2023.
The world is on fire. We're also grappling with everything from floods to hurricanes to landslides. There's a housing crisis everywhere, and we're drowning in debt. So spending time thinking about personal flourishing or well-being may feel selfish, or like a bad case of denial.
But philosopher, Angie Hobbs, says there's a way we can still think about the good life, even in the face of ongoing catastrophes. And it starts with an ancient Greek concept of eudaimonia.
Eudiamonia — meaning good spirit, happiness, or welfare — began with Plato but was developed by his student, Aristotle, who used the term to mean the highest human good. Angie Hobbs, a philosophy professor at the University of Sheffield, finds their idea helpful, but prefers to use the term 'flourishing' to think about how we can still continue to live a good life in the face of multiple crises.
Flourishing: a community approach
In challenging and difficult circumstances, an individual focused on flourishing can ask one basic question: what can I do? How can I use my talents or resources to further my own good or the common good?
Hobbs suggests thinking about flourishing also allows us to think outside ourselves.
"In my version, your individual flourishing to some extent depends on the flourishing of your community. And in fact, in turn, it will further the flourishing of your community. It's a two way interaction."
She adds that to live a good life we all need access to good healthcare, clean air and water, housing, job opportunities, and leisure time.
"So you can't really divide your individual flourishing from the community flourishing where you live."
But Hobbs warns flourishing shouldn't be confused with happiness.
"For me, flourishing is about the actualization of potential, the fulfillment of all intellectual, imaginative, affective, and physical faculties. So it's something we can always aim for, even in those situations where feeling happy, let alone experiencing pleasure, is neither possible or even appropriate."
'A whole person living a whole life'
Using flourishing as a lens encourages people to ask very basic questions including, how should I live? What sort of person should I be? Invoking Plato who believed eudaimonia required reason and desire to be in sync, Hobbs says flourishing requires the whole person.
"We're thinking about a whole person living a whole life or a whole group of people living their whole lives. It's an ethics which I think is sensitive to the complexities of the lived human experience," Hobbs said.
She advises it's critically important to include the concept of flourishing in broader policy, as well.
Hobbs was asked by the U.K.'s National Health Service to undertake an ethical evaluation of a report the NHS had produced on surgical wait times. She suggested using the impact on individual flourishing as a way to prioritize wait times for people "in the same class of clinical need" could help mitigate harm.
For example, if there are two people needing the same care for the same condition but one has a place to live and lots of help and the other lives alone and has a precarious housing situation then the more vulnerable individual ought to be the priority given the greater challenge they face day to day.
Gross National Happiness Index
Prioritizing flourishing may sound like a naive idea, especially given what can feel like a bleak reality we're living in. But making well-being a policy priority allows people to live a good life despite the challenges they face.
Hobbs points to the South Asian nation of Bhutan which uses a Gross National Happiness Index to gauge its citizens' well being. The index is based on 33 indicators in nine domains that include things like health, education, and good governance.
Hobbs says the need to think about flourishing — our own and that of others — is urgent and critical.
"There is no plan B because there is no planet B. Are we going to prove ourselves intelligent enough and empathetic enough and moral enough to save the human species? I certainly hope so. I think we can."
Guests in this episode:
Susan Reesor and Alexis Whalen are community activists in York Region, Ontario.
Angie Hobbs is a professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield.
Nemoy Lewis is an assistant professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Andrew Boozary is a primary care physician and founding executive director of Gattuso Social Medicine at University Health Network.
*This episode was produced by Naheed Mustafa.
