Flourishing Technologies: Techne and the Good Life
What Are "Flourishing Technologies"?
"Flourishing" refers to living well in the broadest sense — a state where one's life is rich in happiness, health, meaning, and virtuous activity. This goes beyond the goals of typical wellness apps (which might track steps or meditation minutes) or productivity tools (which optimize efficiency). A flourishing technology would be one explicitly designed to promote human flourishing — supporting not just momentary wellness or output, but the user's overall growth, fulfillment, and well-being.
In classical terms, it aligns with eudaimonia, the Aristotelian notion of a life well-lived in accordance with virtue and purpose. By contrast, most consumer technologies today focus on narrower outcomes: health metrics (calories burned, hours slept) or performance metrics (tasks completed, time saved). Flourishing technologies aim at the good life itself — a much more holistic and qualitative target.
Such technologies might not look radically different in form from ordinary devices (a "flourishing" app could still run on your phone), but they would differ in purpose and design philosophy. Instead of simply maximizing user engagement or productivity, a flourishing-oriented system might prioritize meaningful engagement. It would care how the technology use impacts the user's relationships, sense of purpose, and personal growth — not just screen time or output.
Treating raw usage metrics as proxies for well-being is misleading; using quantitative data (like hours spent online) to assess a qualitative life state is a category error. Current digital well-being tools "see the activity, but miss the entire ecosystem of our inner lives," counting time spent but not whether that time was meaningful or nourishing.
In short, flourishing technologies would be designed to ensure the quality of our interactions (e.g. fostering insight, connection, virtue), not just the quantity.
Techne: Technology as Purposive Craft
To understand whether technology can promote flourishing, it helps to recall the classical Greek concept of techne. Techne (τέχνη) means art, craft, or skilled making — a practice guided by knowledge and aimed at a purposeful end. Ancient philosophers saw techne not as mere mechanical skill but as informed craftsmanship, often intertwined with understanding.
The Stoics described virtue as a kind of techne or "craft of life"—one based on wisdom about the world. Living well was considered an art to be mastered.
Notably, the Stoics even described virtue as a kind of techne or "craft of life," one based on wisdom about the world. In other words, living well (flourishing) was considered an art to be mastered. This classical perspective suggests that technology, as an extension of human craft, should likewise be directed toward worthy ends.
Modern philosophy of technology echoes these questions of purpose. It is increasingly asked: What is the purpose of technology, and how can it contribute to human flourishing? If we treat technology as neutral tools, we risk missing how our devices actually shape our lives and values. Philosophers point out that tech has become a way of life — a powerful cultural force — rather than just a set of tools.
If technologies are ostensibly designed to improve our lives, then "they must in some way contribute to the goodness of our lives… For if they made no such contribution, what would they be good for?" This implies that promoting human flourishing is arguably the highest telos (end) of technology — or at least, a benchmark against which to judge its success.
The classical idea of techne reinforces this: skilled making should align with virtuous purpose. A smartphone app or AI system, from this view, ought to be crafted purposively — not only to perform a function, but to serve the overarching goal of a good human life.
The Category Mistake Problem
Aligning tech with flourishing raises complex ethical issues. One difficulty is avoiding a category mistake: flourishing is an attribute of lives, not gadgets. We cannot simply install flourishing into a device like a new feature. Instead, technologies would have to act as supportive tools or environments that enable the craft of living well.
Consider the difference between a technology that merely provides convenience and one that encourages skillful engagement. Philosophers like Albert Borgmann caution that many modern devices achieve comfort and efficiency at the cost of robbing us of meaningful effort. Technology often frees us from burdens, but some "burdens" — like the effort of preparing a meal, writing a thoughtful letter, or concentrating on a challenging book — are actually the kinds of practices that give life meaning.
Through focal practices, "different kinds of engagements thrive and flourish" even amidst a tech-saturated culture.
In Borgmann's terms, these are "focal practices": activities that have a "commanding presence," engaging our body and mind and connecting us with others. They require skill and dedication, but through them, "different kinds of engagements thrive and flourish" even amidst a tech-saturated culture.
The lesson for flourishing design is that technology should invite and support these meaningful, skillful activities rather than replace or shortcut them. Drawing on techne, we see technology as successful only insofar as it deliberately serves human ends worth pursuing — ultimately, the end of living a flourishing life.
Designing Technology for Human Flourishing
Can we design for flourishing? Researchers in human–computer interaction and design theory have started tackling this question head-on. A number of frameworks have emerged that treat human flourishing as an explicit design goal — moving beyond usability, productivity, or even basic user satisfaction toward deeper well-being outcomes.
Positive Design
A prominent example is the field of Positive Design, which builds on insights from positive psychology to create products and services that increase subjective well-being and help people flourish. Desmet and Pohlmeyer (2013) introduced a framework for positive design with three core ingredients:
- Pleasure — positive emotions and sensory enjoyment
- Personal significance — meaning, purpose, or the sense that one's activities are worthwhile
- Virtue — moral excellence or contributing to the greater good
Their framework posits that if a design explicitly incorporates all three elements, it can "promote human flourishing," since people who flourish are not only happy but also developing their potential and acting in the best interests of society.
Positive Technology
The emerging field of Positive Technology argues that the "quality of [the user's] experience should become the guiding principle in the design and development of new technologies." Technology can be deliberately used to support "optimal human functioning and flourishing."
Specifically, a positive technology shapes three key features of experience in a positive way:
- Affective quality — cultivating positive emotions and reducing distress
- Engagement or actualization — promoting deep involvement, flow, and personal growth
- Connectedness — supporting meaningful social connection
Rather than simply asking "does this tool work efficiently?", designers ask "does using this tool leave the person better off in living a good life?"
Can Flourishing Be Engineered, or Is It Emergent?
A critical question remains: to what extent can flourishing be deliberately designed for, versus arising from how people choose to use technology?
Many scholars caution that while technology can enable or support flourishing, it cannot guarantee it — flourishing is ultimately an emergent property of a person's activities, choices, and context. You can design a garden, but you cannot force a plant to thrive; you can only provide the conditions.
There is also the risk of instrumentalizing well-being — turning it into a target metric — which could backfire. Psychologists warn that directly pursuing happiness often makes it more elusive (the "paradox of happiness"). If a technology constantly prompts a user to "be happy" or "find meaning," it may feel intrusive or even undermine the spontaneity of real fulfillment.
You can design a garden, but you cannot force a plant to thrive; you can only provide the conditions.
Flourishing involves a holistic balance and quality of life that cannot be reduced to any single metric or goal. Technologies might be better conceived as scaffolding or environments in which flourishing can emerge. The role of design is to create fertile ground: tools that invite reflection, connection, and growth, without predetermining the outcome.
This resonates with virtue ethics: rather than technology "making" us good or happy, we must choose and practice the good, though well-designed tools can help us make better choices. Living well with emerging technologies demands cultivating virtues like honesty, self-control, empathy — qualities that tech design can support or undermine, but ultimately not impose.
Flourishing can be designed for in the sense of creating supportive conditions, but it remains in large part emergent and co-produced by the user. Treating it as a simple engineering goal risks oversimplifying a profoundly human achievement.
Evaluating Technologies Through a Flourishing Lens
If we embrace human flourishing as the lens for technology, how do we research or evaluate whether a given technology promotes flourishing? This requires a multidimensional approach, combining insights from ethics, psychology, and design evaluation.
Traditional usability metrics (efficiency, ease of use) or engagement metrics (time on app, user retention) are not sufficient. Instead, researchers propose criteria rooted in the Good Life.
Spence's Eudaimonic Meta-Model
Philosopher Edward H. Spence developed a eudaimonic meta-model to evaluate the "Contributive Capability" of any technology for a good life. A technology is evaluated by asking whether its design and use have the capacity to:
- Meet genuine needs and desires (beyond superficial wants)
- Provide means-ends satisfaction (help achieve goals in life effectively)
- Contribute to valuable ends that the user or society truly esteems
- Respect and promote moral rights and ethical principles
- Be sustainable (socially and environmentally)
- Lead toward eudaimonia (the flourishing life characterized by virtue and fulfillment)
- Be practically implementable in a way that people can comply with and integrate
The Capability Approach
The Capability Approach, pioneered by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, would evaluate a device by how it expands or restricts people's capabilities to do and be what they value. This shifts focus from tech's outputs to its impact on human freedom and agency.
A smartphone might expand one's capabilities (access to knowledge, communication, civic participation), but also could constrain others (attention, deep work) — the net effect on flourishing must be examined in context.
PERMA Model
Some frameworks break flourishing into measurable pillars, like Seligman's PERMA model:
- Positive emotion
- Engagement
- Relationships
- Meaning
- Accomplishment
Researchers can assess whether and how a technology affects each of these pillars.
Conclusion
The pursuit of "flourishing technologies" invites us to re-imagine the relationship between humans and our tools. Rather than seeing technology as an assembly of neutral devices or as mere means to efficiency, this perspective anchors technology in the ancient idea of techne — purposeful, skillful creation oriented toward the good.
It challenges designers and engineers to ask not just "Can we build it?" but "Should we build it, and will it help us live well?"
Technologies shape the "way of life" we inhabit, and thus they inevitably influence whether we flourish or flounder. The key is to shape them wisely.
While technology alone cannot produce flourishing, it can be consciously designed to support the ingredients of a flourishing life. This might mean technologies that encourage reflection over distraction, community over isolation, growth over instant gratification, and virtue over expediency.
Is it a category error to make flourishing a goal for technology? If we expected a gadget to deliver enlightenment at the press of a button, then yes. But if we view it as a north star guiding the development and deployment of technology, then it is not only valid but urgently needed.
Technologies shape the "way of life" we inhabit, and thus they inevitably influence whether we flourish or flounder. The key is to shape them wisely.
The idea of flourishing technologies serves as a bridge between humanistic ideals and technological innovation. It asserts that technology's highest purpose is to be in service of human thriving — helping us not only to do more, but to be more, in the fullest sense of being human.