Human Flourishing

Review of: Human Flourishing: A Conceptual Analysis by Eri Mountbatten-O'Malley

Reviewed by Simon Duffy

This is an important book by a Fellow of Citizen Network which questions and challenges many of the conceptions of wellbeing and human flourishing that seem to be growing like topsy in the fields of psychology, brain science, health, social science and public policy. 

This book demonstrates clearly that there are clear intellectual and moral risks to allowing various forms of science to create models on shaky ground. Too often, researchers and policy-makers are asserting the correlation of this or that with wellbeing, without ever really asking key questions like: What is wellbeing? What do we mean by human flourishing?

Some might wonder whether philosophy really can offer any clarity to these questions, given its history of debate and disagreement. But Mountbatten-O’Malley doesn’t seek to impose any particular metaphysical picture of human nature on the reader; instead he asks us to think about the language we use, what it means, how we use it and how the language of wellbeing is intimately connected with other aspects of human life, in particular: freedom, meaning, happiness and morality.

His argument builds on the influential twentieth-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and his disciples, particularly Peter Hacker. Wittgenstein was a philosopher whose views underwent a profound transformation. At first, he advocated a highly rationalistic positivism which tried to create a logically coherent map of what could be truly known through logical analysis and empirical experience. In this phase, he seemed to take a hacksaw to ordinary meanings. But his later philosophy started from the reverse assumption, that language is what we have to work with and that philosophy is often the exploration, or making clear, what we mean and often challenges false metaphysical pictures concocted by philosophy (including scientism, the dominant metaphysics of today).

Wittgenstein remains a controversial philosopher. For many, his philosophy of language offers welcome relief from the controversies of metaphysics and creates a new kind of discipline for thought. I have always found Wittgenstein fruitful, and the attention to language an essential discipline. Personally, I am not always convinced by the hard-line rejection of metaphysics; I think language keeps drawing us towards metaphysics, with all its mysteries. However, I think, for this book, this attention to the actual meaning of our terms is vital, for the intended audience is primarily those who do not ask themselves what terms mean and who too often fall into the trap of reducing their meaning to what is convenient to their prejudices or their methodologies.

One of the key themes of the book is the importance of freedom to human flourishing. It is impossible to think of a human being truly flourishing without being free. However, when we think of the wellbeing industry, in its multiple forms, what is striking is the many kinds of coercion being smuggled into shaping our happiness. At the most extreme, we have eugenics, euthanasia, pharma and transhumanism—efforts to engineer our happiness. We also have all those nudge us into happiness with books, policies, therapies and social programmes. The joy, rather than the necessity of freedom as an essential element of a good life, rarely gets much of a look in. If it does, it is usually framed as choice, consumerism or shopping.

Part of our freedom is our need to find for ourselves what has meaning for ourselves. Freedom may be part of what makes life meaningful, but for each one of us, that meaning will have a very individual sense. We are each unique, and we each occupy a unique place in the world, connected to others, belonging to particular places and communities. We must be careful not to generalise away what makes us distinct. For me, my Christianity is an essential aspect of what makes life meaningful—for you, it may be something radically different or even opposed—but if our diverse beliefs give our life meaning, then what kind of policy or technology can be justified in the name of human flourishing? Great care will need to be taken.

Freedom also has a profoundly moral character. We are free to do what we ought to do, and it is in the free fulfilment of our obligations, whether they be easy or difficult, life-enhancing or self-sacrificing, that the true value of our life is measured. This is why Aristotle felt that we could only know if someone was happy after they died. This may seem paradoxical, and perhaps it is not quite what we mean, but there is certainly a strong sense that what we mean by a flourishing life cannot be measured by fleeting feelings of happiness or self-satisfaction.

The book ends with a set of challenges for its readers. It asks us to think harder about the questions we might ask as researchers and the legitimacy of our strategies for advancing other people’s well-being. In particular, what is the role of government and (in our role as citizens), what is our role in supporting each other’s happiness? We will need to be careful in asking what truly nurtures each other’s wellbeing, and also attend to the risk of harming wellbeing.

As we’ve seen at Citizen Network, government and civil society have been very prone to make many very dubious claims about their ability to improve people’s lives through social programmes. These are almost always targeted at those most disadvantaged: disabled people, ‘troubled families’, young people not in education or employment (NEETS), people on low incomes, single mothers, migrants, asylum seekers, etc. This list goes on. Strong claims are always made about the ability of these social programmes to make a positive difference—these claims are almost always false. No effort is made to let people themselves shape their solutions or their own goals. 

As this book makes clear, we all need to be a lot more vigilant about allowing the powerful to claim the wisdom necessary to be allowed such power over ordinary people’s lives.

Available now on Amazon

Eri Mountbatten O'Malley spoke about his book at the Festival of Debate, watch the recording here.

The Publisher is Bloomsbury Academic. Human Flourishing: A Conceptual Analysis © Eri Mountbatten-O'Malley 2024

Review: Human Flourishing © Simon Duffy 2025