Technology, Virtue and the Good Life: Between Production and Consumption

Abstract

This paper explores recent developments in the virtue ethics approach to human flourishing in technological societies. I discuss the merits of virtue ethics in a broader context of various philosophies of technology. I propose that a distinction can be made between two broad approaches to the question of the good life and technology: the production approach that focuses on the roles technologies could and do play in production for the elimination of various forms of labour and the consumption approach that focuses on the role of technology in everyday social settings and interactions outside the workplace. Finding that the virtue ethics approach currently remains almost exclusively focused on consumption, I conclude the article with a suggestion for how virtue theory can be advanced beyond consumption using the resources of the same virtue ethics tradition.