Flourishing, Education, and the Good Human Life: The Search for a Theoretical and Practical Synthesis

In the last few years, the concept of human flourishing (eudaimonia)–denoting predominantly objective features of human well-being–has come into vogue within various areas of the humanities and social sciences (philosophy, psychology, economics, health sciences, education) after only playing a marginal role since ancient times. This development is perhaps most noticeable within education where the biggest international policymaker in the field, OECD, is considering revising its decades-old human capital theory about the aims of education and adopting a human flourishing paradigm. This article describes the outcomes of some theoretical work that the present author did as a consultant for OECD in trying to synthesise various theoretical flourishing paradigms for practical purposes. It talks about the pros and cons of each paradigm and some recent criticisms that have been aimed at all of them. While arguing for the possibility of reconciliations, the main aim is to motivate readers to think about the credibility of a flourishing agenda for education, in general, and the possibility of synthesising satisfactorily the different approaches to it, in particular.