Human Flourishing in the Age of Digital Capitalism

AI, Automation and Alienation

Andrius Bielskis

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2025
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350510739
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

With a distinctive theoretical framework combining Aristotle, Marx, and Alasdair MacIntyre, the essays in this volume ask how forms of artificial intelligence and technologies of automation in digital capitalism affect human flourishing, and what meaningful work looks like under these conditions.

As technology advances, how do we decide what activities should be automated? Is the end of work through automation actually desirable? If a good life is the life of activity employing our rational, imaginative, and creative powers, what does it mean to say that future societies will be post-work societies? Rather than simply embracing the possibilities of automation to eliminate work, this collection considers that meaningful work is integral to the good life.

Human Flourishing in the Age of Digital Capitalism contains eight essays from scholars in the UK, Europe and USA, reflecting on the philosophical and ethical dimensions of technology and political theory. Contributions cover topics such as algorithmic management, the feared 'superintelligence' of machines, the concept of good work, and the alienating consequences of technology for workers. This timely and novel intervention in the automation debate will be of interest to anyone considering new technologies from the perspective of normative ethics and the critique of political economy.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Series Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Why We Need Aristotle and Marx Together Andrius Bielskis
• 1 On Sheep and Self-Moving Tools: The Material Conditions for Human Flourishing Andrius Bielskis
• 2 Technē in the Conflicts of Modernity: A MacIntyrean Approach to Technology Kelvin Knight and Joe Simpson
• 3 Algorithmic Management: The Corrupting Power of Technology Pablo García Ruiz
• 4 ‘Mild Preparations’: Work, Practices and the Internal Good of Recognition Matthew Sinnicks, Efuntomi Wosu and Craig Reeves
• 5 A Note on Marx, Alienation and Technology Ruth Porter Groff
• 6 Artificial Intelligence, Alienation and the Existential Conditions of Human Flourishing Jeff Noonan
• 7 Marxism and the Idea of a Fully Automated Machine Society: Science Fiction Utopia or Dystopian Nightmare? Tony Burns
• 8 Automation and the Good Life: Technological Enslavement, Technological Liberation or Technology Transformed? Egidijus Mardosas
• Index