Topic 4: The Human Person Flourishing in terms of Science and Technology

Learning Objectives

After successful completion of this module, you should be able to:

 analyze the steps in scientific method;

 explain the concepts of human flourishing and their importance for the “common
good” and present examples;
 enumerate some career jobs related to science and technology that lead to human
flourishing.
 Presentation of Contents

Problems that you encounter could be solved by simple ways. Maria could have solved her
problem if she tried to approach it systematically. This lesson will introduce you to the
scientific method. The scientific method is a logical and systematic way of solving a problem.

Making Observation and Stating the Problem

Different things happen around you. As you notice these, you take a mental note of what you
see, hear, feel, smell or taste. These mental notes are your observations.

Formulating the Hypothesis

Your statement of the problem must have an answer. But at this point, you still do not have a
definite one, so you formulate your hypothesis. A hypothesis is a logical guess that answers
the question or problem. It could be correct or incorrect, which is what you will find out in the
next step. You could have more than one hypothesis, but you will consider them one at a time
in the succeeding steps.

Testing the Hypothesis with experiment

After proposing possible answer to the problem, you should prove whether your hypotheses
are true or not. This could be through experiments, test, or research. You need to plan how you
would test your hypothesis by logically writing down the steps that you will do.

Since you will be writing down steps of a procedure, your methodology should be numbered
and logically arranged. It should contain practical procedures, which are significant to the
study being conducted.

Stating the Conclusion

At this point, you now know if your hypothesis answered your question. If it did, you just
restate your hypothesis as your conclusion. If it did not, then you need to test other hypotheses.

Human Flourishing

According to Aristotle, there is an end of all of the actions that we perform which we desire for
itself. This is what is known as eudaimonia, flourishing, or happiness, which is desired for its
own sake with all other things being desired on its account. Eudaimonia is a property of one's
life when considered as a whole. Flourishing is the highest good of human endeavors and that
toward which all actions aim. It is success as a human being. The best life is one of excellent
human activity.

For Aristotle, the good is what is good for purposeful, goal-directed entities. He defines the
good proper to human beings as the activities in which the life functions specific to human
beings are most fully realized. For Aristotle, the good of each species is teleologically
immanent to that species. A person's nature as a human being provides him with guidance with
respect to how he should live his life. A fundamental fact of human nature is the existence of
individual human beings each with his own rational mind and free will. The use of one's
volitional consciousness is a person's distinctive capacity and means of survival.

One's own life is the only life that a person has to live. It follows that, for Aristotle, the "good"
is what is objectively good for a particular man. Aristotle's eudaimonia is formally egoistic in
that a person's normative reason for choosing particular actions stems from the idea that he
must pursue his own good or flourishing. Because self-interest is flourishing, the good in
 Application

Activity 1: Applying the Scientific Method

Direction: Follow the scientific method focusing on what you can immediately observe that is
happening in the environment at 8 o’clock in the morning. Use the data sheet below to write
down your answers. For the data analysis, assume that you performed the test and were able to
prove that your hypothesis is an answer to the problem.

Location of Observation: ______________________________________________________________

I. Making Observations and stating the Problem

_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________

II. Formulating Hypothesis

1. ______________________________________________________________________
2. ______________________________________________________________________
3. ______________________________________________________________________

III. Testing the Hypothesis with an experiment

1. ______________________________________________________________________
2. ______________________________________________________________________
3. ______________________________________________________________________
4. ______________________________________________________________________
5. ______________________________________________________________________

IV. Stating the Conclusion

Guide Questions:

1. What do you think will happen if the steps in scientific method are in different order?
2. If you would be adding more steps to the scientific method, what would be these steps?
Discuss the additional steps you are proposing.