Building Perfectionist Ethics into Action-theoretic Accounts of Function: A Beginner’s Guide

In her paper “Human Flourishing and Technology Affordances”, Avigail Ferdman argues that our descriptions and analyses of the relationship between digital technology, and the capacities approach to human flourishing, can be enriched by building ‘affordances’ into those descriptions and analyses. This commentary article serves as a supplement to Ferdman’s paper. Here I argue that, in building affordances into the capacities approach, Ferdman has developed the foundations of a method by which perfectionist ethics can be built into action-theoretic accounts of technical function. However, this is possible only if she is willing to expand the ambit of her theory beyond digital technologies and into technology more generally.