What principles follow from a process-based conception of humanity?

 

A process-based conception of humanity is primarily descriptive: it explains how identity, development, and social connectedness emerge through interactions among biological, cognitive, relational, cultural, and historical factors. Yet no conception of humanity is entirely normatively neutral. Descriptions of human vulnerability, dependence, and developmental potential inevitably raise questions about the conditions under which people can flourish[1].

The resulting normative framework is provisional rather than a complete moral theory. It functions as an analytical compass for evaluating social and institutional conditions while remaining open to empirical evidence, intercultural criticism, and theoretical revision. Five interconnected principles provide its foundation.

Equal worth arises from the recognition that all people are relational, vulnerable, and developable. Human dignity cannot depend on cultural background, cognitive ability, economic position, achievement, or social status. Equality does not mean that people are identical; it means that differences cannot justify hierarchies in which some lives are treated as intrinsically more valuable. Every person must be recognized as a full participant in social and moral communities[2].

Developmental opportunity follows from understanding human beings as continually developing. Freedom requires more than protection from coercion. It also depends on social, cultural, and material conditions that make development genuinely possible, including education, economic security, social participation, and cultural expression. Societies should therefore be evaluated not only by the formal freedoms they protect but also by the actual opportunities they create for people to develop their capacities[3].

Relational responsibility reflects the fact that identity, skills, autonomy, and meaning emerge through networks of mutual dependence. Individual development is inseparable from responsibility toward other people and communities. This does not eliminate personal autonomy. Autonomy itself develops through relationships, recognition, care, language, and institutional support. Social life therefore requires an ongoing balance between personal freedom and concern for the well-being and developmental possibilities of others[4].

Plurality of ways of life recognizes that human development is historically and culturally contextual. Different communities develop different understandings of fulfilment and the good life, so no single way of living may be imposed as a universal model. Pluralism nevertheless requires shared conditions for peaceful coexistence, cooperation, dignity, and mutual recognition. It is neither unlimited permissiveness nor moral relativism[5].

Ecological limits acknowledge that human development depends on natural systems that provide food, water, living space, biodiversity, and climatic stability. Human flourishing must therefore be connected to ecological sustainability and justice between generations. Societies cannot pursue development in ways that destroy the biosphere or undermine the conditions of life for future generations[6].

These principles must satisfy several methodological tests. First, they must remain internally consistent with the process-based understanding of humanity. Any principle that essentializes differences, legitimizes hierarchies of humanity, or treats development as deterministic contradicts the framework’s foundations[7].

Second, their plausibility must be examined through interdisciplinary evidence. Research in developmental psychology, social neuroscience, anthropology, sociology, and evolutionary biology can clarify the importance of empathy, cooperation, dependence, learning, and supportive developmental environments. Scientific findings inform normative reflection without mechanically determining moral conclusions.

Third, the principles must be compatible with historical and anthropological diversity[8]. They cannot elevate one cultural or institutional arrangement into a universal standard. Different communities must retain the freedom to organize human development in different ways, provided they respect minimal conditions of dignity, recognition, and human becoming.

Fourth, each principle must be evaluated according to its contribution to human development. Norms and institutions that systematically restrict opportunity, produce exclusion, or undermine dignity fail this test. The central question is whether they strengthen or weaken the personal, relational, and institutional conditions required for flourishing.

Fifth, the framework must remain compatible with pluralism. It should not impose a totalizing morality, but it must establish minimum boundaries against practices that destroy dignity, developmental opportunity, or mutual recognition.

Several additional considerations shape its continuing development. Human dependence is never automatically harmonious; relationships can contain asymmetry, hierarchy, domination, and concentrated power. Institutional structures can support human development but can also obstruct it through exclusion and dehumanization. Power analysis is therefore indispensable[9].

Human development is also shaped by ecological and technological infrastructures. Digital communication, biotechnology, and environmental change transform cognitive, emotional, material, and social conditions[10]. Any practical application must account for these evolving contexts rather than treating development as an abstract individual process.

Emotions are equally important. Human becoming is shaped by emotional regulation, recognition, trust, fear, and conflict. Affective dynamics can support social cohesion but can also intensify polarization. They must therefore be integrated into analyses of social and institutional life.

The resulting normative framework remains open, dynamic, and corrigible. These principles provide a direction rather than a complete ranking of social goods. Equal worth limits what may be sacrificed; developmental opportunity identifies conditions that deserve public attention; relational responsibility makes the distribution of dependence visible; pluralism restricts paternalistic definitions of a successful life; and ecological limits prevent present freedom from consuming the conditions of future freedom. Their application therefore requires public justification, evidence, and institutions capable of revising mistakes.

 

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(PDF) Becoming Human Together: Rethinking Democracy, Power and Institutions for a Complex and Changing World

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[1] Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, book III, part I, section I; Sen, Development as Freedom. Sen illustrates how empirical information about actual opportunity can inform evaluation without mechanically determining a single institutional answer.

[2] United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights; McCrudden, “Human Dignity and Judicial Interpretation of Human Rights”; United Nations, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

[3] Sen, Development as Freedom; Nussbaum, Creating Capabilities. These works distinguish formal liberty or resources from the substantive capability to act and to pursue valued forms of life.

[4] Iris Marion Young, Responsibility for Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Eva Feder Kittay, Love’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and Dependency (New York: Routledge, 1999); Joan C. Tronto, Caring Democracy (New York: New York University Press, 2013).

[5] John Rawls, Political Liberalism, expanded ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005); Habermas, The Inclusion of the Other; Appiah, Cosmopolitanism. These works provide different accounts of reasonable pluralism, public justification, and intercultural ethical engagement.

[6] Steffen et al., “Planetary Boundaries”; Edith Brown Weiss, In Fairness to Future Generations (Tokyo: United Nations University, 1989); IPCC, Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report.

[7] Mitchell, Biological Complexity and Integrative Pluralism; Debbie A. Lawlor, Kate Tilling, and George Davey Smith, “Triangulation in Aetiological Epidemiology,” International Journal of Epidemiology 45, no. 6 (2016): 1866–1886, https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyw314. Convergent evidence raises confidence only where methods have meaningfully different biases and address compatible questions.

[8] Joseph Henrich, Steven J. Heine, and Ara Norenzayan, “The Weirdest People in the World?” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33, nos. 2–3 (2010): 61–83, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0999152X; Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies, 2nd ed. (London: Zed Books, 2012).

[9] Lukes, Power: A Radical View; Young, Responsibility for Justice; Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Pantheon, 1977). These works provide distinct accounts of decision power, structural injustice, and disciplinary power.

[10] UNESCO, Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, adopted 23 November 2021, https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000381137; IPCC, Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report.