Technology is outpacing our ethics: why flourishing, not growth, should guide development
Adapted from the opening address by Dr Dietrich Werner, President of Globethics, at the Global Ethics Forum 2026 in Bali, Indonesia
How can responsible governance contribute to human flourishing in a fragmented world? Opening the Global Ethics Forum 2026, Dietrich Werner argued that we are confusing capacity with wisdom. His call: a richer idea of development, one that includes the whole person, the whole community and the living Earth.
What do we mean by human flourishing?
For too long, development has been measured by economic growth, productivity, income and consumption. These things matter. Poverty reduction matters, education matters, health matters; but they do not, by themselves, tell us whether people and communities are actually flourishing.
The Global Flourishing Study, undertaken by Harvard and Baylor universities (the latter of which we were honoured to welcome as a partner of GEF2026), looks across six dimensions: happiness and life satisfaction; physical and mental health; meaning and purpose; character and virtue; close social relationships; and financial and material stability. We are persons, not merely economic actors or consumers.
Who is flourishing, and who is not?
South Korea is one of the extraordinary development success stories of the modern era: highly educated, technologically advanced, prosperous and globally competitive. Yet this success comes with extraordinarily low fertility, high housing and education costs, and significant mental-health challenges.
Japan is one of the world's most prosperous and long-lived societies. But longevity is not identical with flourishing. The question is not simply: How long do human beings live? It is also: How well, with whom, and for what purpose do we live?
Europe provides another perspective. European societies generally enjoy comparatively high levels of life satisfaction and social protection, but averages can conceal profound inequalities. People facing disability, poverty, unaffordable housing, exclusion or mental-health difficulties may experience a very different reality from that of the statistical average citizen.
Indonesia shows particularly strong social connection, community engagement and sense of meaning. We should not romanticise that. But it invites a question: what can societies with strong communal, cultural and spiritual resources teach a world that has become increasingly individualistic, competitive and technologically driven?
The central ethical dilemma of our time
Artificial intelligence, biotechnology, digital technologies and automation are expanding our possibilities at extraordinary speed. Yet precisely now, questions of human purpose, dignity, justice and responsibility become more, not less, important.
The danger is that we confuse capacity with wisdom: that because something can be done, it should be done; that faster is necessarily better; that more growth means more flourishing.
The question is not whether we should stop innovation. It is: What is innovation for? Who decides? Who benefits? Who carries the risks?
There is a widening gap between the technological capacities we are acquiring and our still insufficient ethical capacity to govern them responsibly.
What can spiritual and ethical traditions contribute?
They do not possess all the answers. But they preserve questions which modern societies sometimes forget to ask: What is a human being? What makes a life meaningful? What do we owe one another? What are the limits of power?
Three examples:
- Christian: Pope Leo XIV's encyclical Magnifica Humanitas says that in the era of artificial intelligence, "ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human."
- Hindu: the Isha Upanishad tells us to enjoy the world's gifts with detachment, and not to covet what belongs to others or to future generations.
- Muslim: Al-Mizan: A Covenant for the Earth holds that "in its balance lies the sustenance of all life."
Together they point to a flourishing in which human dignity and ecological responsibility, freedom and responsibility, innovation and wisdom belong together.
From dialogue to responsible action
How we govern technology is connected with how we govern societies. How we understand development is connected with how we understand peace. And how we understand human flourishing is connected with how we understand justice.
No single nation, sector or tradition can meet the challenges of climate change, AI, poverty, inequality, migration and war alone. We need spaces where disagreement does not immediately become hostility, and where dialogue means listening across differences without abandoning our convictions.
And we need leaders who understand that responsible leadership is not primarily about exercising power. It is about being accountable for the consequences of power.
One final question
Who defines human flourishing, and who gets to decide what flourishing should mean for whom?
Globethics seeks to connect values with governance, principles with practice, and ethical reflection with responsible action. We need technology that serves humanity, economies that serve the common good, and governance that serves justice.
For to flourish is not simply to have more, but to live well: with one another, with dignity, with purpose, and in responsible relationship with the Earth.