MIDTERM: SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY

Selected Indigenous Science and Technologies

The term “indigenous” refers to the notion of a place-based human ethnic culture that has not migrated
from its homeland and is not a settler or colonial population. To be indigenous, is therefore by definition
different from being of a world culture
Indigenous Science
 Is a product of indigenous knowledge made by people through life experiences.
 Indigenous knowledge may signify traditional and non-scientific knowledge because it include
superstitious beliefs and practices which may be product of imagination.
 Indigenous Science covers wide scope of areas including metaphysics, philosophy and practical
technologies (Snively & Corsiglia, 2000; Pawilen, 2013
Indigenous Beliefs
According to Johnston (2000), indigenous beliefs also develop desirable values:
1. motivating attitudes
2. cooperating attitudes
3. practical attitudes
4. reflective attitudes
Examples of Indigenous Science
 Knowledge in observing animal behavior
 preserving of foods
 classifying plants and animals into families
 selecting good seeds for planting
 Use of herbal medicines
 Making wines and juices from fruits
 Building irrigation system
Philippine Indigenous Technologies
Indigenous technology refers to the technological knowledge, skills, and resources transmitted or
handed down from the past indigenous people to the present ones to meet their needs and wants by means of
investigating, designing, developing, and evaluating products, processes, and systems.
1. Yoyo- invented by Pedro Flores; consisting of an axle connected to two disks and a string looped
around the axle
2. Medical incubator- nvented by Dr. Fe Del Mundo the first Asian student at the Harvard University's
school of medicine. it is to regulate the body temperature of newborn babies.
3. Erythromycin- Invented by Dr. Abelardo Aguilar; discovered the antibiotic erythromycin produced by the
bacterium streptomyces erythreus
4. “Patis”fishsauce- invented by Ruperta David also known as Aling Tentay
5. Banana Catsup- invented by Maria Orosa y Ylagan
6. Anticancer cream- invented by Rolando De la Cruz
7. 16-bit microchip- invented by Diosdado Banatao
8. Mole remover- invented by Rolando De la Cruz
The Human Person flourishing in terms of Science and Technology
Human Being is an individual person that makes up the society and responsible for the researches
and innovations available today.
Man is defined as a rational animal because he can think and use reason consistently. He is creature
whose destiny is to live in the spiritual world and physical world. He is made up of material body and spiritual
soul, with a belief on the existence and to live in the kingdom of God. ~Aristotle
The human beings do things is by making rational choices. Individuals choose specific actions or
scientific investigations that are most in line with their personal preferences.
 Society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing
the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural
expectations.
Anthropologists and sociologists often assume that human beings have natural social tendencies and
that human social behaviors have non-genetic causes and dynamics. They are learned in a social environment
and through social interaction. Societies exist in complex social environment (natural resources and
constraints) and adapt themselves to the environment.

Flourishing
 a state where people experience positive emotions, positive psychological functioning and positive
social functioning, most of the time," living "within an optimal range of human functioning."
Human flourishing
 An effort to achieve self-actualization and fulfillment within the context of a larger community of
individuals, each with the right to pursue his or her own such efforts.
 It involves the rational use of one's individual human potentialities, including talents, abilities, and
virtues in the pursuit of his freely and rationally chosen values and goals.

What is Happiness?
 In psychology, happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being which can be defined by, among
others, positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.
 To behaviorists, happiness is a cocktail of emotions we experience when we do something good or
positive.
 To neurologists, happiness is the experience of a flood of hormones released in the brain as a reward
for behavior that prolongs survival.
 The hedonistic view of well-being is that happiness is the opposite of suffering, the presence of
happiness indicates the absence of pain. Because of this, hedonists believe that the purpose of life is to
maximize happiness, which minimizes misery.
 Eudaimonia, a term that combines the Greek words for "good" and "spirit" to describe the ideology.
Eudaimonia defines happiness as the pursuit of becoming a better person.
Aristotle
 Aristotle believed that human flourishing requires a life with other people. Aristotle taught that people
acquire virtues through practice and that a set of concrete virtues could lead a person toward his
natural excellence and happiness.
 There is an end of all 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.
Principles of human flourishing
1. Dignity of the Human person - innate personal values or rights which demands respect for all people,
regardless of race, social class, wealth etc.
2. Common Good - sacrificing self-interest to provide for the basic human needs of everyone makes the
whole community flourish.
3. Preferential Option for the Poor - when decisions are made by first considering the poor.
4. Subsidiarity - when all those affected by a decision are involved in making it.
5. Universal Purpose of Goods - the Earth's resources serve every person's needs, regardless of who
"owns" them.
Well-being Theory (Martin Seligman) Five pillars (PERMA)
1. Positive emotion; what we feel: pleasure, rapture, ecstasy, warmth, comfort, and the like. An entire life
led successfully around this element; “pleasant life.”
2. Engagement, is about flow: being one with the music, time stopping, and the loss of self-
consciousness during an absorbing activity. Being fully engaged means doing everything with
enthusiasm.
3. Relationships. The feeling of satisfaction, flourishing or well-being can be experienced when we are in
a relationship with other people. Human evolution could also be related to the positive relationships with
other people, as other people are also part of the environment where humans adapt.
4. Meaning and purpose human beings, wants a “meaningful life” like belonging to and serving
something that you believe is bigger than you are. This is to prove your meaning or purpose with other
people.
5. Accomplishment is defined as something that is
successful or achieved after a lot of hard work or efforts.
The achieving life is dedicated to accomplishment, even
when it bring no positive emotion, no meaning and
nothing in the way of positive relationships.
The social and ethical issues should always be considered in
research and technology development, and ultimately to address
human flourishing (Seligman, 2011)
Good Life
Intellectual Virtues
Intellectual virtues are the deep personal qualities or
character strengths of a good thinker or learner. They include
qualities like curiosity, open-mindedness, intellectual courage,
and intellectual tenacity.
Intellectual virtues differ from natural cognitive abilities like
raw intelligence or IQ. However, a person can be very knowledgeable and intellectually “gifted” while also
being intellectually hasty, lazy, dishonest, arrogant, servile, distracted, superficial, careless, or closed-minded.
These latter qualities prevent a person from thinking or learning well.
Good thinking and learning have a character-based
dimension. They require the practice of qualities like
intellectual carefulness, perseverance, honesty, humility,
attentiveness, and thoroughness.

Intellectual Virtues (Key Feature)

1. They are acquired
2. They are excellent character traits
3. They involved human emotions, intentions, motivations,
and values.
4. They are aimed at cognitive goods
 5. They are means between two extremes (coward and reckless)
Example:
Courage is one of the acts of virtuousness, but what does it really mean to be courageous according to
Aristotle.

Courage is the golden mean of cowardice (deficiency) and reckless (excess). Being Courageous doesn’t
always mean on picking up a fight or facing a fight at you own expense.
What does it mean to be a virtuous?
“Having true virtue means doing the right thing, at the right time, in the right way, in the right amount, toward
people.” –Aristotle
Pleasure- in the inclusive usages important in thought about well-being, experience, and mind, includes the
affective positivity of all joy, gladness, liking, and enjoyment – all our feeling good or happy. It is often
contrasted with the similarly inclusive pain, or suffering, of all our feeling bad.
Happiness – according to Aristotle, happiness consists in achieving, through the course of a whole lifetime, all
the goods – health, wealth, knowledge, friends,etc. – that lead to the perfection of human nature to the
enrichment of human life.
This requires us to make choices, some of which may be very difficult. Often the lesser good promises
immediate pleasure and is more tempting, while the greater good is painful and requires some sort of sacrifice.

Public Good
 In economics, a public good refers to a commodity or service that is made available to all members of
society. Typically, these services are administered by governments and paid for collectively through
taxation.
 Public goods are the opposite of private goods, which are inherently scarce and are paid for separately
by individuals.
 Examples of public goods include law enforcement, national defence, and the rule of law. Public goods
also refer to more basic goods, such as access to clean air and drinking water.
Utilitarianism (Gripaldo 2009)
 is an ethical theory that determines right from wrong by focusing on outcomes. It is a form of
consequentialism.
 It holds that the most ethical choice is the one that will produce the greatest good for the greatest
number of people
Two concepts of Public Goods (Gripaldo, 2009)
Politico-Ethical Sense
 National People and the Public Good (ex. Education, natural defense, public health, public highways,
social highways etc.)
 Communal People and Public Good
Politico-Economic Sense
 Microeconomics  Macroeconomics
- Individual markets - Whole economy (GDP)
- Effect on price of good - Inflation (general price level)
- Individual labor market - Employment/unemployment
- Individual consumer behaviour - Aggregate Demand (AD)
- Supply of goods - Productive capacity of economy
Types of Public Goods
 Almost public goods are non-rivalrous and nonecludable good.
 Nonrivalry – any product or service that does not reduce in availability as people consume it.
 Non-excludability – any product or service that is impossible to provide without it being available for
many people to enjoy
Eudaimonia and the Common Good
 Human being are inclined to seek a deeper sense of happiness than mere concepts of pleasure and
the absence of pain. This is ‘eudaimontistic’ notion of happiness, and it centers on human flouring,
prioritizing living well and actualizing one’s potentials through personal development.
 As key aspects of the Aristotelian view of happiness is that the good life is a life of relationship. Human
beings seek for good life but only for themselves, but a good life with others. this sense of mutual
flouring is embedded in the view of the common good.
The Green Economy
A green economy is defined as low carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive. In a green economy,
growth in employment and income are driven by public and private investment into such economic activities,
infrastructure and assets that allow reduced carbon emissions and pollution, enhanced energy and resource
efficiency, and prevention of the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

LESSON SPOTLIGHT
“YOUR CHARACTER DEVELOPED THROUGH, HABITUATION, IF YOU DO VIRTOUS THING OVER AND
OVER AGAIN, EVENTUALLY, IT WILL BECOME PART OF YOUR CHARACTER.”