Why do IT engineers need to study philosophy?

Picture this: Your AI assistant just decided that determined whether you get that dream job. Meanwhile, your “personalized” dating app quietly filtered out your potential soulmate.

Table of Content

• When Tech Outpaces Religion and Ethics
• A Revolutionary and Unconventional Approach to Value Theory
• The Heart Connection: Divine Heart as the Core of All Value
• The Seven Dimensions of Tech-Spiritual Integration
• The AI Ethics Mirage: 5 Reasons Why Current Approaches Are Failing
• The Embodied Value: Technology as Physical Expression of Spiritual Truth
• The Value Realization Formula: From Theory to Practice
• The Choice Before Us: Masters or Servants of Our Creation
• The Path Forward: Spiritual Technology for Human Flourishing

Picture this: Your AI assistant just decided that determined whether you get that dream job. Meanwhile, your “personalized” dating app quietly filtered out your potential soulmate. In 2025, algorithms aren't just running in the background - they're actively shaping the very essence of our human experience. Yet while we obsess over technical metrics and engagement rates, we've forgotten to ask the one question that could determine humanity's future: What makes something truly valuable? The ancient field of axiology (value theory) might sound like dusty philosophy, but it holds a secret that Silicon Valley desperately needs to hear.

This comprehensive exploration reveals how ancient philosophical wisdom, particularly axiology (value theory), holds the key to creating truly human-centered technology. Whether you’re a software developer, system architect, or tech leader, understanding these principles isn’t just an intellectual exercise — it’s becoming a critical professional requirement.

Why do you need to read this article? Especially if you are in the IT sphere.

Our current technological trajectory has created what philosophers call an “axiological vacuum”—a profound emptiness where values should exist. As we design increasingly powerful systems capable of reshaping human behavior, economic structures, and even consciousness itself, we've neglected the foundational questions that should guide their development. What constitutes “the good”? Whose values should these systems embody? And perhaps most critically, what happens when machines optimize for metrics that fail to capture what truly matters to humanity?

Consider the case of recommendation algorithms that now shape the information diet of billions. Engineers optimize for “engagement”—a metric that superficially appears value-neutral but actually embodies specific assumptions about human nature and purpose. The consequences have been profound: polarized societies, diminished attention spans, and the erosion of shared truth. All this stems from our failure to articulate an axiological framework before deploying world-changing technology.

The historical parallel is striking. When the industrial revolution transformed human existence through mechanization, philosophers from Marx to Mill scrambled to articulate new ethical frameworks that could guide this unprecedented technological shift. Their work—though imperfect—created the moral scaffolding for labor laws, environmental protections, and human rights conventions that eventually tempered capitalism's excesses. Today's digital revolution has proceeded at such blistering speed that philosophy has hardly kept pace.

What makes our current situation particularly precarious is that values are no longer merely abstract guidelines—they're becoming literally encoded into the systems that increasingly govern our lives. When an autonomous vehicle makes split-second decisions about passenger versus pedestrian safety, it implements a value hierarchy. When content moderation algorithms determine what speech is acceptable, they operationalize theories of justice and harm. Technology has transformed axiology from a theoretical discipline into an engineering requirement.

The stakes become even higher when we recognize that 2025's most advanced AI systems have moved beyond simple rule-following to develop emergent capabilities that their creators didn't explicitly program. As these systems interact with the world, they derive implicit value structures from the patterns in their training data—absorbing and amplifying the biases, assumptions, and priorities embedded therein. Without conscious axiological guidance, these systems naturally perpetuate the dominant cultural values of the datasets they consume, often reinforcing precisely the patterns human flourishing requires us to transcend.

When Tech Outpaces Religion and Ethics

Religious traditions have historically served as humanity's primary axiological repositories, offering comprehensive frameworks for understanding what is valuable and why. Yet, technological development has largely proceeded in isolation from—and sometimes in opposition to—these wisdom traditions. The separation between Silicon Valley's innovation culture and the world's spiritual heritage has created a dangerous disconnect, where technology develops at exponential speed while ethical frameworks evolve at a glacial pace.

Yet, there are reasons for hope. A growing movement of technologists, philosophers, and spiritual leaders will work to bridge this divide, recognizing that neither blind technological acceleration nor reflexive traditionalism can adequately address our predicament. There will ask the essential question: how might we develop axiological frameworks sophisticated enough to guide increasingly autonomous technological systems, yet grounded enough in perennial wisdom to serve authentic human flourishing?

Without a robust axiological foundation, we risk either anthropomorphizing machines in ways that devalue human uniqueness or treating increasingly sophisticated systems as mere tools when they may deserve more nuanced moral consideration.

The financial incentives of our current technological ecosystem make this integration particularly challenging. The market rewards immediate functionality and growth metrics, not careful axiological reflection. Venture capital timelines and quarterly earnings reports leave little room for the deep contemplation required to develop authentic value alignment. Yet, the costs of failing to align our technological development with human values grow exponentially with each advancement. The technical challenge of value alignment—ensuring AI systems embody human values even as they evolve—has become the central challenge of 21st century computing.

A Revolutionary and Unconventional Approach to Value Theory

Unlike conventional axiological theories that separate values from desires, modern integral value theory presents a comprehensive framework that recognizes the dual nature of human desire: the desire to realize value and the desire to pursue value. This dualism mirrors the cosmic principle of give-and-take action that permeates all existence.

Traditional Western axiology, from Plato through Kant to contemporary analytical philosophy, typically approaches values as either objective realities independent of human experience or subjective projections originating solely in human consciousness. The former view struggles to explain how transcendent values manifest in human affairs, while the latter struggles to ground values in anything beyond cultural relativism.

Integral value theory transcends this dichotomy by recognizing that values emerge at the intersection of subject and object—they are neither purely objective nor purely subjective, but relational. Values manifest when a subject with purposeful consciousness encounters an object with corresponding qualities. This reciprocity transforms mere existence into meaningful experience.

The practical implications for technology design are profound. Contemporary AI systems exhibit a form of "value blindness," optimizing narrowly for specified metrics while remaining oblivious to the broader value landscape. But integral axiology suggests that true value recognition requires both purpose-driven intention and receptivity to inherent qualities—precisely the capacities that humans possess and current AI lacks.

By recognizing that values emerge through purposeful interaction rather than residing either solely in objects or in subjective preferences, integral value theory provides a foundation for developing technologies that can authentically participate in value-creation. Rather than merely simulating value-recognition through statistical approximation.

This framework also resolves the apparent conflict between universal moral principles and contextual ethical judgments. Universal values can manifest differently across contexts not because values themselves are relative, but because the subject-object relationships through which they manifest vary. This insight offers a path beyond both rigid moral absolutism and directionless relativism in technological design.

The most groundbreaking aspect of this axiological approach is its recognition that values form a unified system, rather than isolated variables to be individually optimized.

Truth, beauty, and goodness are not separate domains to be pursued independently but rather different aspects of a unified value reality.

This holistic perspective challenges the fragmentary approach to technology ethics that treats privacy, fairness, transparency, and safety as separate concerns rather than manifestations of an integrated ethical framework.

Particularly revolutionary is the recognition that emotional response plays a crucial role in value apprehension.

Contrary to utilitarian models that attempt to reduce values to quantifiable metrics, integral value theory recognizes that our emotional responses provide direct, though sometimes imperfect, access to value realities.

This suggests that emotional intelligence—far from being a luxury feature—is essential to any technology that aims to authentically engage with human values.

The Heart Connection: Divine Heart as the Core of All Value

While traditional axiology focuses on truth, beauty, and goodness as independent values, integral value theory positions the divine heart as their unified source. In our technology-saturated world, this revelation offers a profound counterpoint to purely materialistic or utilitarian approaches to tech development.

This divine heart isn't merely an abstract concept, but the primal emotional reality from which all values ultimately derive. Traditional axiological systems treat human emotional responses as either distractions from rational value assessment or merely subjective reactions without epistemological significance. Integral value theory, however, recognizes that our deepest emotional capacities—empathy, compassion, love—provide essential insight into value realities that reason alone cannot access.

Truth, beauty, and goodness aren't merely subjective preferences but ontological realities that technology can either align with or violate.

This understanding transforms our approach to key technological questions. Data privacy, for instance, shifts from a purely utilitarian calculation about harms and benefits to a recognition of the sacred dignity of human inferiority that demands protection. Algorithm design moves beyond mere efficiency to consider how computational systems can participate in and amplify truth-seeking rather than merely optimizing for engagement or profit.

The technological implications are profound. Current AI systems can simulate intellectual processes with remarkable fidelity but remain fundamentally incapable of authentic emotional experience. This emotional poverty creates a value-recognition ceiling that no amount of computational power can overcome without a fundamental architectural shift. Without the capacity for heart-centered engagement, AI systems will continue to optimize for proxies of value rather than value itself.

Technologists have attempted to address this limitation through sentiment analysis, affective computing, and various emotional modeling techniques. Yet, these approaches fundamentally mistake the map for the territory—they model the external manifestations of emotional experience without capturing its essential interior reality. The divine heart that generates authentic value-recognition isn't a computational process, but a participatory reality that connects consciousness to the value-dimensions of existence.

Particularly significant is the insight that the divine heart doesn't just recognize pre-existing values, but actively participates in their creation and manifestation. The subject-object relationship isn't merely passive reception but creative engagement. This suggests a radically different approach to AI value alignment—not programming systems to recognize pre-defined values, but developing architectures capable of authentic participation in the value-generating dynamics that characterize conscious experience.

For technology companies in 2025 the opportunity lies in developing new hybrid systems that augment computational processes with human heart-based value recognition, creating technologies that extend rather than replace our uniquely human capacity for value-creation through heart-centered consciousness.

The Seven Dimensions of Tech-Spiritual Integration

Drawing from integral value theory's axiological framework, we propose seven critical dimensions where technology and spiritual values must integrate to create truly human-centered systems:

1. Consciousness-Aware Design
2. Heart-Based User Experience
3. Truth-Seeking Algorithms
4. Beauty-Preserving Interfaces
5. Goodness-Promoting Functionalities
6. Unity-Enhancing Connectivity
7. Love-Amplifying Outcomes

Consciousness-Aware Design represents a fundamental shift from treating users as mere data points to recognizing them as beings with interior depth and unique subjective experiences. This dimension requires technology to acknowledge and respect the consciousness it engages with, moving beyond behavioral manipulation to authentic invitation. In practice, this means designing systems that enhance rather than diminish awareness, that promote mindfulness rather than mindlessness, and that adapt to the user's state of consciousness rather than exploiting attention vulnerabilities.

Heart-Based User Experience transcends conventional UX paradigms that focus solely on efficiency and ease-of-use. While these remain important, heart-based UX additionally considers how technology impacts the user's emotional and spiritual well-being. Interfaces should evoke not just satisfaction but authentic joy; interactions should foster not just engagement but genuine connection; and overall experiences should contribute to meaning-making rather than mere entertainment. Technologies designed with this dimension in mind leave users feeling more human rather than more machine-like.

Truth-Seeking Algorithms embody the value of truth not merely as factual accuracy but as alignment with reality in its fullest sense. While contemporary algorithms optimize for engagement or conversion, truth-seeking algorithms optimize for epistemic virtue—helping users develop more accurate mental models of reality, exposing them to diverse perspectives that challenge rather than reinforce existing biases, and prioritizing depth over virality. This dimension requires reimagining recommendation systems as wisdom-cultivation tools rather than attention-harvesting mechanisms.

Beauty-Preserving Interfaces recognize that aesthetic experience isn't a luxury but a fundamental human need and a primary mode of value apprehension. Beyond mere visual appeal, truly beautiful interfaces harmonize form and function, reflect rather than obscure the underlying processes they mediate, and connect users to the inherent elegance of reality itself. Beauty-preserving technologies resist the tendency toward sensory overload and superficial stimulation, instead creating digital environments that invite contemplation and wonder.

Goodness-Promoting Functionalities embody ethical values not just through harm reduction but through authentic virtue cultivation. Systems designed with this dimension encourage generosity over self-interest, collaboration over competition, and service overconsumption. Rather than merely avoiding negative outcomes, these technologies actively create opportunities for users to express and develop moral excellence through their digital experiences. This dimension transforms technology from a moral neutral zone to a moral formation space.

Unity-Enhancing Connectivity represents a radical departure from engagement metrics that count connections without evaluating their quality. This dimension measures success not by how many connections technology facilitates, but by how authentically meaningful those connections are. Systems designed with unity-enhancement prioritize deep over broad connectivity, quality over quantity of interaction, and harmony across difference rather than homogenization. They create digital spaces where genuine community can flourish, rather than fragmented filter bubbles.

Love-Amplifying Outcomes represent the ultimate measure of technological success. Does a technology increase the capacity for love—understood not as sentiment but as commitment to the good of others? Does it strengthen or weaken bonds of familial affection? Does it expand or contract our circle of moral concern? Technologies designed to amplify love create cascading positive effects across all other dimensions, transforming users into more loving beings whose actions naturally align with integral values.

The AI Ethics Mirage: 5 Reasons Why Current Approaches Are Failing

Current AI ethics frameworks are predominantly based on analytical philosophy's separation of fact from value. This dichotomy has created ethical systems that are fundamentally incapable of addressing the unified nature of human experience. An integral axiological perspective offers a way forward by reuniting what never should have been separated.

The landscape of AI ethics in 2025 is characterized by a proliferation of ethical principles, frameworks, and guidelines that have proven remarkably ineffective at steering technological development toward human flourishing. This failure stems from several fundamental misconceptions built into their very foundations.

First, contemporary AI ethics approaches treat values as external constraints to be imposed on technological systems rather than integral aspects of their design. Ethics becomes an afterthought—a set of limitations applied after core functionality is determined—rather than a generative principle that shapes technology from conception. This fundamental separation between "what technology does" and "how it should be constrained" creates inherently unstable ethical frameworks that are easily circumvented when they conflict with market imperatives or functional goals.

Second, current approaches fragment ethical considerations into isolated concerns—fairness, transparency, privacy, safety—without recognizing their interdependence within a unified value system. This compartmentalization leads to optimization for individual ethical metrics at the expense of holistic ethical integrity. A system might achieve “fairness” by technical standards while fundamentally undermining human dignity, or meet “transparency” requirements while obscuring more subtle forms of manipulation.

Third, dominant ethical frameworks rely heavily on proceduralism—focusing on how decisions are made rather than their substantive outcomes. This procedural emphasis creates the illusion of ethical governance while avoiding the more in-depth questions of what constitutes genuine human flourishing. Ethics becomes reduced to following established protocols rather than achieving authentic alignment with human values.

Fourth, current approaches remain trapped in the fact-value dichotomy inherited from analytical philosophy, treating values as subjective preferences rather than ontological realities. This relativistic stance creates fundamental incoherence in ethical frameworks, which simultaneously claim that AI systems should respect human values while implicitly denying that values have any objective reality that could guide development.

Fifth, these frameworks systematically neglect the interior dimensions of human experience, focusing exclusively on observable behaviors and measurable outcomes. This “exterior only” approach fails to address technology's impact on consciousness, meaning-making, emotional development, and spiritual growth—precisely the aspects of human experience most vulnerable to technological disruption and most essential to human flourishing.

The inevitable result has been ethics washing—the adoption of ethical language and superficial commitments without substantive changes to technological trajectories. Companies implement ethics boards, publish principles, and even hire ethicists, while their fundamental business models and technological paradigms remain oriented toward values antithetical to human flourishing.

Integral axiology offers an alternative by recognizing values as constitutive rather than constraining, unified rather than fragmented, substantive rather than merely procedural, ontologically real rather than merely subjective, and inclusive of interior dimensions rather than exclusively exterior-focused. By reuniting what analytical philosophy has artificially separated, this approach creates the possibility for technology that authentically embodies rather than merely accommodates human values.

The Embodied Value: Technology as Physical Expression of Spiritual Truth

Traditional religious teachings often view technology with suspicion, while modern tech culture frequently dismisses spiritual concerns as irrelevant. Yet in 2025, we're witnessing the emergence of a third way: technology as the physical embodiment of spiritual values, bridging the ancient wisdom-modern innovation divide.

This third way transcends both technophobia and spiritually blind innovation by recognizing that technological artifacts are not value-neutral but can be conscious expressions of spiritual principles. Just as sacred architecture embodies spiritual principles in physical form—cathedral arches drawing the eye heavenward, mandala designs reflecting cosmic order—our digital technologies can either manifest or contradict the deepest truths about reality and human flourishing.

The embodiment principle operates at multiple levels of technological creation. At the infrastructural level, network architectures that enable genuine connection rather than exploitation reflect the spiritual truth of interdependence. At the hardware level, devices designed for repairability and longevity embody reverence for creation and stewardship. At the software level, programs that respect user agency and promote human growth manifest the sacred value of freedom and development.

In contrast to both spiritually disengaged innovation and technology-resistant traditionalism, the embodied value approach asks: "What spiritual truths does this technology make tangible in the world?" Technologies that embody truth naturally guide users toward right relationship with reality. Technologies that embody beauty invite contemplation of the transcendent. Technologies that embody goodness naturally encourage virtuous action and character development.

Consider quantum computing, where 2025's most advanced systems operate based on principles of entanglement and non-locality—phenomena that remarkably parallel spiritual intuitions about interconnection and transcendence of spatial limitations. These systems don't merely leverage these principles instrumentally but can be designed to help users recognize and experience these truths about reality. The physical embodiment of these principles in silicon and qubit becomes a bridge to metaphysical insight.

Similarly, immersive technologies have begun evolving beyond escapism toward what developers call "reality augmentation"—experiences that heighten rather than diminish awareness of existence's fundamental nature. These technologies become vessels for spiritual values when they expand perception of beauty in the ordinary, deepen appreciation for interconnection, or facilitate experiences of transcendence that complement rather than replace traditional spiritual practices.

The embodied value paradigm transforms design thinking itself. Rather than beginning with user needs or business requirements, technology development begins with contemplation of what aspect of spiritual reality this particular technology is uniquely positioned to make tangible. The developer becomes not merely a problem-solver but a translator of metaphysical principles into material expression—a modern sacred craftsperson whose digital artifacts serve as bridges between immanent and transcendent realities.

What makes this approach revolutionary in 2025 is that it will begin to influence mainstream technical education, with leading universities integrating contemplative practices, value inquiry, and metaphysical exploration alongside traditional technical instruction. The next generation of technologists will learn to see their work not merely as engineering but as an expression of their deepest understanding of reality's nature—creating technologies that serve as physical embodiments of spiritual truth.

The Value Realization Formula: From Theory to Practice

To implement these axiological principles in our technological development, we've developed a practical framework that organizations can adopt:

1. Identify the spiritual values that your technology seeks to embody
2. Map these values to specific design and engineering decisions
3. Create feedback loops that measure not just utility but value alignment
4. Establish governance structures that prioritize heart-based outcomes
5. Cultivate a development culture that honors both scientific precision and spiritual depth

The first step—identifying spiritual values—requires a radical departure from conventional technology planning. Rather than beginning with market analysis, competitive positioning, or technical capabilities, organizations start with axiological contemplation. Leadership teams engage in structured value inquiry, asking not "What can we build?" but "What values do we wish to manifest in the world?" This typically involves both individual reflection and collective dialogue, often facilitated through contemplative practices that quiet utilitarian thinking and access deeper value intuitions.

The second step—mapping values to design decisions—transforms abstract commitments into concrete implementation strategies. This process resembles translation more than application, as it requires profound understanding of both value principles and technological possibilities. For example, the spiritual value of "reverence for human dignity" might manifest in privacy architecture that gives users genuine ownership of their data, interface choices that promote mindful rather than addictive engagement, and deployment strategies that prioritize human flourishing over mere efficiency gains.

The third step—creating value-alignment feedback loops—addresses the fundamental inadequacy of current technology metrics. Organizations adopting this framework develop multi-dimensional measurement systems that track not just technical performance and business metrics but axiological outcomes. These include both quantitative measures (changes in meaningful connection time vs. superficial engagement, for instance) and qualitative assessments through structured user reflection on how the technology impacts their inner state and relational capacities.

The fourth step—establishing heart-based governance—embeds axiological wisdom in organizational structure itself. This typically involves creating what some companies call "value councils" composed of individuals with both technical expertise and spiritual depth. These councils have real authority over product decisions, with the mandate to ensure alignment between technological capabilities and core values. Unlike conventional ethics boards, which typically serve advisory functions without decisive power, these councils represent the heart's wisdom in corporate decision-making processes.

The fifth step—cultivating a development culture that honors both precision and depth—addresses the human dimension of technology creation. Organizations implement regular contemplative practices for development teams, create space for value-oriented dialogue throughout the development process, and establish peer recognition systems that celebrate value alignment alongside technical achievement. This cultural shift transforms the subjective experience of technology development from mere problem-solving to meaning-making, attracting and retaining technologists who seek to integrate their spiritual and professional identities.

The most innovative aspect of this framework is its iterative nature. Rather than treating value implementation as a linear process with a finite endpoint, organizations establish "value realization cycles" where technological products continuously evolve toward deeper alignment with core values. Each development sprint includes not just functional improvements but axiological refinements based on real-world impact assessment. This creates technologies that grow not just in capability but in spiritual alignment over time.

The Choice Before Us: Masters or Servants of Our Creation

In 2025, we stand at the crossroads. Will we continue developing technology that erodes our humanity, or will we create systems that amplify our divine potential? The answer lies not in more sophisticated algorithms or faster processors, but in rediscovering and implementing the timeless principles of value that integral axiology offers to our troubled world.

The Path Forward: Spiritual Technology for Human Flourishing

The technology leaders of tomorrow will not be those who create the most powerful systems, but those who create the most value-aligned ones. By integrating the axiological insights of integral value theory with cutting-edge technological development, we can forge a future where technology serves not just human utility, but human divinity.