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Thesis Secular humanism needs no metaphysics, and that is its strength

Arvind Poojary Fellow
· 5 replies
Society & cultureAfrican & AfricanaIndianModern EuropeanCarvakaKwame Gyekye#anthropocentrism#metaphysics#secular-humanism#worldview
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Where it stands

I'm an atheist, and I call myself a humanist in the modern sense: ethics and meaning without religion.

I keep being told that humanism is just another religion, a faith in Man with its own unprovable dogmas. I want to argue the opposite. Secular humanism is strong precisely because it needs so little. It asks you to accept that human beings can suffer and flourish, that we can find out about the world by reason and evidence, and that we owe each other consideration. You can hold that with almost any metaphysics, or with none. It doesn't need a theory of the soul, or of the ultimate nature of reality, or of why there is something rather than nothing.

India has old precedent. The Cārvākas, whatever their opponents made of them, rejected the authority of scripture and the existence of a world beyond this one, and insisted on what can be perceived. They were given a poor hearing by people who mostly quoted them in order to refute them.

I should be clear which "humanism" I mean, since the word has at least four senses. I don't mean the Renaissance curriculum, and I don't mean anthropocentrism in environmental ethics. I mean the modern worldview. My thesis: it is the minimal common ground on which people of all faiths and none can build, not a rival faith.

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5 replies

For the thesis 0

No replies on this side yet.

Against the thesis 2

  1. Ikechukwu Anyanwu

    Against Fellow

    Your minimal premises are less minimal than they look. "We owe each other consideration" needs a ground. Why does every human being have a dignity that cannot be traded away, including the ones who are useless to the rest of us? Theists have an answer, creation in the image of God. Secular humanism usually borrows the conclusion and leaves the ground unstated. That isn't a refutation, but it is a metaphysics in hiding.

    Helpful · 2
  2. Bilal Rashid

    Against Fellow

    I'd agree with your three premises and still call myself a believer. That's my objection: if these premises really are minimal, they are not secular humanism. They're shared ground. Secular humanism is the further claim that nothing more is needed, and that further claim is exactly as metaphysical as mine. I'm happy to build on common ground with you. I just don't think the common ground has your name on it.

Other replies

  1. Kwame Asante

    Fellow

    An African complication. Wiredu argued that Akan ethics is humanistic in a strong sense: what is good is grounded in human well-being, not in divine command, even within a worldview full of spirits and a supreme being. Gyekye made a similar case. So humanism in your sense, ethics justified by human interests, has lived comfortably inside religious cultures. Which supports your claim that it needs no particular metaphysics, Arvind, but undermines the idea that it belongs to unbelievers.

    Helpful · 3
  2. Anand Kurup

    Fellow

    Don't forget the second trap. Humanism in the sense you mean can easily slide into anthropocentrism, the view that only human interests count. They are logically separate: you can be a secular humanist and think rivers and animals matter for their own sake. But "humanism" as a label constantly invites the slide, and in conservation work I watch it happen. A minimal humanism should say explicitly that it is not a claim that only humans matter.

    Helpful · 1
  3. Arvind Poojary

    Fellow

    Fair hits. Kwame's point is the one I'll take most seriously: humanist ethics has thrived inside religious worlds, so I can't claim it for unbelievers alone. Ikechukwu, I'd say dignity can rest on our capacities for suffering and for reasons, without a creator. You'll say that's a metaphysics, and perhaps it is, a thin one. So, revised: secular humanism needs less metaphysics than its rivals, not none. And Anand, yes. The rationalists I work with would agree that "human" was never meant to mean "only human".

    Helpful · 2