NGOs: Humanism

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUMANISM

Beth and Corliss Lamont

IN MEMORY OF:

	WINKLER William Michael Andrew February 23, 1958 - August 22, 2001

ADORED DADDY	BELOVED BROTHER CHERISHED SON	LOVING HUSBAND LOYAL FRIEND

You bought us joy and laughter, music and dance.
There's such longing in our lives and hearts without you.
Dear Bill . . . We miss you!

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUMANISM

...extracted and edited from the writings of the compassionate thinker, philosopher, and courageous fighter for Human Rights and Human Values...the late Corliss Lamont and his wife.

“A people without a clear and recognized philosophy is likely to falter in a serious crisis because it is confused about the central issues or has no supreme loyalty for which it is willing to make supreme sacrifices. Philosophy should bring to people and nations some measure of poise, steadfastness, and wisdom...”

Humanism can provide a generalized view of human life and all existence that will give the peoples of every continent and country a total and integrated perspective; a universal goal, method, and hope that will lift us above our personal limitations and provincial interests to a vision of the magnificent possibilities of humanity as a whole.

In judgment the philosophy best calculated to liberate the creative energies of humankind and to serve as a common bond between the different peoples of the earth is that way of life most precisely described as Humanism.

HUMANISM DEFINED

Humanism has had a long and notable career, with roots reaching far back into the past and deep into the life of civilizations supreme in their day. It has had eminent representatives in all the great nations of the world. As the American historian Professor Edward P. Cheyney says, Humanism has meant many things: "It may be the reasonable balance of life that the early Humanists discovered in the Greeks; it may be merely the study of the humanities or polite letters; it may be the freedom from religiosity and the vivid interests in all sides of life of a Queen Elizabeth or a Benjamin Franklin; it may be the responsiveness to all human passions of a Shakespeare or a Goethe; or it may be a philosophy of which man is the center and sanction. It is in the last sense, elusive as it is, that Humanism has had perhaps its greatest significance since the sixteenth century."

The philosophy of Humanism represents a specific and forthright view of the universe, the nature of human beings, and the treatment of human problems. The term Humanist first came into use in the early sixteenth century to designate the writers and scholars of the European Renaissance. Contemporary Humanism includes the most enduring values of Renaissance Humanism, but in philosophic scope and significance goes far beyond it.

Humanism as a word has several meanings and it is essential to distinguish among them. If we are considering the history of culture, the term usually refers to the European Renaissance or awakening, which started in Italy during the fourteenth century and later spread to the rest of the continent and to England.

Renaissance Humanism was first and foremost a revolt against the other-worldliness of medieval Christianity, a turning away from preoccupation with personal immortality to making the best of life in this world. Renaissance writers like Rabelais and Erasmus gave eloquent voice to this new joy in living and to the sheer exuberance of existence. For the Renaissance the ideal human being was no longer the ascetic monk, but a new type-the so-called universal or "Renaissance man," who was a many-sided personality, delighting in every kind of this-earthly achievement. The great Italian artists, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, typified this ideal.

The Renaissance also constituted a revolt against the authority of the Catholic Church and against the religious limitations on knowledge. And there developed among the most influential figures of this period an increasing reliance on reason instead of faith.

To define twentieth-century humanism briefly, I would say that it is a philosophy of joyous service for the greater good of all humanity in this natural world and advocating the methods of reason, science, and democracy. Humanism in general is not a way of thinking merely for professional philosophers, but is also a credo for average men and women seeking to lead happy and useful lives. ...one of Humanism's main functions is to set free the emotions from cramping and irrational restrictions.

Its task is to organize into a consistent and intelligible whole the chief elements of philosophic truth and to make that synthesis a powerful force and reality in the minds and actions of living persons. The basic principles of Humanism that define its position and distinguish it from other philosophic viewpoints are ten central propositions in the Humanist philosophy:

First, Humanism believes in a naturalistic metaphysics or attitude toward the universe that considers all forms of the supernatural as a myth; and that regards Nature the totality of being and as a constantly changing system of matter and energy which exists independently of any mind or consciousness.

Second, Humanism, drawing especially on the laws and facts of science, believes that we human beings are an evolutionary product of the Nature of which we are a part; that the mind is indivisibly conjoined with the functioning of the brain; and that as an inseparable unity of body and personality we can have no conscious survival after death.

Third, Humanism, having its ultimate faith in humankind, believes that human beings possess the power or potentiality of solving their own problems, through reliance primarily upon reason and scientific method applied with courage and vision.

Fourth, Humanism, in opposition to all theories of universal determinism, fatalism, or predestination, believes that human beings, while conditioned by the past, possess genuine freedom of creative choice and action, and are, within certain objective limits, the shapers of their own destiny.

Fifth, Humanism believes in an ethics or morality that grounds all human values in this-earthly experiences and relationships and that holds as its highest goal the this-worldly happiness, freedom, and progress--economic, cultural, and ethical---of all humankind, irrespective of nation, race, or religion.

Sixth, Humanism believes that the individual attains the good life by harmoniously combining personal satisfactions and continuous self-development with significant work and other activities that contribute to the welfare of the community.

Seventh, Humanism believes in the widest possible development of art and the awareness of beauty, including the appreciation of Nature's loveliness and splendor, so that the aesthetic experience may become a pervasive reality in the lives of all people.

Eighth, Humanism believes in a far-reaching social program that stands for the establishment throughout the world of democracy, peace, and a high standard of living on the foundations of a flourishing economic order, both national and international.

Ninth, Humanism believes in the complete social implementation of reason and scientific method; and thereby in democratic procedures, and parliamentary government, with full freedom of expression and civil liberties, throughout all areas of economic, political, and cultural life.

Tenth, Humanism, in accordance with scientific method, believes in the unending questioning of basic assumptions and convictions, including its own. Humanism is not a new dogma, but is a developing philosophy ever open to experimental testing, newly discovered facts, and more rigorous reasoning.

I think that these ten points embody Humanism in its most acceptable modern form. This philosophy can be more explicitly characterized as scientific Humanism, secular Humanism, naturalistic Humanism, or democratic Humanism, depending on the emphasis that one wishes to give. Whatever it be called, Humanism is the viewpoint that people have but one life to lead and should make the most of it in terms of creative work and happiness; that human happiness is its own justification and requires no sanction or support from supernatural sources; that in any case the supernatural, usually conceived of in the form of heavenly gods or immortal heavens, may not exist; and that human beings, using their own intelligence and cooperating liberally with one another, can build an enduring citadel of peace and beauty upon this earth.

It is true that no people has yet come near to establishing the ideal society. Yet Humanism asserts that human reason and human efforts are our best and, indeed, only hope; and that our refusal to recognize this point is one of the chief causes of our many human failures throughout history. The Christian West has been confused and corrupted for almost 2,000 years by the idea so succinctly expressed by St. Augustine, "Cursed is everyone who places his hope in man."In an era of continuing crisis and disintegration like that of the twentieth century, we face the temptation of fleeing to some compensatory realm of make-believe or supernatural solace. Humanism stands uncompromisingly against this tendency, which both expresses and encourages defeatism.

The Humanist philosophy persistently strives to remind us that our only home is in this mundane world. There is no use in our searching elsewhere for happiness and fulfillment, for there is no place else to go. We human beings must find our destiny and our promised land in the here and now, or not at all. And Humanism is interested in a future life, not in the sense of some fabulous paradise in the skies, but as the ongoing enjoyment of earthly existence by generation after generation through eternities of time.

On the ethical and social side Humanism sets up service to all humankind as the ultimate moral ideal. It holds that as individuals we can find our own highest good in working for the good of all, which of course includes ourselves and our families. In this sophisticated and disillusioned era Humanism emphatically rejects, as psychologically native and scientifically unsound, the widespread notion that human beings are moved merely by self-interest. It repudiates the constant rationalization of brute egoism into pretentious schemes on behalf of individuals or groups bent on self-aggrandizement. It refuses to accept the reduction of human motivation to economic terms, to sexual terms, to pleasure-seeking terms, or to any one limited set of human desires. It insists on the reality of genuine altruism as one of the moving forces in the affairs of human beings.

Since we live during a time of nationalism run wild, of terrible world wars, of hate and misunderstanding between peoples and governments, I want to underscore at the start Humanism's goal of the welfare of all humankind. In its primary connotation Humanism simply means "humanbeing-ism," that is, devotion to the interests of human beings, wherever they live and whatever their status. Though certain groups in certain countries have in the past put themselves beyond the pale of human decency, and though this could happen again, Humanism cannot tolerate discrimination against any people or nation as such. And it reaffirms the spirit of cosmopolitanism, of international friendship, and of the essential interconnectedness of humans. Humanists feel compassionate concern for the entire human family throughout the globe.

An English bishop recently asserted that "50 per cent of the intelligent people of the modem world are Humanists." Most of the individuals to whom he refers probably do not call themselves Humanists and may never have taken the trouble to find out to what precise school of philosophy they belong. It is important, however, that all those who actually are Humanists should come to recognize in the word Humanism the symbol of their central purpose in life, their community of interests and their sense of interconnectedness. As Walter Lippmann has written in his Humanist book, A Preface to Morals, "If civilization is to be coherent and confident it must be known in that civilization what its ideals are." This implies that those ideals shall be given a habitation and a name in some philosophy.

Our Declaration of Independence gave resounding affirmation to the social aims of Humanism when it proclaimed that "all men" have the inalienable right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." This generalization was clearly meant to apply to human beings everywhere and not just to the inhabitants of the thirteen colonies. Accordingly, the famous document that launched the United States on its career as an independent nation makes a close approach to the cardinal Humanist doctrine that holds out the welfare of humanity at large as the final goal.

The author of the Declaration of Independence himself, Thomas Jefferson, described by Charles and Mary Beard as "the natural leader of a humanistic democracy," alluded to the Declaration in these words: "May it be to the world, what I believe it will be (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.”

Abraham Lincoln expanded on these Humanist sentiments in his Independence Hall speech of 1861 in which he defined the "great principle" that had held the United States together for so long: "It was not the mere matter of separation of the colonies from the motherland, but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty not alone to the people of this country, but hope to all the world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance."

The Preamble to the American Constitution gives a significant summary of Humanist purposes limited to a national scale. Thus: "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." The specific concern here for future generations is unusual and is definitely an advanced Humanist idea. It is worthy of note, too, that both the Preamble and the Constitution itself omit all reference to Deity. The Bill of Rights further clears the way for secular interests by guaranteeing separation between the state and religion.

While the American people today do not yet recognize clearly the direction in which they are moving, their highest aims and much in their everyday pattern of existence implicitly embody the viewpoint of Humanism. As for the large social-economic programs of the contemporary world centering around such terms as capitalism, free enterprise, collectivism, socialism, and communism, Humanism should be able to illumine them to a considerable degree. But no matter what happens to these programs in the light of human events and the march of history, no matter which ones succeed or do not succeed, the philosophy of Humanism will always remain pertinent.

If this philosophy approximates the truth in its underlying generalizations, then it is a philosophy which, with some changes in phraseology, was appropriate to ancient times and which in the main will hold good for the shape of things to come. Economic and political systems will come and go, nations and empires and civilizations rise and fall, but Humanism, as a philosophic system in which humankind's interests upon this earth are the first word and the last word, is unlikely to become obsolete. Naturally, however, any particular expression of Humanism will eventually be superseded.

The humanistic spirit, then, while finding wider and more conscious formulation in the modem era and in the more developed nations, has been inherent and struggling for expression in the human race since we first appeared upon this planet. So Humanism sums up not only the current tendencies of humankind to construct a more truly human world, but also the best in our aspirations throughout the age-long history of human thought and endeavor.” -- by Corliss Lamont

The complete book that this was extracted from by Corliss Lamont may be downloaded at http://www.corliss-lamont.org

Note: While many Humanist are atheist in their beliefs, many are not. All believe in the power within each human being. They are tolerant of the religious beliefs of others. Their human values principles are the foundations on most of the important documents of democracy to-date; Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, UN-Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UN-The Convention on the Rights of the Child, etc. etc.

Humanism is a rational philosophy informed by science, inspired by art, and motivated by compassion. Affirming the dignity of each social and planetary responsibility. It advocates the extension of participatory democracy and the expansion of the open society, standing for human rights and social justice. Free of supernaturalism, it recognizes human beings as part of nature and holds that values - be they religious, ethical, social, or political - have their source in human nature, experience, and culture. Humanism thus derives the goals of life from human need and interest rather than from theological or ideological abstractions, and asserts that humanity must take responsibility for its own destiny. - The Humanist Magazine Jan/Feb 1999

Some Humanist Web sites:

American Humanist Association

American Ethical Union

Corliss-Lamont

Freedom from Religion

International Humanist and Ethical Union

Secular Web

Society of Humanistic Judaism
28611 West Twelve Mile Road
Dept. TH
Farmington Hills, MI 483334

Audio Tapes from the 1998 AHA American Humanist Association National Conference:
Sound Knowledge
PO Box 3021
Ogden, UT 84409
1-801-558-4781

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