Humanism is a way of leading a good life based on understanding ourselves as part of nature and a product of natural processes. It is an ethical worldview of recent origins that has developed alongside the great advances in human knowledge especially over the past 500 years.
The ethics of Humanism are grounded in natural human values like, care, compassion, altruism and fairness. It is a flexible life philosophy of open-mindedness, freedom and democracy which draws people to be deeply conscious of their common humanity. It leads people to acknowledge the moral worth of all human beings, and be guided in action by the realisation that all humans have common needs and share similar aspirations. It advocates free inquiry which is the basis of a scientific approach and it rejects absolute authorities and revealed wisdom. It leads people to defend intellectual integrity, and supports conscience over social customs. Responsible freedom of thought and action and civilised law are of paramount importance to Humanists. To be a Humanist is to desire the well-being of all humans, to celebrate the triumphs and to agonise over the tragedies of humanity. It is to live purposefully and peacefully in companionship with others in the knowledge that this is the only life we will know and that certainty is an illusion.
Humanists do not think in terms of a deities or gods as creators of the universe, or as controllers of human life, who can be appealed to through prayers or incantations. Instead they look to human wisdom and experience as guides to leading a good life. Individual Humanists have a wide range of interests and life style inclinations. For example some are avowed vegetarians most are not. Some are passionate about sport, others are not. However, they are tolerant of all manner of human activities providing they do no harm to others. They may be argumentative in that they support different political parties and may have different views on how an issue is best dealt with, or even which issues Humanists should invest time and effort in. Despite such difference Humanists are in broad agreement on the following.
a) They think that ideas about morally right actions arose in the course of human evolution. The Humanist criterion for the rightness of an action is the effect of that action on human well-being. Actions that increase human well-being are 'good', i.e. to be preferred, whereas those that reduce human well-being are wrong or to be averted. Humanists are concerned with improving the well-being of all humanity and believe that improvement can only be brought about by human effort.
b) They believe that modern science is a much better source of ideas about the origin and nature of the universe, than sacred texts written many centuries ago. Humanists consider that the methods used to gain scientific knowledge enable human understanding to grow and change rather than stagnate.
c) They acknowledge that humans are both dependent on and part of nature; and that controlling population and conserving a full range of diverse ecosystems is a central priority for humanity.
d) They believe this life is the only one we will experience, as the evidence for existence before birth or after death is totally unconvincing.
e) They continually examine and re-examine knowledge and ideas to achieve ways of improving the living conditions of humanity.
f) They try to keep an open mind in recognition that no human knowledge is the final answer and much of what we act on now will later be seen as wrong or at least simplistic. New information is continually being added to the bank of human knowledge and some of it may compel us to change our minds. Humanists are prepared to live with uncertainty and accept that they may be wrong.
While there is no Humanist creed, Humanist organisations do draw up statements from time to time outlining their aims and attitudes to topical issues. These are not fixed for all time and are changed as new knowledge and fresh ideas motivate active Humanists. The Amsterdam Declaration is a recent example. It was unanimously endorsed by delegates attending the 50th anniversary Congress of the International Humanist and Ethical Union on 6 July 2002.
Humanism is the outcome of a long tradition of free thought that has inspired many of the world's great thinkers and creative artists and gave rise to science itself.
The fundamentals of modern Humanism are as follows:
Our primary task is to make human beings aware in the simplest terms of what Humanism can mean to them and what it commits them to. By utilising free inquiry, the power of science and creative imagination for the furtherance of peace and in the service of compassion, we have confidence that we have the means to solve the problems that confront us all. We call upon all who share this conviction to associate themselves with us in this endeavour.
Though some Humanist ideas have been important to for thousands of years, such as the use of reason and being sceptical, Humanism as a distinct worldview is of relatively recent origin. The word 'humanism' was coined in the early 1800s, along with many other 'ism' words, e.g. pacifism, atheism, communism, and socialism. Initially 'humanism' was used to refer to a 'devotion to those studies which promote human culture especially literary culture'. However, by around 1860, 'humanism' began being used to describe 'any system of thought or action which is concerned with merely human interests, or those of the human race in general.' Gradually both supporters and opponents of Humanism have applied this latter meaning when referring to it as an ethical worldview of a non-religious kind. The outcome of using 'humanism' to have this meaning is that most people who now call themselves a Humanist, do so because they agree with the main ideas of Humanism. There are, however, a few people who call themselves humanists while remaining committed to a religion. A brief look of the origin the word 'humanist' shows why there are secular as well as religious humanists.
In Western Europe in the early 1400s the word 'humanist' (first used as the Latin word umanista) was coined to describe 'a man who studied the classical literature of ancient Greek and Rome.' This new word was used to describe a new form of scholarly activity which arose with the rediscovery of vast tracts of ancient human-focused writings that had been 'lost' during the Dark Ages when the reading of most non-Christian texts were prohibited. In the following few hundred years around 1300-1500s, ancient Greek and Roman texts were brought from Islamic centres of scholarship in the Middle and near East in Europe or taken out of storage from basements and other safe havens. The material, mainly in Latin and ancient Greek, included human-centred plays, poetry, histories, guides to living, philosophies, and tracts of practical knowledge, on a wide range of topics. This material, though not attacking Christianity directly, did, however, reveal ways of leading a good life, from a pre-Christian era; when life's pleasures might be enjoyed without guilt, and reasoned investigation was considered a valuable way to gain knowledge. What this material also showed was that in the pre-Christian Mediterranean world, ideas had been more diverse and life had been lived in greater abundance, than had been so for nearly a thousand years of Christianity. The discussions generated by this 'lost' material opened minds to a rich store of human experience, and consequently stimulated what was termed a 'rebirth' of learning. Much later scholars began using the now familiar French term for rebirth 'renaissance'.
We now think of the Renaissance period, roughly 1400-1600 CE, as a time when there was a great flowering of creative endeavour as town planners, painters, sculptors, writers, musicians and many other creative people strove to outdo each other. Many were funded by the wealthy merchants or church officials who offered them generous patronage. By so doing these wealthy and influential individuals had their status enhanced by being surrounded by the works of the creative artists. More recently millions of people have travelled to the centres of Renaissance creativity, such as Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland, to experience the products of this period. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the Renaissance period came to be also referred to as being 'the age humanism', but once again this is a retrospective use and not one used in the actual time period itself.
The first humanists were typically scholars who studied, translated and emulated the literature and philosophy of ancient Greek and Roman times. Their field of study came to be called 'the humanities', a term still used today especially in universities, for studies in literature, languages, philosophy, and history. Indeed even today many writers and scholars who identify themselves as humanists are doing so because their field is the humanities.
Alongside the early Renaissance humanists, and often in conflict with them over ideas and interpretations, were men who studied the recovered ancient texts on nature, astronomy, mathematics and mechanics. Calling themselves natural philosophers these men set out to emulate and extend the ancient investigative methods. By emphasising careful observation, experimentation and expert witnessing, these men laid the foundations of a form of knowledge-making of great importance to us today, namely modern science. In challenging the entrenched mode of learning called scholasticism, these natural philosophers greatly improved how knowledge about the natural world was gained and verified. We now refer to this modernising period, from around 1600-1750, as 'the scientific revolution'. Thinkers associated with the early stages in this period such as Francis Bacon, René Descartes, Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton remained committed to religion even though they were engaged in establishing a new form of knowledge-making that would ultimately undermine religion's claim to be the one true source of knowledge about the world. At the time they neither called what was going on a scientific revolution, nor called themselves scientists, for it was not until the 1800s that the terms 'science' and 'scientist' gradually replaced the terms 'natural philosophy' and 'natural philosopher'. And it was not until 1939 that the idea of the scientific revolution was first used by the historian science, Alexandre Koyre.
The first humanists then were men (only rarely women - but that is another story) with an interest in the humanities rather than of science. Yet as the nineteenth century progressed into the twentieth another cohort of people working a, scientists began identifying themselves as humanists. The growth of science, in particular the ground-breaking ideas about the very great age of the Earth, its formation, the nature of fossils, and the evolution of life as set down in such book as Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species, lead an increasing number of scientists and science supporters to doubt the veracity of the Bible. Stories of biblical creation and an all powerful god lost their appeal with the growth of scientific knowledge.
By the middle 1800s many people were questioning the veracity of Christianity. Many critiques of the bible were published, and as these circulated and were discussed and debated, loss of faith became widespread. Increasing numbers of people declared themselves to be freethinkers, non-believers, humanists, rationalists, secularists, atheists, ethicists, etc., thus demonstrating a wide range of views from deism to atheism. These people formed organisations applying Humanist, Freethinker, Rationalist, Secular, Atheist and Ethical organisations. They aimed to discuss ideas and promote their point of views within the wider community. These organisations grew, declined and changed name, as the people active in them debated and explored how a secular worldview might be constructed.
In the years immediately following the horrific carnage of World War I and more particularly World War II many people openly questioned the validity of religion as the accepted source of human ethics and values. This led to a gathering of active members from Ethical, Rationalist and Humanist organisations in Amsterdam in 1952 to discuss secular, ethical alternatives to religion. Those present at this historic Congress agreed to form an international body, the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) to represent the views of the growing numbers of secular, humanistically inclined people. They also agreed that the terms 'Humanism' and 'Humanist' best described their approach to life. Even though some at the inaugural Congress argued that Humanism ought to be considered as a secular religion, this view was not widely supported then, nor has it ever been more than a minority position in organised Humanist circles since.
Today, Humanism is widely recognised as a secular ethical worldview; sometimes is termed a lifestance or life philosophy. It is a developing and alternative worldview to religions based on faith in revelations recorded in ancient texts. Humanists who subscribe to humanistic views look to science to provide answers to many of life's big questions. Typically Humanists are either atheists or agnostics in respect of religious beliefs. Many modern Humanists describe their life beliefs simply as Humanism, while some add a qualifier such as secular, non-theistic, scientific or even evolutionary. The use of Secular Humanism or Scientific Humanism are more common in USA organisations, while just plain Humanism is more commonly used in Australia, Canada, the UK and in European Humanist groups.
What all humanists, Renaissance or modern, share is as Kenan Malik writes in Man, Beast and Zombie: What science can and cannot tell about human nature (p. 2.Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Great Britain 2000),
'a desire to place human beings at the centre of philosophical debate, to glorify human abilities and to view human reason as a tool through to understand nature.'
Thus the words 'humanist' and 'humanism' encapsulate a central concern for 'things' human. However, we need to remember that only contemporary Humanists have rejected religion and called their worldview Humanism. In recent years a Humanists have broadened their understanding Humanism to include concern for the environment and the right of all other species to exist and flourish e.g. Australian philosophers John Passmore (dec) and Peter Singer.
Compiled by Rosslyn Ives