Report on the Ethics of Secular Humanism

by the 1990 WASH Special Interest Group on the Ethics of Secular Humanism

First published in WASHline, the newsletter of the Washington Area Secular Humanists, October, 1990, p.1.

The membership of this Special Interest Group offers the following summary of its views on this topic for the consideration of the full membership of WASH. The discussions of this group were facilitated by reading the book Forbidden Fruit by Paul Kurtz.

MAJOR ELEMENTS IN THE ETHICS OF SECULAR HUMANISM

• THE COMMON MORAL DECENCIES, defined as those ethical mandates for responsible conduct toward others that have resulted from extensive historical experience in human relationships and interactions, and which are subject to considered modification in the light of new experience and rational assessment. We regard the list of common moral decencies given in Forbidden Fruit as a good one.

• BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS are the rights of each individual that others are obliged to respect. We note that the area of human rights is evolving rapidly today, as many societies shift from a profoundly patriarchal and ethnocentric orientation to a more broadly based humanistic one, and we strongly support this reorientation. We also believe that secular humanists should actively defend the basic human rights of all people, in order to strengthen them for everyone. We endorse the list of these rights given in Forbidden Fruit.

• ESSENTIAL HUMAN EQUALITY, defined as the equality of all persons before the law and also in their worth and dignity as human beings, regardless of age, sex, race, religion, or place of origin. We regard human worth and dignity as intrinsic to each individual, and not contingent upon social status or any external authority.

• A CONSCIENTIOUS APPROACH TO WORK. We believe that every reasonably able adult has the responsibility to develop socially valuable skills and to exercise them in some useful occupation. The range of options is extensive and includes nurturing roles such as parenting.

• TOLERANCE. We support complete tolerance of the beliefs of others and of those activities expressing these beliefs that do not infringe upon the basic human rights of others. However, violations of these rights of others should not be tolerated.

• DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT. We affirm that democratic procedures whereby a people determine the major goals and policies of the government under which they live should remain a goal of society. We also believe that a high quality nonsectarian education should be available to all, in part to facilitate effective democratic processes.

• NATURAL SCIENCE, which we regard as highly relevant to ethics as a means of providing, in time, a more reliable knowledge of human nature, based on empirical observation and experimentation in combination with rational thought. We also believe that the findings of science can contribute substantially toward human betterment, providing they are developed and used in accord with the other ethical precepts discussed here.

• SKEPTICISM, defined as that state of mind that views with critical doubt any claims about the nature of things that have not been, or cannot be, subjected to test by the general methods of science. This does not exclude the possibility that such claims may be true, but it does imply rejection of such claims as dogmatic truth.

• AN ACTIVE CONCERN FOR GLOBAL ECOLOGY. Abundant scientific evidence indicates that the ecosystem of Earth is a complex web of life in which major disturbances seem likely to react in ways that are clearly distressing and may be catastrophic. We believe that humans have a responsibility for the preservation of this ecosystem.

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