A challenge to Humanism

Humanists, says the BHA, "are atheists and agnostics who ... base our ethics on the goals of human welfare, happiness and fulfillment". I'll drink to that.

But if humanists are really keen on human welfare, happiness and fulfillment why is so much humanist discussion about religion?

Religion is, of course, inimical to human welfare in many ways. But it's not the biggest obstacle. I think humanists should spend more time on the other obstacles. Science, both physical and social, can help us recognise and address them. Here are my top three threats to human welfare - chosen partly for the roles that science and engineering play in understanding and addressing them.

First, climate change. The world is already 0.6 degrees warmer than before the industrial revolution and a rise to two degrees above is as near certain as any forecast can be. The change has already thinned the polar ice, increased the melting of glaciers and brought drought to east Africa and floods to Bangladesh. Without science we would not understand the causes nor the urgency of the need.

As humanists we should, and mostly do I think, accept the science and the moral case for action. For humanists in developed countries - most of us - that means accepting that its our emissions that have caused the problem and who therefore have the greatest need to change.

But though science gives us understanding it is only politics that can deliver the changes - in behaviour and technology - that we need. Humanists should be actively engaged in both the debates and the political campaigns. Are we?

Second, drug prohibition. Illegal drugs such as cannabis, cocaine and heroin are certainly harmful to at least some of their users. For 90 years our response to this has been prohibition. We made possession and trade illegal and launched a war on drugs. It is a war that we are losing - possibly have lost.

In the developed world the range of street drugs has been increasing for decades whilst the drugs themselves are very affordable. In Mexico the war between drug cartels has taken 2,000 lives this year alone. In Afghanistan poppy cultivation funds the Taliban and makes the conflict even more intractable. In the UK drug addiction is a major cause of petty crime whilst in US cities it's a major cause of the horrendous murder rate.

And most of this is not due to drugs but to drug prohibition. The prohibition of street drugs makes no more sense than the prohibition of alcohol - which the USA tried with such ignominious results. Short of a police state, and perhaps even with one, we cannot stop drug use. We can, however, reduce the harm done by adulterated drugs, gang violence and drug-related crime and prostitution. These benefits are so great that this ought to be a moral imperative for humanists.

This is a case where humanist libertarian and humanitarian principles point in the same direction as the economics. (The UK Thinktank Transform has estimated the economic benefit for the UK at £4-14B where the uncertainty reflects the weakness of current evidence.)

Here, I repeat, is an issue on which principle, reason, economics and compassion together point to a radical conclusion that was first discussed in Humanist circles at least 40 years ago. (We can even expect that the religious will oppose us!) So why has the movement not made this issue its own?

Thirdly, economic inequality. Research over several decades has shown that economic inequality creates a wide variety of social ills including mental and physical illness, drug abuse, obesity, premature death, teenage births, violence, prison population and a lack of social mobility. It even, I've argued previously, drives people to religion.

The research, popularised last year by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in The Spirit Level: Why more equal societies almost always do better, shows that it is inequality, not just poverty, that has this effect. The bad effects are felt at all levels of society - though they are worst for the poor.

Since humanists have generally favoured equality over hierarchy this issue ought to appeal to them. Where, then, is the humanist campaign for greater equality? Where, even, are humanists discussing it?

Humanism, especially when informed by science, has the potential to generate genuinely radical initiatives for major social improvement. Perhaps we no longer believe in major social improvement.

Whatever the reason we are certainly not advancing such views. Indeed, mostly we aren't even discussing the issues.

Karen Woo: Humanist martyr

Humanist aren't really keen on martyrdom. We prefer survival. Most of us would probably compromise our principles to stay alive. After all, it's the only life we get.

But sometimes, rarely, we need to face danger in order to help someone. Perhaps we see someone fall into a canal or attacked by a mugger. I hope we'd all take some risks to help a person in danger.

It's another thing to deliberately take a path into danger. To have a choice, yet to choose the path that puts you at personal risk for the sake of others. That's altruism of a high order.

Such a person was Dr Karen Woo, who was murdered last week in Afghanistan. An experienced doctor, she gave up her job with BUPA to take medical aid to the people of Afghanistan. Whether Dr Woo was murdered by bandits or religious fanatics will hardly matter to her friends and family. We can, however, feel only contempt for the Taliban spokesman who defend her murder on the grounds that she was 'spying and preaching Christianity'.

Dr Woo was a humanitarian and a humanist martyr. The world is the worse for her death.

Can Scientists Be Morally Neutral? BBC4, Saturday 9.10pm

Over dinner, Michael Portillo and seven guests discuss whether scientists can be morally neutral in their pursuit of scientific knowledge. Should scientists take an ethical stand on how science is used? Should there be limits on what scientists are allowed to discover? What ethical dilemmas will be thrown up by the science of the future? Guests include Baroness Susan Greenfield, Mark Henderson, and Bryan Appleyard.

Climate change: The challenge to Humanism

Humanists believe in reason, science and compassion. Most humanist moral and political thinking derives fairly directly from the third of these. In climate change, however, we have a political and moral issue that is critical for the whole human race but which derives very directly from science.

In the 40 years that I’ve been a humanist the movement has fought, and continues to fight, a series of struggles over abortion, divorce, sex, euthanasia and religious privilege. In each case we have made an essentially moral argument based on the rights of individuals to make choices about their lives and the lack of authority, by church or state, to overrule those choices. We have used science to support these views – and have generally been lucky in finding that it does support them.

Of course we’ve supported broad campaigns against poverty, slavery, debt and political persecution – but rarely with the same energy that we’ve devoted to our core issues.

Climate change is different. It’s a challenge to the world and a particular challenge to humanism.

Firstly it’s the most important issue we’ve faced since the invention of the atom bomb, and arguably ever. Climate scientists are almost completely agreed that unless we reduce greenhouse gas emissions fast temperatures, and later sea levels, will rise uncontrollably. This will reduce the Earth’s carrying capacity, drive many species into extinction and reduce the human population substantially. 

Secondly, our understanding of climate change comes mainly from science. Literally thousands of scientists have contributed to the work of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); itself probably the largest scientific endeavour ever conducted. Science has been less successful in predicting the human consequences of climate change largely, I think, for fear of being thought to exaggerate. I've addressed these consequences by using scenario planning with markedly pessimistic results.

Thirdly, climate science shows that the problem is due primarily to industrialisation; itself closely associated with science and the Western societies that gave rise to individualism and modern humanism. Science and humanism thus originate in the very processes responsible for the problem. Climate change is a political challenge to Western societies because it threatens those societies and the liberties that they support. It’s also a particular challenge to humanists because we need to show that societies based on our values, reason, science and liberty, can exist without destroying the environment that supports us.

For at least the last 50 years Western society has worshipped continual economic growth driven by ever-increasing personal consumption. This consumption is increasingly driven by a celebrity-obsessed media, an advertising industry whose purpose is to create new 'human wants' and widening inequality. This is obviously unsustainable in the long-term. And it doesn't make people happy - as increasing rates of mental illness show.

Now humanists are, as individuals, rarely obsessed by possessions and consumption. But we are part of a society driven by these things and we have failed, as a movement, to dissociate ourselves from that society or to develop an effective critique. 

Fourthly, it requires long-term international action on a scale unmatched since World War 2. As in that war this will require most people in many countries to forgo products, like cars, and experiences, such as foreign holidays, to which they feel entitled. In the poorest countries people are already dying from the effects of climate change. The required actions conflict with some national goals, such as China’s industrial development, and make the UN’s Millennium Development Goals harder to achieve.

As I write this world leaders are travelling to Copenhagen to negotiate a solution to the problem. The diplomats, scientists and pressure groups have been there for a week – some for much longer. But this is itself a problem. Diplomats are used to negotiation and expect to end every negotiation with a compromise. But you cannot negotiate with the laws of nature. A compromise that fails to cut emissions fast enough will be a failure, delaying but not preventing the climate catastrophe. 

That’s why some humanists, including myself, spent Saturday December 5th marching through London to create a ring around Parliament in The Wave , the UK’s largest ever climate change demonstration. In London there were over 50,000 people, with another 13,000 in Glasgow.

This was not only a very big event it was also very diverse. Organisations present ranged from the establishment – the Co-Op, Women's Institute, WWF and RSPB – through Friends of the Earth, Oxfam and Greenpeace to the Socialist Workers Party. The organisations affiliated to Stop Climate Chaos , the organising committee, claim over eleven million members. That’s far more than have joined ALL the UK’s political parties and, I’d guess, far more than are shareholders in the most environmentally damaging businesses. It’s certainly more than are members of all the UK’s humanist organisations.

This ought to be a humanist concern because it threatens the survival of human civilisation and calls for us to respect the science, exercise compassion and collaborate globally, in a great humanitarian cause.

[This post was originally written for the BHA's Humanist Life website.]

Can science remove the death penalty?

Humanists have been opposed to the death penalty for many decades and in most of the world public opinion has moved our way. Most opposition to the death penalty is moral - we think it's wrong. However, people also oppose this penalty because we seem, too often, to execute the wrong person. And here science, specifically forensic science, can make a contribution.

Today's Guardian reports that even in Texas support for the death penalty is declining. Juries are more reluctant to issue death sentences and some prosecutors are less willing to ask for them and Mark White, a former pro-death governor has called for change. According to the Guardian's Chris McGreal these changes are due a stream of cases in which convicted murderers, some on death row, have been shown to be innocent. Nationally there have been nearly 140 such cases.

In most of these cases the new evidence has come from DNA testing. The academic science of life has indeed brought life to some convicts. This science has changed minds that had proven immune to the appeals of compasion. 

This is a point with broad application. Many important moral and political issues have been the subject of excited debate for years, even decades. Some, perhaps, appear settled. But for most people, and especially for humanists, the morality of a personal action or public policy depends on its consequences. Consequences are matters of fact and thus amenable to science. 

Humanists4Science believes that all policy decisions should be based on the best available evidence. We also believe that if the evidence is rubbish the government has a duty to fund research that will produce better evidence. The story of the death penalty shows that this is not only intellectually sound but politically realistic - if very slow!

Philosophy versus science?

Science and philosophy have sometimes seemed opposed. In fact science and philosophy are complementary. Often it is philosophy’s role to set questions and explain methods; science’s to apply the methods and answer the questions.

Science is sometimes seen as no more than a collection of facts and theories. But we owe to philosophers, notably Karl Popper, the realisation that science is above all else a method. It is the best method yet found by which we protect ourselves from error in our understanding of the world.
In truth natural selection did not so much make us great thinkers as great survivors. Our mental capacities, no less than our physical ones, are optimised for survival in the conditions that formed us. They therefore include a number of cognitive biases that helped our ancestors to avoid being eaten but which make it difficult for us to think clearly.

The scientific method, including the use of mathematics and logic, insists that we suspect our intuitions and that we test them by observation and experiment. This insistence is, of course, applicable to every factual claim, including those of theologians, alternative therapists, politicians and marketers.

But science is, of course, also a set of facts and theories. Both are often extraordinary. Science provides us with facts about the early moments of the universe and about the many strange and beautiful things in its current vast extent. It provides us too with facts about very small things – from sub-atomic particles to bacteria and cells. It reveals the amazing variety and complexity of living things.

But above all science provide us with explanations. With, that is, general theories that explain a vast range of phenomena from the motions of planets to the reactions of molecules. And these are preferable to the speculations of theologians and philosophers, or the prejudices of laymen, because they have survived rigorous testing. They are not mere opinion. These theories are, at best, wide-ranging, elegant and profound. They produce surprises as well as explaining the commonplace. It’s for this reason that I agree with Prof. A C Grayling’s remark last Saturday that science is “humanity’s greatest achievement”.

It’s often said that science cannot tell us what to do. Apologists for religion often suggest that this is a weakness. This is not the place to examine their own claims to moral and practical insight.

We are all faced with periodic needs to make morally difficult decisions. Humanists, like others, generally rely on their feelings and the advice of those they respect. But some of us would like to have a solid basis for these decisions and we look to the work of moral philosophers to at least clarify the issues. Philosophers can, indeed, bring clarity to complex issues; it’s what they do. In practice decisions often depend on basic moral principles, which humanists often share with others, and on our understanding of the facts. Specifically of the likely consequences of our actions.

But here we are back to science! For establishing facts and the likely consequences of actions are, at least when we try to take a general view, just what science does. Thus we see why Prof. Jonathan Glover, the notable moral philosopher, said in last year’s BHA Bentham lecture, that science could offer more than philosophy in resolving difficult moral problems.

Science rarely tackles morally significant issues because scientists often do not see how they could contribute (and perhaps because they fear the criticisms that would follow if they did). Yet humanists in particular need science’s contribution.

A religion of love?

Religious apologists such as Prince Charles often say that Christianity is "a religion of love". A recent survey by the Pew Research Center makes this claim look pretty sick.

A survey of 742 Americans last month found that 49% think it is 'often or sometimes justified to torture terrorist suspects to obtain important information'. In fact the situation is worse than that since only 25% think that it's never justified. (So much for 'western values'!)

Religion does make a difference but unfortunately for its apologists it's the wrong way. The proportion saying torture is often or sometimes justified are:

• 54% of those attending services weekly
• 51% of those attending monthly or less often
  
• 42% of those attending seldom or never.

In truth, religion may not be the real issue here. The big difference is really between Republicans (64% of whom support torture) and Democrats (only 36% of whom do so). American Christianity has to be seen as a social not an intellectual phenomenon. American Republicans go to church to affirm their support for tradition and support torture because they expect to benefit from it through US political and commercial dominance.

OK, it's probably more complicated than that. Americans probably have several other reasons for supporting torture such as support for state authority which is a positive value for conservatives but not for liberals.

What it's not is evidence that religion - even a religion allegedly based on the Sermon on the Mount - makes society better. Plainly, if it has any effect it is to make it worse.

Does atheism foster immorality?

One of the many strange accusations directed against atheists is that we wish to undermine morality. This seems absurd to most humanists since we are, mostly, rather ordinary and conventional. We may not obey the local religious food laws or attend Sunday/Saturday/Friday worship but we’re rather less likely than the religious to lie, steal or assault our neighbours.

So why do they say these things?

Let’s start by asking why people practice a religion. For most believers it’s because that’s how they were raised (a point I heard made by the then Archbishop of Canterbury in 1968!). It’s not because they sought the truth and found that this religion, rather than all the others, expressed it. They also enjoy the rituals (prayers, meditation, hymns, dances) in which they’ve been raised and the fellowship of the believing community.

But it’s hard to see why enjoyment of singing or prayer should lead to the sheer energy, and sometimes hatred, with which religions inspire their followers. The religious often say that their faith gives meaning to their lives and this, I believe, is the key.

There are two kinds of meaning, existential and moral (though they are related).

Religions offer answers to existential questions like: Why are we here? What's the purpose of life? Philosophically these may be category errors but they are, for some people, emotionally powerful. People do not only, or even largely, ask these questions out of curiosity but rather because they find life frightening and want reassurance that are reasons behind the arbitrariness of ordinary life. They are likely to feel most in need of answers when life is most frightening and arbitrary.

Religions also offer answers to moral questions notably: Why should I be good? Most people know that courage, kindness and loyalty, at least to their clan, tribe or nation, are good and that lying, theft and murder are bad. But bad things are sometimes convenient and profitable. Most of us are tempted, and we fear that others may succumb to temptation. It would be reassuring to know that, even if wickedness is rewarded on Earth it will be punished in a future life.

Most religions (including Christianity, Islam, and some forms of Hinduism and Buddhism) therefore promise a future life that is either spiritual (in heaven or hell) or earthly (following reincarnation). This future life provides a basis for divine rewards and punishments.

I believe that religious claims that atheism promotes immorality arise because the religious feel that they would behave wickedly if they did not have the moral meaning provided by their religions. (In fact I think they’re mistaken. In this I think better of them than they seem to think of themselves.) They therefore believe that undermining their ideas of moral meaning, which we do do, must necessarily make people immoral. Their desire – which we generally share – that people should behave morally drives their hostility to atheism.

Of course, there are issues on which Humanist morality really is different from that of the religious. There are various issues, notably about sex, death and personal freedom, on which we generally take positions to which they object. Doubtless this contributes to their feelings. But these aren’t usually the focus of their claims.

It’s likely that the religious anger against atheists has more than one source, but the issue of moral meaning must be a main one.

The cheek of the archbishop

Recently New Scientist carried a series of articles called “7 reasons why people hate reason” (26 July 2008). The one by the Archbishop of Canterbury was called “Reason stands against values and morals”. What a cheek!

In his article Rowan Williams criticised the enlightenment by saying:

“Revolutionary America and France lost no sleep over slavery. Humanity had to wait for [a] more traditional … vision of what human beings were in the eyes of God and in the frame of the cosmos, to see the slaves finally emancipated.”

Indeed, their tolerance of slavery does the revolutionaries no credit (though it’s a fault they shared with most of their contemporaries).

But it is the most extraordinary cheek for Williams to criticize the enlightenment for failing to abolish slavery in its first century when Christianity’s own failure to do so lasted 18 times as long!

Williams signally fails to explain why European Christians began to oppose slavery in the 18^th century after so many centuries of tolerating or even applauding it. The historical record shows that abolitionist campaigning, following a change of sentiment amongst Christians, played a major part. It can hardly be coincidental that this change followed the enlightenment and that some leading abolitionists were liberals in matters of theology. Consider, for instance, the Reverend Elhanan Winchester, an American abolitionist who moved from the USA to the UK, from Baptist Christianity to Universalism, and who helped to found South Place Ethical Society. South Place later became one of the first UK humanist organizations.

In fact reason supports morality. It is democratic and undermines traditional beliefs about the inferiority of foreigners, women and ethnic and sexual minorities. Thus it expands the circle of people to whom moral consideration is due. It causes us to question and makes us cautious about our beliefs. Thus it protects us against absurdities and, as Voltaire warned us, many atrocities have been committed in the name of absurd beliefs.

Reason alone can never motivate moral commitments which derive from our social existence. But it’s an invaluable tool and guide to moral thinking. Though he may not mean to Rowan Williams’ article encourages irrationality and immorality alike.

(First posted: 8 August 2008)