According to this analysis of mine, Humanists might agree to take an empirical approach to what they can know about the world (i.e. their epistemology), but there are still many different interpretations of that data available. Humanists may also agree to discard supernaturalism from their view of what exists (i.e. their metaphysics), but since there are many things still unexplained by science, different hypotheses of what exists to explain these phenomena are still possible. And even if Humanists agree to define good (i.e. their ethics) as coming from a consequentialist concern for the benefit of some broad society, the unknowable outcomes of all our actions leaves room for many different opinions of what we ought to do. These and other open-ended questions of philosophy account for why Humanism is so hard to define, and why there is conflict within the movement, but also why that ambiguity and commitment to trial and error are absolutely necessary.

With all of that work done to define Humanism generally, it becomes much easier to address specific criticisms of humanism. To do that, let's go from the oldest to the newest. This also takes us from the easiest to respond to (Harari in 2018) to the one that takes the most work (Morgan/Tallis in 2020). Let the defence begin!

***

As discussed above, Yuval Harari levelled many claims against humanism in his 2015 book Sapiens. He said that the crimes of genocidal Nazism, Stalinist communism, and environmental destruction could all be traced to the central tenets of humanism. This is already a very poorly argued claim against humanism (which Norman did well to point out), but it has no bearing whatsoever on Humanism, so I won't address that here. Harari does, however, raise two important questions for Humanism in his exchange with Norman, so let me summarise them and offer my responses.

Question 1 from Harari
Just as theism thinks authority comes from theos (god), and nationalism thinks authority comes from the nation, so humanism believes that authority comes from humanity. That’s why it is called humanism. Perhaps secular humanism does not sanctify humanity at all and instead sees authority as inherent in science, in which case, why call it humanism and not scientism?

Response to Question 1
Harari is trying to infer something about Humanism that isn't there. Theism and nationalism may define themselves in relation to the authority of their nominal leading entities, but Humanism rejects such authority. Humanists literally see no author who could philosophically give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience. Norman notes that science deals with facts and not values, so the name scientism doesn't work for this. He prefers rationalism but notes that it's hard to rebrand a movement mid-stream. I would argue that rationalism has a specific meaning in philosophy that is opposed to empiricism so that brand name doesn't work either. I agree it's hard for many people to get past the first two syllables of Humanism when trying to understand it, but I think the name works to acknowledge the real limitations we have as human beings. We can't know or feel what (if anything) other natural or supernatural beings know or feel. So, what else could we subscribe to? To me, the name has a "humanism, all too humanism" ring to it. That leads directly to Harari's next challenge.

Question 2 from Harari
How does humanism relate to post-humanism? Given the emphasis on science, reason, and human enhancement, what does humanism think about the possibility of using biotechnology to create superhumans or using computer science to create super-intelligent AI? What possible objections could humanism have to the creation of superhumans and AI and to transferring authority to such entities?

Response to Question 2
Again, Humanism rejects cosmic authority, so there's no worry about ceding it or transferring it. Transhumans or AI may someday offer more perspectives on what exists and how we ought to live, but the path there is fraught with existential risk that needs to be navigated first. If a world with beyond-human-intelligent beings ever comes, maybe they'll be smart enough to finally give us a better name to run with than Humanism.

***

Our next witness to cross-examine is Michael Bavidge whose book Philosophy in the Borders contained an essay titled "Humanism: What’s Not to Like?" Bavidge is now a retired philosophy teacher from Newcastle University who tells us elsewhere in his book that he left a seminary decades ago but is now an atheist. From those brief personal facts, he seems a likely candidate to be a Humanist, but his essay lists four things not to like about the group which must be keeping him away.

Dislike 1 from Bavidge
Humanism puts humanity at the centre of things; but we are not up to it. ... The Enlightenment shift from a theocentric to an anthropocentric view of life takes God out of the picture and put humanity in his place. ... One place where the poverty of this attitude emerges is in Humanism's species-selfishness, in the failure of Humanism to give a plausible account of ecological values and animal welfare. In recent years, Humanist literature has tacked on a concern for the natural world but it is a jerry-built lean-to on the side of the Humanist 18th century country house.

Response to Dislike 1
This is a common misconception about Humanism—that it worships humans and puts them above all else—but it is absolutely wrong. This is something that even some Humanists get wrong, though, so I understand where Bavidge is coming from and I would join him in disliking any individual examples of it. In fact, Humanist magazine published a long essay I wrote about this called When the Human in Humanism Isn't Enough. The editor thought enough of it to make it a cover story for one of its issues. Don't just take my word on this topic though. In section §1.13 of the Humanist UK MOOC, there was this:

Humanism does not seek to glorify humanity. It makes no claims about our essential goodness, or about the inevitability of progress and the triumph of reason. Human beings are capable of great ignorance and cruelty, and one does not have to look hard to find examples of humanity at its worst. Humanism involves a realistic recognition of both our flaws and limitations, and our capacities, and asks us then to consider how we can make the best of our potential.

And as Norman said in his exchange with Harari:

Please look up any of the humanist manifestos and see if you can find any reference to the worship of humanity. You won’t find it because it isn’t there. I invite you to immerse yourself in the humanist literature. Humanists have been extremely clear: we think it’s a really bad idea to declare anything sacred and then harbor worshipful attitudes toward it. ... We want to tear down the pedestal, not climb atop it.

As for the supposed lack of ecological values, Bavidge just hasn't seen it, or he is too quick to dismiss it as something "built on the side of 18th Century humanism," which fails to recognise the fact that Humanism holds its changing nature as central to its identity. Once again, the Humanist UK MOOC rebuts Bavidge; this time with section §4.17, which notes:

Most humanists believe that our choices about how to act must take into account the impact on non-human animals. ... A humanist might argue that a morality that attempts to prioritise welfare, and tries to base itself on reason, evidence, experience, and empathy, will include an unwillingness to cause animals unnecessary suffering. ... The relevant question, for many humanists, is the one raised by Jeremy Bentham: Can non-human animals suffer?

The Amsterdam Declaration of 2002 has also moved Humanism in this direction with its fourth article:

4. Humanism insists that personal liberty must be combined with social responsibility. Humanism ventures to build a world on the idea of the free person responsible to society, and recognises our dependence on and responsibility for the natural world.

Norman takes this even further in his exchange with Harari by noting:

Humanistic thinkers such as Jeremy Bentham and Peter Singer laid the foundations for the animal-rights and environmental movements. ... The industrial farming of animals, for example, is better explained as a consequence of population growth, greed, and unfettered markets. ... Exploitative attitudes toward the environment and convenient excuses for pillaging predate humanism by tens of thousands of years. Humanity didn’t need the philosophy of humanism to begin privileging itself. ... Early Humanist Manifestos contain some unfortunate, species-centric language. ... But here’s the neat thing about humanism: it’s self-revising. As a rule, humanists take critical challenges seriously and revise their thinking. We don’t treat our manifestoes as gospel; we work and re-work them. ... Humanist manifestos get superseded every few decades. (Compare that to the way religions cling to sacred scripture for millennia!) ...  The most recent manifesto--Humanist Manifesto III—hints that we need to extend our moral concern “to the global ecosystem and beyond.”

Dislike 2 from Bavidge
Humanism is closely connected to Secularism which misunderstands religious belief and misrepresents its social impact. ... Secularism is the rejection of religious ways of life. It rejects appeals to religious or transcendent realities as explanations of anything, or as any sort of authority in moral political matters.

Response to Dislike 2
Bavidge is right that almost all Humanists are secularists, but he misunderstands what that means for religious belief in society. For example, I attended the Humanist UK annual conference in 2018 where a Muslim woman gave a talk saying she was grateful for the UK's secular laws which allowed her to worship her god in this legally Christian nation. Secularism does not try to stamp out religion; it carves out space where otherwise irreconcilable religions can coexist. As sections §5.3, §5.7, and §5.8 of the Humanist UK MOOC say:

Secularism is the idea that religious institutions should be separate from state institutions; that if we are to have equal citizenship in a shared society then we need a state that treats us neutrally. ... Secularism as an approach is one that tries to maximise people's freedom of belief. ... Not everyone can be free to do exactly what they want at all times, however. It’s important to draw a limit around freedom of religion and belief. For example, when it starts interfering with other people's rights and freedoms. ... The case for secularism is quite simple, and is built on three main pillars: the argument for freedom; the argument for fairness; and the pragmatic argument, or peace argument. ... Only in a secular state, in a state that doesn’t try to tell you what to believe or what to do or how you have to live, can people really have the freedom that they need.

Bavidge is right that this means "appeals to religious or transcendent realities as explanations of anything" are rejected. But this is true wherever evidence for something is lacking. Removing that requirement for argumentation would mean it is no longer argumentation.

Dislike 3 from Bavidge
Humanism has a problem with diversity. ... [For example, the Yamomami] Society has survived for thousands of years in the Amazonian jungle. It is built around a culture which is at odds with articles 2 and 5 of the North East Humanist’s manifesto. ... To bring it closer to home: how does protection of the Yamomami fit with opposition to faith schools? The danger is that Humanists end up intolerant of dissidents within their own societies, and paternalistic (at best) to societies with a radically different form of life. … Religious tolerance needs to be defended against Humanist intolerance.

Response to Dislike 3
Once again, Humanism and secularism are not trying to stamp out religions. Certainly not with force anyway. Humanist opposition to faith schools is not an opposition to faiths themselves, but to the public funding of discriminatory schools, and to schools that do not adhere to the existing laws for safeguarding and instructing children. Humanists have no issue with well run privately-funded faith schools. This is described in the fourth article of the Amsterdam Declaration of 2002:

4. Humanism insists that personal liberty must be combined with social responsibility. Humanism ventures to build a world on the idea of the free person responsible to society, and recognises our dependence on and responsibility for the natural world. Humanism is undogmatic, imposing no creed upon its adherents. It is thus committed to education free from indoctrination.

Humanists may themselves not believe in religion, but Humanism's emphasis on freedom and personal responsibility for one's own life are completely in line with religious tolerance. But only up to the point where religious beliefs become intolerant themselves. This is the "intolerance of intolerance" that is required of all cosmopolitan societies. It is described in the first article of the Amsterdam Declaration of 2002:

1. Humanism is ethical. It affirms the worth, dignity and autonomy of the individual and the right of every human being to the greatest possible freedom compatible with the rights of others.

Section §5.11 of the Humanist UK MOOC also discusses this explicitly:

What do humanists think about religion? Drawing a distinction between the people who identify with a religion (e.g. Catholics), the religion itself (Catholicism), and the associated institutions (the Catholic Church) can help us when considering this question. ... Respecting the person doesn’t necessarily require a respect for the religion itself. ... Tolerance and respect also do not mean one cannot challenge and criticise opposing belief. ... Many humanists, however, are less hostile towards religion. Some may feel a cultural affinity towards it, or a fondness for its art, music, rituals, or its sense of community. Others may find it of historical and anthropological interest. Many will, while believing religious beliefs are mistaken, accept that there are many good people who are religious and many who can be motivated by their faith to do good things.

Since Bavidge named articles 2 and 5 from the North East Humanists' "manifesto" (in scare-quotes because we don't actually call it that and no one made me swear to it when I joined), let's see what they are and whether they are actually objectionable in regards to the Yamomami.

2. The universe has evolved over eons, without a creator or a plan. Humanists believe that human beings are part of an evolutionary process that began billions of years ago, and that there is no god or gods behind this process.

5. Democratic values take precedence over ideologies. Humanists are committed to a secular society. Whilst generally respecting the right of others to have different beliefs, Humanists challenge those beliefs and ideas which threaten the freedom of the individual.

These articles are defensible in every realm where scientific facts are admitted, and in all but the most relative or nihilist conceptions of morality. As long as the Yamomami do not infringe on the freedoms of those in secular societies, they may believe whatever they want and not be at odds with Humanists.

Dislike 4 from Bavidge
Humanism has an unhealthy relationship with the sciences. ... The underlying idea that ought to be resisted is that science is co-extensive with knowledge; that scientific methodologies are the only roads to knowledge, and that we can hope for a comprehensive view of the world and ourselves from the development of the sciences which supplant earlier attempts to understand in terms of religions, myth, and common sense.

Response to Dislike 4
The scientific method—broadly construed as a cycle of observations, hypotheses, and testing—does generate views of the world that have supplanted all sorts of "religions, myths, and common sense." Even so, Humanists do not as a rule have an unhealthy obsession with this. Section §2.16 of the Humanist UK MOOC explains:

Some critics accuse Humanists of scientism. Scientism can be defined in a number of ways, but it is often described as something like a ‘worship of science’, a belief that science can answer all our questions, or that science provides the only way to understand human beings and the world. Typically, however, humanists will not go so far. ... Many humanists accept that there are meaningful questions that lie beyond the remit of science. ... Firstly there are those questions that look for meanings or purposes behind things, e.g. questions around why the universe exists, or why it is the way it is, or questions about the purpose of our existence. Some people describe these as ‘ultimate’ questions, beyond the realm of science.  ... Then there are moral questions: questions about how we should behave and how we should treat other people.

Humanists recognise the need for philosophy. And that brings us to the criticisms in The Philosopher.

***

The final defence of Humanism that I'll offer here is against the 6-pronged attack that Morgan levelled with the help of Tallis in his article "The Future of Humanism." Far from describing a future for the movement, this article misrepresents its past and present, while suggesting patently non-Humanist ideas are a requirement to go forward. Unfortunately, this prolonged attack is over 5,000 words so it requires a lengthy defence. Let's take Morgan's critiques one at a time though, starting with each headline, considering its justification, and then following with my response.

Critique 1 from Morgan / Tallis
1. Humanism lacks profundity.

On the opening page of Seeing Ourselves, secular humanist and patron of Humanists UK Raymond Tallis writes: “Humanism, for all its virtues, still lacks a philosophy that can compete in profundity with the religious beliefs it aims to displace.”

Humanism could thus be defined as the ethical wing of naturalism. The main problem with this, however, is that when naturalism extends its focus to that most perverse of natural objects, the human, the results are rather dispiriting.

Even in his analysis of gratitude, love, art, and philosophy as “secular sources of salvation” through which “we might palliate secular despair”, Tallis frequently finds humanist options falling short of their religious counterparts.

Tallis considers the respective virtues of romantic love and parental love, but ultimately concludes that they are both inadequate substitutes for the love of God that is “not only absolute but unchanging.”

The humanist attempt to recreate the traditional Christian Sunday service testifies to their desire for community. However, it is unclear that there are many things less appealing than sitting in a chilly community centre listening to sermons extracted from Grayling’s The Good Book and singing along to Oasis songs in a room full of spiritually malnourished humanists.

Response to Critique 1
First, it is not clear that religions are actually profound. Believers are racked with doubts. The descriptions of their gods have changed throughout history, and divine love is often questioned in times of pain and suffering. People leave religions all the time after contemplating the contradictions within them. This is all evidence of the fact that religions are full of myths and stories invented by changing humans. Imagining some perfect believer warmly ensconced in a perfect religion is imagining a profundity that isn't actually there. And wishing for such profundity is wishing for something that has so far not been available to us.

Secondly, Humanists don't have to see this as dispiriting. (Except that they literally de-spirit the world.) Many Humanists would say they are spiritually satisfied just fine thank you. Anyone who continues to go to Sunday Assembly meetings (founded by stand-up comedians and not affiliated with any Humanist organisations, by the way) may not find such meetings unappealing either, no matter how badly Morgan tries to caricature them. If it works for you, and it doesn't harm the world, then do it. That's the Humanist motto for finding your own profundity. And many of us do. (See, for example, my own version of meaning in life as being part of cosmic evolution, as discussed by the philosopher, and author of The Meaning of Life, John Messerly.)

Section §2.17 of the Humanist UK MOOC touches on this:

When it comes to so-called ‘ultimate’ questions about meanings and purposes, such questions are only important or meaningful if you believe such meanings and purposes really exist. For a Humanist, some of these questions can simply be dissolved.

Section §3.8 of the Humanist UK MOOC takes this further:

Humanists do not see that there is any obvious purpose to the universe, but that it is a natural phenomenon with no design behind it. Meaning is not something out there waiting to be discovered, but something that we create in our own lives. ... Every person will have many different meanings in their life. Each one of us is unique and our different personalities depend on a complex mixture of influences from our parents, our environment, and our connections.

For example, Morgan observes that we (social primates) have a desire for community, and that is right. Section §3.4 of the Humanist UK MOOC confirms this:

At the end of life people do reflect on what their contribution has been to society, to their family, and really start to try and think. ... Our connections between one another is one of the most potent things, and that is actually, for many of us who don't have a religion, really the most joyous and significant thing about life.

Section §3.17 of the Humanist UK MOOC (titled "Humanist Spirituality") addresses the question of profundity explicitly:

​Critics claim that a humanist conception of a good life lacks a whole dimension, they say it leaves little room for depth or wonder. ... Many humanists argue that spirituality can be understood as referring to a set of natural human characteristics which are as vital to those who are not religious as to those who are. If we use the language of spirituality to refer to a natural dimension of human life, then non-religious people can be included in the discussion. ... Humanists believe that each of us constructs spiritual meaning for ourselves; we are responsible for our own spirituality. ... We feel a deep need to connect with something greater than ourselves. ... Non-religious people might equally connect with nature, the earth, or the universe; or with family, friends, or a political party; or with all of these, or something else. Humanists can achieve a sense of awe and wonder through the observations of science, which offer awe-inspiring insights into the natural world and the universe.

And in his exchange with Harari, Norman shows the truly profound inspirations and outcomes that have come from such a Humanist approach to living. He noted:

Progressive thinkers in the early twentieth century recognized the need for a broad social movement emphasizing human rights, reason, and freedom of inquiry. They admired all of the works you mention—those of Bacon, Locke, Hume, and Rousseau, the Declaration of Independence, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man. They also admired the works of Plato and Aristotle, Da Vinci and Spinoza, Kant and Paine, Bentham and Mill. They needed a word to designate central features of the philosophical orientation that had done so much to enlighten the world. For better or worse, they settled on humanism and began building a movement to spread these comparatively enlightened values. They authored the manifestos, pressed for a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, supported civil rights movements, and helped make women’s suffrage the rule rather than the exception. They helped inspire Gandhi’s efforts to throw off British colonial rule, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s efforts to end segregation. (King himself explicitly thanked the “thousands of humanists,” many of them white, who helped his civil rights movement.) Arguably, humanism’s emphasis on self-determination helped to dismantle European colonialism.

Profound indeed.

​Critique 2 from Morgan / Tallis
2. Humanism has an unhealthy relationship with the sciences that serves to distort who we actually are.

As Tallis puts it early on in Seeing Ourselves: "Rejecting a supernatural account of humanity does not oblige us to embrace naturalism, as if this were the only alternative. It does not follow from the truth that we are not hand-made by God that we are simply organisms shaped by the forces of evolution; that, since we are not angels, we must be merely gifted chimps."

If the naturalist picture wishes us to endorse a seamless line from the Big Bang to Beyoncé (to use Michael Bavidge’s phrase), Tallis is keen to show that such a picture is implausible: “Evolutionary theory... cannot explain the emergence of consciousness out of insentience or the conscious subject out of sentience.” ... ​For Tallis, this is a “profound mystery” as the “machinery of the flesh, however exquisite, seems stony ground for the human subject.” ... For Tallis, we are neither natural nor supernatural, but extranatural.

It is important to note that naturalism is not an empirical scientific position so much as a philosophical position with clear epistemological and metaphysical theses: 

1. Epistemological: The standpoint and method(s) of the empirical sciences are the best way to acquire knowledge of every aspect of the world, including ourselves.
2. Metaphysical: The world is comprised solely of the kinds of objects, properties and causal relations posited by scientific theories.

For Tallis, those in thrall to a naturalistic metaphysics fail to see ourselves, and thus diminish humanity 

Response to Critique 2
The issue of scientism was covered above in the 4th dislike from Bavidge, but Morgan/Tallis are challenging the limits of science and the naturalist interpretation of what it has so far discovered. First of all, being a "gifted chimp" is no mere thing. We are amazing products of billions of years of genetic evolution, and tens of thousands of years of cultural evolution. Claiming anything beyond that natural history, however, relies on "a divine skyhook" as Dan Dennett would call it. Just because science has not YET explained the emergence of consciousness, does not mean that it cannot ever do so. Psychological studies of consciousness were verboten until the late 1980’s. Give it some time. See episodes 160-163 of the Brain Science Podcast for Ginger Campbell’s amazing four-part series on the latest books and findings from neuroscientists about studies of consciousness. I personally don't find it so mysterious anymore.

More broadly, sections §1.10 and §2.15 of the Humanist UK MOOC advise:

The history of science has taught us that in the absence of an existing scientific explanation we should be wary of turning to non-scientific or supernatural conclusions. ... The fact that science has solved so many of the mysteries of the past means we should be wary of leaping to supernatural explanations for things we do not currently understand. ... History has shown us that the rational position is to be patient, rather than to jump to non-scientific conclusions.

With his lack of patience, combined with a trepidation of announcing any supernatural beliefs, Tallis makes the move to call his idea extranatural, but according to the classical rules of logic this is an error that is literally nonsense as it refers to nothing. The law of the excluded middle says there is nothing between naturalism and supernaturalism. What Morgan calls "a hypothetically enriched naturalism" is either supernaturalism or just more naturalism.

As for Morgan's depiction of the epistemological and metaphysical stances of naturalism, this too is in error. In science, we deal with hypotheses, not theses. In fact, I call naturalism the first hypothesis, and, as yet, it has not been disproven. Thus, two important additions need to be added to Morgan's two points:

The empirical sciences are the best way….SO FAR...to acquire knowledge.
The world is comprised…AS FAR AS WE CAN TELL...solely of the kinds of [things] posited by scientific theories.

These are important caveats that naturalists are happy to hold and they make our position defensible. Thus, to claim that we are the ones who diminish humanity is backwards. Tallis is the one who doesn’t see us as enough, so he diminishes us by insisting there must be something else to explain us.

Critique 3 from Morgan / Tallis
3. Humanism is anti-Humanist

A consequence of the second critique is an ethical and political one, namely that the naturalistic tendency to show up central aspects of our subjective experience (e.g. consciousness, selfhood, free will etc.) as illusions is anti-humanist.

Tallis' focus is on grounding a future humanism in a particular attitude towards ourselves, one rooted in awe and celebration. Religion, after all, is not simply a response to human suffering but also a celebration of the greatness of God. Similarly, Tallis wishes us to focus on the greatness of the Human.

Tallis, in line with someone like Roger Scruton, is keen to emphasise incommensurability, e.g. humans and non-human animals are incommensurable.

Response to Critique 3
The naturalistic stance is not anti-Humanist, it is anti-angelic. Tallis' stance of worshiping humans is exactly what led to Bavidge's first dislike of some Humanists. However, as we saw above, the Humanist movement does not share these sacralising views. It is not Humanism that is anti-Humanist, it is Tallis' views that are not in line with Humanism. Morgan's article ends by saying "Tallis is the best of the humanists, a thinker of undeniable profundity and sensitivity," but based on the definitions and analysis I've done here, the things that Morgan seems to admire about Tallis are actually the things that aren't Humanist.

As for the incommensurability between humans and non-human animals, the evolutionist in me asks....when did this split occur exactly? Are we modern people incommensurable with Homo habilis, erectus, neanderthalensis, or ancient Babylonians? No of course we aren't. Sorry, but there are no joints in nature. The differences we see between humans and non-human animals were built up over very long stretches of time by very small increments of cultural evolution, which were built on the back of even longer stretches of time for genetic evolution.

Critique 4 from Morgan
4. Humanism is uncomfortable with mystery.

The humanist belief that there are only problems, not mysteries, is well captured by the humanist Richard Dawkins who insists that we live in a universe in which “everything has an explanation”, and that if we have yet to discover one, then “we’re working on it”. Such is the expectant mastery of the contemporary humanist.

The Russian philosopher Leo Shestov contrasts two ways of doing philosophy, the first placatory, and the second – using Blaise Pascal as exemplar – inflammatory: "Philosophy sees the supreme good in a sleep which nothing can trouble... That is why it is so careful to get rid of the incomprehensible, the enigmatic, and the mysterious; and avoids so anxiously those questions to which it has already made answer. Pascal, on the other hand, sees in the inexplicable and incomprehensible nature of our surroundings the promise of a better existence, and every effort to reduce the unknown to the known seems to him blasphemy."

William James is very sympathetic to this kind of contrast, referring approvingly to how the latter inflammatory mode of thinking rebukes “a certain stagnancy and smugness in the manner in which the ordinary philistine feels his security.” In contrast to the placatory humanist orthodoxy, Tallis is consistently inflammatory, not just in his unsettling of the pretensions of materialism but in his willingness to acknowledge genuine mysteries that are in principle beyond the reach of the scientific worldview.

Response to Critique 4
This is profoundly wrong! Humanists are full of wonder and love to explore the mysteries of the universe as opposed to just saying “it’s God.” Humanists see that religions are the placatory philosophies: serve God; do as scripture says; all will be revealed and rewarded in heaven; sit in meditation until all desire is lost and nirvana is achieved. In contrast to this, Humanists are forever seeking and challenging knowledge. That is precisely why Humanism is not precisely defined and it continues to evolve. Humanists are very comfortable living lives without certainty. That is the definition of an inflammatory philosophy.

I would characterise Dawkins' position not as one of "expectant mastery," but as the logical conclusion of living in a causal universe, which so far has not shown us supernatural interventions. It’s not a "pretension of materialism" to hold onto this hypothesis until it is disproven. It is instead a pretension to insist on something else that hasn't been seen. There are many mysteries we may not now or ever master, but that doesn’t mean we ought to give up and worship them. Who knows? I may be surprised by what hard work and imagination may uncover someday about one or many of these mysteries. In contrast, Pascal's reticence to reduce the unknown to the known is mightily anti-Humanist. That is longing for the nasty, brutish, short, unenlightened “state of nature” that predated the sapiens of our species.

For more evidence of this, see sections §2.1 and §2.20 of the Humanist UK MOOC which say:

Socrates instructed us that ‘wisdom begins in wonder. If we are not prepared to consider the possibility that we might be wrong, then we are closing down the potential for, and the pleasures of, exploration, discovery, and progress. Humanists place great value on curiosity.

Humanists will recognise that science does not give us certainty. The truths of science are provisional. ... This means we can never be absolutely certain of anything. ... A consequence, then, of the humanist approach to knowledge is that humanists have to be prepared to live with uncertainty. To embrace the scientific method is to embrace scepticism and doubt. ... The belief that we can accept propositions of knowledge even though they cannot be proved with absolute certainty is called fallibilism. ... Uncertainty need not be something to be feared. The absence of certainty, and the recognition of our epistemic frailties, opens the door to one of life’s great pleasures...curiosity!

Critique 5 from Morgan / Tallis
5. Humanism cannot accept humans as they are, only as it would like them to be.

As a tough-minded humanist, Dennett sees his role as to persuade us to accept that which we don’t want—and to be grateful for it. ... It is all too easy for humanists to dismiss the desire for cosmic meaning as anything from “infantile” to “irrational” to “megalomaniacal” to “narcissistic” to “embarrassing” to “indefensible” etc., ... Yet the fact remains that such yearnings persist, and are rooted in basic facts about the kinds of beings we are. As Benatar puts it: “People, quite reasonably, want to matter. They do not want to be insignificant or pointless. Life is tough. It is full of striving and struggle; there is much suffering and then we die. It is entirely reasonable to want there to be some point to the entire saga.”

Tallis remains a humanist in the sense that he would not wish to frame deep forms of human yearning or longing for the absolute in supernatural terms: “The transcendence that enables humanity to live a life backlit by the supernatural is not at a distance from the human world and our humanity but within that world and within our humanity.” However, he parts from humanist orthodoxy in his recognition of the depths of such aspirations and the extent to which abandoning them would be experienced as a profound loss. For example, he raises the question of what humanism has yet to do “to fill the voids opened up in those who have lost their faith”.

Elsewhere, in a sentence that would surely horrify your average tough-minded humanist, Tallis writes that “we may need to learn how to reinsert our wishes into our thinking.” In this he mirrors Alexander Douglas’ questioning of the dominance of “hard-headed” naturalist philosophical attitudes: “Suppose a philosopher’s motivation in striving to glimpse an ultimate reality beyond appearance is to find comfort in the vision. I don’t see what’s so wrong with that.” Finally, Tallis notes that: “Lived meaning is not propositional,” which legitimizes the believer’s unwillingness to submit their belief to rational scrutiny of the kind favoured by humanists.

Response to Critique 5
I feel sadness at all of the philosophical errors committed here, for they come from a place of expansive searching, rather than from any narrow-mindedness or dogmatic malice. However, it would be a naturalistic fallacy to accept humans only for what they have been. It would be illogical and anti-Humanist not to see the evidence that humans can and have changed for the better, that moral progress happens, and that we would do well to encourage more of that. Insisting that humans are a specific "kind of being" would be holding onto a Platonic essentialism that evolutionary history and modern psychology has shown us isn't there. Motivated reasoning is no reasoning at all. And an unwillingness to submit beliefs to rational scrutiny is the definition of an irrational and unexamined life.

In contrast to the position expressed here, Dan Dennett seems tender to me. He is not forcing us to accept dregs; he is helping us to accept that which we can’t have and to be amazed by what we do. The serenity prayer, for example, is not tough-minded. (Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.) Humans do want to matter. And we can. We can matter to all of the profound things discussed above. And we can get there by grappling with things like Abraham Maslow's humanist psychology (e.g. his pyramid of needs and later adaptations to it), or Irvin Yalom's existential psychology (e.g. his four ultimate concerns of life—death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness).

This is perhaps more difficult than Marx's opiates for the masses, but it works at least as well. Many, many Humanists left their religions with no exposure to Humanism at all. The religions just stopped making sense to them. Consigning oneself to the lack of any religious replacement would result in nihilistic atheism, but people rarely do this. They get on with their lives. And Humanism offers a positive vision of well-being that helps with this and is being extended all the time through additional rational research (e.g. the entire field of positive psychology).

Critique 6 from Morgan
6. Humanism is spiritually blinded by an excess of optimism.

The humanist sees any kind of pessimism as clear evidence of unruliness, a sure sign of intellectual weakness or resignation (“Pessimism is too easy...” muses an unborn baby in the humanist Ian McEwan’s novel Nutshell).

We are an aggressive, violent, anxiety-ridden, acquisitive, cruel, and lustful species. These destructive and self-destructive tendencies cohabit with ideals of fairness and fellow-feeling in the human psyche. Guilt is a deep part of the human personality. Many of us feel utterly condemned, bad beyond belief, fatally flawed at the centre of our personalities. Religion gives expression to these feelings of guilt (see, for example, Psalm 130); it expresses moral horror.

Cheerful Humanism, of the kind exemplified by a thinker even of Tallis’ undeniable depth, has no time for what Hume dismisses as “the monkish virtues”: repentance, contrition, the ascetic life etc. It sees them as pathological, backward-looking obstacles to personal and social progress. ... Humanists are consistently guilty of responding dismissively – and even callously – to what Benatar has called “the reasonable sensitivities of the pessimists”. Humanism, as a cheerful voice of reason, progress, and optimism simply lacks the resources to make sense of this darker side of human life.

Response to Critique 6
This critique evokes more sadness (and perhaps a recommendation for Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb, who is another fan of Irvin Yalom). Regardless of whether these feelings of darkness were personal or hypothetical, however, they are easily addressed with Humanist resources. We humans have evolved a wide range of plasticity in our actions that enable us to respond effectively to all sorts of environments. The negative traits that Morgan listed are actually helpful in some instances. Feelings of guilt and remorse over previous actions are precisely there to help motivate us to change for the better. The "monkish virtues" can absolutely be virtuous, but all things in moderation. Humanist psychologists would see wallowing in them as dysfunctional, but their mere existence is perfectly normal. It would, instead, be wrongfully essentialist to claim utter condemnation for a person and ignore the role that growth and adaptation can play within one lifetime. Religion is wrong (and anti-Humanist) to give expression to such condemnations. They are founded on the view of an eternal unchanging soul, but we do not appear to be made of such stuff.

If Humanists were truly blind to the darker side of humanity, they would do nothing to improve things. That is demonstrably false, however. The North East Humanists have raised over £25,000 in the last five years for charitable organisations that help the less fortunate. Pessimists don’t insist the world remain bad; they see the bad clearly in order to improve it. And Humanists clearly do this too. If anything, cheerful, blissful monkish types removed from society are much more dismissive and callous.

For more evidence of this, section §5.16 of the Humanist UK MOOC also makes this plain:

Humanists view practical action as important in order to give everybody the opportunity to live lives that are well lived, enjoyable, and happy. ... Humanists UK, in its campaigning work, tends to focus on issues where there is disagreement between Humanists and non-religious people, and the position taken by many religious groups. ... Faith without works is not Christianity, and unbelief without any effort to help shoulder the consequences for humankind is not Humanism.

***

So as we can see, Humanism has developed a full and robust set of ideas behind it, and it is always continuing to work on them. The lists of questions, dislikes, and critiques of Humanism from its potential allies above have all been able to be answered. The fact that it takes much work to do so is perhaps a fault of the non-evangelical side of Humanism, but it is also down to the fact that Humanism is a kind of thing perhaps not seen in the world before. As I said above, Humanism isn't an "ultimate philosophy" providing ultimate answers for all its devotees. Humanism is more of a big tent movement asking for broad agreement about the rational limits of trial and error that we should be exposing ourselves to as we try to make sense of this knowable, yet perhaps forever mysterious, existence we find ourselves in.

With that, I'll end with a plea to join this big movement. If you've read this far and aren't yet a member of a Humanist organisation, please consider it. We need all the help we can get, and your small contributions enable a lot of great things to happen. In a recent brochure I produced for the North East Humanists, I noted the benefits that membership at the local or national level provide. They are:

Evolving Our Trust in Science
Why Trust Science? by Naomi Oreskes (Princeton University Press, 2019)
Reviewed by Ed Gibney

There’s a church across the road from my home with a big poster out front that says, “Theories keep changing. God does not.” Setting aside the fact that human conceptions of gods have certainly changed over time, the point here is that people crave certainty. Having it makes decisions much easier in an overwhelming environment of choices. I personally think that the adaptability of scientific theories gives it a strength you can rely on, but there are plenty of people who, for one reason or another, try to portray this as a weakness. In 2010, Harvard-based historian of science Naomi Oreskes gave us some vivid and well-researched examples on the nefarious end of this spectrum with a book (co-authored with NASA historian Erik Conway) called Merchants of Doubt. It uncovered deliberate, organised, and often highly orchestrated disinformation campaigns designed to create public distrust in scientific findings about a range of phenomena such as the dangers of smoking and the anthropogenic causes of global warming. The book became a bestseller and remains an essential text for the environmental movement.
 
Oreskes came to write that book as a result of negative reactions she received to some of her earlier research. In 2004, she published a paper in Science titled “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,” which looked at a sample of 928 academic publications on climate change and rather than finding a “controversy,” as had been widely reported in the press at the time, she found complete agreement that humans were causing global heating. After that, Oreskes found herself at the centre of a different controversy. As she said in an interview with the New York Review of Books in October 2019, “my paper for Science got a lot of attention. And that’s when the attacks began – vicious letters, threats… It hit me like a truck. I was completely blindsided.”
 
That experience made Oreskes realise that scientists like her have been naïve to think it was sufficient to just do scientific work, hand over the facts, and let government and business leaders act accordingly. As she explains in the afterword of her latest book, “When it comes to doubt-mongering, one cannot fight fire with fire. One has to shift the terms of the debate. One way to do so is by exposing the ideological and economic motivations underlying science denial, to demonstrate that the objections are not scientific, but political. Another is by explaining how science works and affirming that, under many circumstances, we have good reason to trust settled scientific claims.” Oreskes tackled the first part of this two-pronged strategy with Merchants of Doubt. Now, she is back to finish the job with Why Trust Science?
 
The title of this book sets up a herculean philosophical task for Oreskes. To fully answer its question, she’d have to unpack the historically complex meanings of each of the three words used. First, what is science? Is it whatever men in white lab coats do, a definable method, a cannon of results, or something else entirely? Second, what does it mean to trust something rather than to distrust it, dismiss it, take it on faith, or just accept it on authority? And finally, there is the question of why. Why do anything? As Hume famously asked, how do you give a reason to get from what is to what you ought to do? In this case, how might observations from science tell us why we should listen to the prescriptions of scientists?
 
It won’t be a surprise to readers of this journal that Oreskes doesn’t quite give us convincing answers to all of those questions. Authors often lack control over their book titles, though, so we can’t really hold that against her. As a professor of the history of science, however, Oreskes is extremely well poised to deal with the first two questions of what science is and when it has been trustworthy, and that does open some windows on how to think about the final question.
 
The opening three sections of Why Trust Science? are based on a series of lectures that Oreskes gave at Princeton, so they are not aimed at the general public. They are meant to pick up a conversation that is continually ongoing in the scientific community. As such, she doesn’t build up her account of science from the most basic questions. For example, she does not note that the word “science” is derived from the Latin word scientia, meaning knowledge, and that scientific activities can be seen as far back as Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia before they were somewhat codified in Ancient Greece as natural philosophy. Formal codification of a scientific method for natural philosophers didn’t truly begin, though, until Francis Bacon published Novum Organum (“New Method”) in 1620. This is where we begin to see the outline fall into place of using observations to develop theories via induction, which allow one to deductively formulate hypotheses, which can then be tested via experiments, which provides a new set of observations that can begin the cycle all over again.
 
Oreskes jumps into this story two centuries later with Auguste Comte – the father of positivism – and what she calls “The Dream of Positive Knowledge.” If anything could be trusted, it would be a scientific finding that had been absolutely positively proven to be true. Unfortunately, as Oreskes makes clear with her retelling of the history of science, such dreams have proven fruitless. She notes that Comte himself was a fallibilist, recognising that Hume’s “problem of induction” meant that beliefs could not be proved with certainty. Comte still thought science could be reliable, however, by virtue of the nature of its practices. Roughly a century later, beginning in the 1920’s, the Vienna Circle’s logical positivists picked up this thread by trying to add the principle of verification to these practices of the scientific method, insisting that only observations verified by the senses could be meaningful. But trust in this principle was short-lived as A.J. Ayer and other members of the circle soon recognised this was not enough to overcome the problems raised by Hume. Karl Popper came along and exposed even further shortcomings. He rejected several tenets of logical positivism while introducing falsifiability into the mix of what distinguishes a scientific claim from a non-scientific one. Ironically, by noting that an observation can only refute another claim, and that no amount of observations can ever verify a belief, Popper’s critical rationalism opened the door for a form of radical scepticism that he abhorred. Popper’s answer to this was the notion of corroboration in which he thought we could have good reasons to believe theories that have passed severe tests. The problem, of course, is what constitutes a severe test? Popper relied on the character of individual scientists to address this, but it only takes a few character studies to dismiss that line of proof.
 
Oreskes tells us that Ludwig Fleck made the next advance by developing the first modern sociological account of the scientific method. Fleck was unambiguously anti-realist about the truth, saying it was merely whatever a thought collective settled upon. But since collectives could be democratic and progressive, this was key to understanding how science might advance. Thomas Kuhn soon put forth another major idea along these lines, calling the frameworks of these thought collectives paradigms, and claiming that shifts to new ones were incommensurable shifts in meanings, values, priorities, and even identities of the scientists immersed in them. Kuhn’s emphasis on the importance of communities of scientists who shared a common paradigm helped spur the growth of a new academic discipline – the sociology of science. One influential group of these scholars – known as the Edinburgh school – ran with Kuhn’s ideas and gathered examples of the social elements responsible for scientific conclusions, calling this process the social construction of scientific knowledge. This was a well-supported form of relativism that led Oreskes to note that “no serious scholar of the history or sociology of knowledge can sustain the claim that our knowledge is absolute.” In fact, Oreskes is even forced to agree with Paul Feyerabend who said that if you pressed him, he would have to say there is no unique method or principle of science, and that if you look at it historically, “anything goes.”
 
This seems like quite a comedown for a book purporting to tell us why we should trust science. But it’s the kind of admission of weakness that is necessary to sustain trust, since unsupported bravado eventually leads to collapses in confidence. As Oreskes says, “Those of us who wish to defend science from ideologically and economically interested attack must be not only willing and able to explain the basis of our trust in science, but also able to understand and articulate its limits.” Now that the limits have been well and truly set, what is left as the basis for trust?
 
Oreskes’ claim is that it comes from a field that might surprise many scientists – feminism. Feminist philosophers of science, most notably Sandra Harding and Helen Longino, have been at the forefront of what is known as standpoint epistemology, which recognises that the world is only comprised of subjective views that are influenced by one’s position in society. This does not mean that no meeting of minds is possible, however. Oreskes notes that the implication of this subjectivity is that greater diversity is the only thing that can help to make the viewpoints of individual scientists as collectively strong and close to objectivity as possible. The subjectivity of similar subjects (along the axis of any chosen variable) does little to combat the observed relativism in science, but, as Oreskes says, “objectivity is likely to be maximised when there are recognised and robust avenues for criticism, such as peer review, when the community is open, non-defensive, and responsive to criticism, and when the community is sufficiently diverse that a broad range of views can be developed, heard, and appropriately considered.”
 
In the second section of her opening salvo, Oreskes draws out five historical examples that illustrate when science has “gone awry” from this ideal. The details come from stories about the limited energy theory, the rejection of continental drift, eugenics, depression associated with hormonal birth control, and dental floss. These stories range from 1873 to today, from fairly contained to very widespread, and from slightly innocuous to genocidally dangerous. They are the kind of stories that sceptics like to cite as evidence for why we cannot trust science, but Oreskes uses them as examples of why her definition of science is trustworthy since none of these examples measure up. After examining them all, Oreskes claims the requirements of “what it takes to produce reliable knowledge” are fivefold: 1) consensus, 2) method, 3) evidence, 4) values, and 5) humility. With this, she has provided her answer to the first two questions raised by her title: what science roughly is, and what characteristics we should look for to know when that science is trustworthy.
 
As for the third question – why we should care about or listen to science at all – Oreskes ends her initial argument with a small coda appealing to shared values. Stated baldly, she says, “let me be clear about my values. I wish to prevent avoidable human suffering and to protect the beauty and diversity of life on Earth.” If science can help us do this, who can be against it? This isn’t the most rigorously defended argument, nor does it claim to know the values of scientists in general, but if Oreskes can get others onto this seemingly incontrovertible common ground, then discussions there ought to be able to build trust.
 
As an example of such discussions, and perhaps as a means of actively demonstrating the way that consensus-building works in science, the middle section of Why Trust Science? invites four comments from other professionals to either question or strengthen Oreskes’ position. Susan Lindee, a professor of the history and sociology of science, uses her chapter to propose that the deep science that lies behind everyday technologies should be exposed more so as to generate love and respect for it. (Lindee calls this “the epistemology of frozen peas.”) Marc Lange, a professor of philosophy, writes a short chapter noting the long tradition in philosophy of doubting knowledge wholesale, even if we rely on specific retail versions of it. Lange points out that philosophy is littered with failed attempts to justify knowledge wholesale, although he politely avoids pointing out that Oreskes has similarly joined this heap. A third commentary is jointly provided by Ottmar Edenhofer, a professor of economics of climate change, and Martin Kowarsch, the head of a policy working group at a private research institute. They probe the why question more deeply, using a few examples to point out that even if scientific consensus is reached, that is unlikely to lead to policy consensus. They observe from experience that Oreskes’ claim that there is more ethical common ground than we think is “a rather remarkable belief.” Finally, Jon Krosnick, a professor in humanities and social sciences, recaps the pervasive impact of the current replication crisis, which shows how systemic incentives across the entire research and publication industry have undermined too much of what scientists in a number of fields think they know. This is offered not to point out that Oreskes is wrong to ask for trust in science, but rather to say just how much work is necessary to reform the field to fit her ideals.
 
In the final chapter of the book, Oreskes offers a very brief reply to each of these four commentaries. This, in many ways, serves to both reinforce her elevation of consensus, and undermine it at the same time. Oreskes fails to agree wholeheartedly with any of her inquisitors and downright talks right past a few of their main points. As it is demonstrated, consensus from such blinkered professionals keen to uphold their arguments is indeed a mighty big ask. But then, of course, when a consensus is actually reached, that makes it all the more impressive. This sort of illustration by example may not have been the intention when the format of Why Trust Science? was decided, but that is nonetheless the (perhaps unavoidable) consequence.
 
In the spirit of continuing the hard work of building consensus on this issue, a few suggestions can now be offered. For a book that is largely about the epistemology of science, its focus on the history of science to the exclusion of the history of epistemology has left a gaping hole. A few points from that story might really help with the case Oreskes is building. To start, there is perhaps the origin of epistemology with Socrates’ dialogue in Plato’s Theaetetus where a definition for knowledge is settled upon as justified, true, belief. Sceptical objections against this so-called JTB theory of knowledge have been raised by many philosophers (Oreskes notes a few of them), but it still remained widely accepted in epistemology until 1963 when Edmund Gettier published a short paper that questioned whether any justification could ever be good enough to claim that a piece of knowledge was true. Just as “the dream of positive knowledge” was pursued and abandoned in the philosophy of science, the dream of a fully justified true belief has also been pursued without success in epistemology. Oreskes occasionally uses the JTB phrase in her book, but she never goes into its Platonic origins or Gettier destruction. Perhaps this is because the traditional main camps of epistemology – realism, idealism, and scepticism – have offered no help to Oreskes’ project of building trust in scientific knowledge. A lesser known branch, however, does help. And that is the branch of evolutionary epistemology (EE).
 
EE falls under naturalistic approaches to the subject, just as sociological, historical, and anthropological inquiries about knowledge, which all de-emphasise the questions around justification and truth, and instead asks, empirically, what beliefs agents actually hold. Oreskes does cover some of these human-centred naturalist approaches, but she neglects EE, which looks for universal mechanisms at work in the world. The psychologist and philosopher Donald Campbell, who coined the term EE, posited that all forms of evolution adhere to a Universal Selection Theory characterised by blind variation and selective retention (BVSR). Although the exact units of selection for knowledge (e.g. memes) are still being hotly debated, the analogies between biological evolution and cultural evolution are strong enough for many to accept EE terminology. Oreskes herself falls into this camp, perhaps unintentionally, when she says, for example, that “Scientific ideas, like evolution itself, may change dramatically over time, but they do so by the accumulation of small transformations and differing interpretations.” Taking this view of ever-evolving knowledge, and combining it with the aforementioned abandonment of absolute knowledge, we can formulate a replacement of the JTB theory of knowledge by positing that knowledge can never be claimed to be true, but can only ever be justified beliefs that are currently survivingour best rational selections. And Oreskes herself has done much of the heavy lifting in defining what those best rational selections are in the scientific realm.
 
Thus, the evolution of epistemological theories – one of the two distinctive programmes within EE – helps to put Oreskes’ definition of science into philosophical context and use it in a potential solution to a problem dating back to Plato. The other major programme of EE – analysing the evolution of epistemological mechanisms – supports Oreskes’ project as well. Sifting through the evolutionary history of life as part of his development of EE, Campbell settled on a 10-step outline that showed the broad categories of mechanisms that biological life has used to gain knowledge. This starts with the earliest origins of life where problems were solved over generations through mere genetic variance alone, without any aids from motion or the formation of memories. This earliest slow accrual of genetic knowledge eventually led, according to Campbell, to the other mechanisms: movement, habit, instinct, visually-supported decisions, memory-supported decisions, observational learning from social interactions, language, cultural transmissions, and finally, scientific accumulations of knowledge. Today, these mechanisms have been further divided or re-defined, but nevertheless, Campbell showed clearly how knowledge processes could be distinguished and understood in a developmental, rather than uniform, manner. So, taken altogether, the two programmes of EE show us that Oreskes’ definition of science provides us with the best knowledge we can philosophically hope to get, and this arrives after our long evolutionary history of accruing knowledge and developing knowledge mechanisms in tandem with one another. That makes good science about as trustworthy as we can currently get.
 
I said near the beginning of this article that Oreskes’ work would open up windows on the third question of why we should listen to science, even if we grant that it is trustworthy. Oreskes claimed that ethical common ground would help, but unless a summum bonum or greatest good is agreed to, very different choices can still be prioritised from within this common ground. Also, the lack of certainty about any knowledge implies that existentially risky choices should be off the table altogether no matter how trustworthy the science might seem. Arguments drawn from evolutionary ethics offer definitions for a summum bonum, and scholarship about the precautionary principle helps define where exactly the interactions between irreversibility and uncertainty become an existential problem. These have the potential to give us the reasons why and the realms where we ought to use scientific knowledge, but to reach consensus on that would require an article that is entirely too long and off topic for this review. So, for now, you’ll just have to trust me. Or not.
 
Ed Gibney is a writer and philosopher who tries to bring an evolutionary perspective to both of those pursuits. His work can be found at evphil.com.

That brings us to the second camp within ethics, deontology, or the search for moral rules. All of the evolutionary consequentialism that I laid out leads us to this rule:

• “Act for the long-term survival of life.”

This sounds simple enough, but of course the implementation is far from easy because it requires the balancing of many, many interests as we saw above.