The Case for Humanism: an Introduction.

by Lewis Vaughn & Austin Dacey (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2003); 223 pp; $75.00 cloth, $26.96 softcover

the Humanist movement seems to have a fair amount of success drawing from the well-educated--a recent AHA survey shows that 48 percent of members have graduate degrees and 86 percent have undergraduate degrees. Yet when it comes to the educational system, the movement seems less successful when organizing freethinking and secular students into campus groups, establishing a curriculum of field of study that focuses on Humanism, of improving and reforming the entire educational process. As campus organizing slowly establishes itself, Lewis Vaughn and Austin Dacey's new textbook will surely play a role in establishing the Humanist worldview as a field worth studying.

The Case for Humanism is a compact, easily readable overview of "philosophical humanism," which the authors define as a

   set of interrelated proposition that assert
   (1) the importance of humankind and
   human experience over things supernatural
   of otherworldly, (2) the value, dignity,
   and rights of individual persons, (3) the
   power of humans to understand themselves
   and the world through science, reason
   and free inquiry, (4) the capacity of
   humans to make free choices and direct
   their own lives, and (5) the responsibility of
   humans to conduct their lives according to
   rational moral standards and to promote
   the welfare of themselves and all people.

The only thing missing from this definition is an explicit acknowledgement of the Humanist critique of the supernatural; instead it is merely tangentially suggested in the first proposition. Understandably, the movement continues to disassociate itself from the image of the "village atheist." However, it is difficult to deny that an element of the Humanist worldview focuses on critiquing the claims of theistic believers. Indeed, Vaughn and Dacey devote all of Chapter 7, entitled "God, Humanism and Philosophy," to dismantling the classic arguments for God, as well as offering up the problem of evil as a reason God may not exist. The Humanist critique of the theistic shouldn't be overstated but neither can it be ignored.

The textbook begins by emphasizing the point that ideas do indeed matter and the authors explain that their primary interest is to explore the underlying assumptions that ground the Humanist worldview. So they approach the topic from a philosophical perspective in order to focus on the ideas and beliefs that result in real-world consequences. The first five chapters are more focused on longstanding philosophical questions such as mind-body dualism; the moral status of humanity, freedom, and determinism; and the validity of secular ethics. The last three chapters concentrate on the intersection of science and religion, the arguments for and against God, and Humanism's views on society and politics.

The chapters are straightforward: they begin with the authors laying out the parameters of the topic to be discussed, such as "The Moral Life" in Chapter 4. Familiar arguments, usually from theistic belief systems, are first presented and then quickly dispatched. Once religious views (such as divine command theory or natural law theory) have been painted as untenable, the search for a more realistic secular alternative begins. Vaughn and Dacey present various naturalistic and rationalist theories and settle on modern intuitionism, which they define as the use of "moral intuitions--specifically, our duties to promote good consequences, respect person, and care for those who care for us--as criteria for judging the correctness of our actions," as a plausible moral theory.

Vaughn and Dacey ably define what Humanism isn't and what it doesn't believe to be true, for example humanity's "fallen" nature, a morality based in religious belief, relativism, and faith as a way of knowing. When speaking about what Humanists do believe, words such as "plausible," "suggests" and "seems" come up more often. Humanism is correctly framed as a process to discover the truth instead of an absolute worldview set in stone. Religious humanists, however, are oddly defined as Humanists who believe in a deistic God. Considering the amount of time the authors have spent in the movement (Vaughn worked for the journal Philo as well as Free Inquiry and Dacey is the director of educational programs at the Center for Inquiry) it is a bit mystifying why they would settle on that definition. Though I find futile the attempt to appropriate religious language and imagery to the Humanist movement, the critique against religious humanists is solely linguistic, since it is obvious that no Humanists in the movement are theistic or supernaturalistic.

The success of The Case for Humanism depends on the number of philosophy of comparative religion professors who introduce the textbook to their classes. The textbook could soon become the standard text to define and defend Humanism in the university classroom. I anticipate the day a professor decides that The Case for Humanism will be the primary text used for an Introduction to Humanism class. So few students have had the opportunity to take a comprehensive look at the worldview; doing so will help in countering many of the skewed beliefs people have about Humanism. The publication of the textbook is in itself a success but also signals that there is still a long way to go until Humanism is popularly accepted.

Jende Huang is the field assistant for the American Humanist Association.