Pragmatism informs Humanism. It is the foundation on which
our morals rest.
There is a great article in the Humanist Magazine – which if
you don’t subscribe to it, you should. The editor Jennifer Bardi does an
excellent job of curating each issue. Anyway – in Humanism 101 Michael Werner,
the author, discusses Humanism and pragmatism. In it he says, “The pragmatist
offers a staircase toward the light, asking what works toward human and global
welfare. Pragmatism offers knowledge that is always provisional, fallible, and
probabilistic, but that works.”
Link to the article here: http://thehumanist.com/magazine/july-august-2014/commentary/humanism-101-our-pragmatist-tradition
I am asked all the time, if you don’t believe in god, how
can you have a foundation for ethics. Doesn’t the lack of god imply moral
relativism? The answer is no. Not for a Humanist. We still have a moral
conscious because we choose to have one.
Our moral compass does not rest on science or on culture exclusively. It
has no absolute basis. It is born of our social experience and tested by our
experiences and the experiences of others.
The more we learn about others and their experiences, the more we can refine our moral code of what is good and what isn’t. To quote Werner, ”the interplay of science and culture points us toward the best ideals,”
The more we learn about others and their experiences, the more we can refine our moral code of what is good and what isn’t. To quote Werner, ”the interplay of science and culture points us toward the best ideals,”
We have morals because we chose to have morals. Because
having a morality is pragmatic and helps us live our lives more effectively.
This may not be an entirely rational thing to do. But it is an imminently
pragmatic thing to do.
