Humanism Versus Mystrikism
2. Key Humanist Documents
2.2 Subduing Hubris and Egotism
In his Humanism - A Friendly Critique [2024], McDonald then moves on to his second area of complaint, 'Subduing Hubris and Egotism'. Here, he opines that 'None of the documents explicitly recognise a secular concept or philosophy that actively subdues human hubris or egotism.' Picking out A Secular Humanist Declaration [Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism 1980], he protests that 'there is no reference to an external force or concept that would limit human pride. Instead, it emphasises human confidence in solving problems'. Likewise, for the Humanist Manifesto III [American Humanist Association 2003], he writes: 'There is no recognition here of a broader perspective that could temper human pride, such as humility in the face of the unknown or the cosmos, which is a key concept in Mystrikism.'
Is humanism really lacking in the humility stakes, as McDonald argues? Not at all. In fact, the opposite is the case. A Secular Humanist Declaration expressly points out our human fallibility and implores humility when the authors write: 'Since human beings are prone to err, we are open to the modification of all principles, including those governing inquiry, believing that they may be in need of constant correction.' And again: 'We recognize the need for intellectual modesty and the willingness to revise beliefs in the light of criticism.' In the same humble vein, the Humanist Manifesto III points out that our 'values and ideals, however carefully wrought, are subject to change as our knowledge and understandings advance'.
McDonald bemoans that for humanism 'there is no reference to an external force or concept that would limit human pride'. Over and above humanism's honest expressions of human fallibility and humility, I'm unclear on what McDonald has in mind here. If McDonald is looking for a concept, I suggest 'epistemic fallibility' or 'theory revision' or something similar. There is no shortage of resources in philosophy that humanists can and do use to caution us towards taking a fallibilist approach to knowledge.
Other than that, given that McDonald's Mystrikism and humanism are one in asserting that we live in a godless universe, what other 'external force' is there to show us when and where we are wrong? It is precisely appeals to some suprahuman epistemic authority that humanists have historically pushed back against and continue to do today. The humanist documents that McDonald so readily finds fault with are born from the cruelties endured over centuries where dogmatic religious authorities burned heretics at the stake, led crusades and other religious wars against the 'infidel', and enslaved fellow human beings and suppressed women on the authority of their inerrant holy books. If McDonald shares a naturalist outlook with humanists that rejects supernaturalism, as he says he does, I'm curious where he finds this 'external force' outside of ourselves to curb our pride.
