Humanism Versus Mystrikism
3. The Meaning of 'Humanism'
As I worked our way through the key humanist manifestos, declarations and principles, I gave some hints about the primary concerns of humanists stemming from the birth of modern humanism during the Enlightenment. I now want to explore that further, as misunderstandings about the history of humanism have led to significant confusions about its intent. McDonald suffers from this confusion when he writes in the introduction of his critique of humanism that 'Humanism, often centred on promoting human welfare, scientific inquiry, and ethical living, is frequently critiqued for its anthropocentric focus.' (Woodhouse's 'Sentientism' makes this same mistake. I respond to this Sentientist criticism in Allan [2025].)
The idea that humanism is 'anthropocentric' can arise quite naturally as the word 'human' forms the first part of the term used for this philosophy. Those unfamiliar with humanism easily fall into the trap of thinking that 'humanism' is 'human-centric' in the sense of promoting human-exceptionalism at the cost of other sentient creatures. Humanists UK [2021a] puts this common misunderstanding succinctly:
Sometimes people think that because humanists are called humanists that they are unduly or narrowly concerned with the rights and welfare of human beings. But this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the word 'humanism': most humanists are strong supporters of animal welfare and recognise the necessity of sensible policy that respects and acknowledges animal sentience and their capacity to suffer. Humanists are called humanists because as human beings we try to make ethical decisions on the basis of our human capacity to reason, rather than looking to sources outside of human experience for guidance about what is right and wrong (in this sense, humanism contrasts with theism).
In order to respond to this misunderstanding, let's first get clear on what 'anthropocentric' means. Here is how three reputable dictionaries render the meaning of this word:
1 : considering human beings as the most significant entity of the universe
2 : interpreting or regarding the world in terms of human values and experiences
considering humans and their existence as the most important and central fact in the universe
regarding humans as the most important and central factor in the universe
[Collins]
So, for a world view to be 'anthropocentric' is expressly to put human beings at the centre of moral concern, akin to how racists elevate the moral importance of a certain race and how sexists put on a pedestal a certain sex. The humanist documents McDonald cites and that I reviewed above, in fact, show the opposite to be the case. As we saw, these documents from the major Humanist organizations reference the 'intrinsic value' of all life, the grounding of values in 'the global ecosystem and beyond' and our 'responsibility for the natural world'. These can hardly be counted as seeing ourselves as the 'most significant' and 'central factor in the universe' to the exclusion of all else.
Attending to the history of humanism and how the term came about ought to dispel further any fears that humanists promote this kind of human-exceptionalism. (Yuval Noah Harari spreads his own misconceptions about the term 'humanism' in his book, Sapiens. Humanists UK [2023c] responds comprehensively to Harari's mistakes, so I won't say more about them here. See also his exchange with humanist philosopher, A. P. Norman [Harari and Norman 2018].)
The use of the English word 'humanist' first appeared in the late 16th Century as a retrospective description of certain scholars during the Renaissance who worked to resurrect and study the ancient texts in their own language. Studying the holy texts as part of this endeavour, these scholars eschewed strict dogmatic theological interpretations to study them in their cultural context as human creations. The label 'humanist' for these scholars derives from the Italian 'umanista', a term we associate today with the 'humanities'—studies in philosophy, literature and history. Humanities scholars still use the term 'humanist' today to refer to these Renaissance students of language and society. However, this is not how the term is used by modern humanists to refer to themselves.
During the period of the European Enlightenment from the 17th to the early 19th Centuries, what is today called 'humanism' evolved significantly. This period witnessed a surge in intellectual and philosophical exploration, emphasizing human reason, experimental science and individual freedom. Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire, David Hume, Denis Diderot, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and Thomas Paine advocated for humanistic values such as rational thinking, human rights and the alleviation of misery and suffering for all. This era saw a progressive shift away both from supernatural explanations for natural phenomena and theological justifications for controlling individual and social behaviour.
Starting in the 19th Century and increasingly in the early 20th Century, the term 'humanism' was applied to this enlightened non-religious and non-theistic approach to life that decoupled human reason and morality from supposed divine revelation and the wishes of an imagined divine being. Incorporating the word 'human' in 'humanism' signified this reliance on human reason and our moral capacity for empathy to ascertain what is true and what is good and right independently of the old religious dogmas. What is important to note here is that with this earliest appellation of the word to this kind of outlook, incorporating the term 'human' did not signify an anti-animal or anti-environmental intent. (Andrew Copson covers the historical meanings of the term 'humanism' and what it means today in his book chapter titled What Is Humanism? published in The Wiley Blackwell Handbook on Humanism [Copson and Grayling, eds, 2015].)
From the mid-20th Century, societies of individuals started self-identifying with the 'humanism' label. In the U.S., the American Humanist Association (AHA) was formed in 1941. Internationalising the movement got started in 1946 when the World Union of Freethinkers held a conference in London on The Challenge of Humanism. In 1950, a Humanist Council was formed to bring together various secularist and Humanist organisations. The global movement of Humanism coalesced when in 1952, five Humanist organizations got together to form the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) (now named Humanists International). In a further move, in 1956 the Literary Guide was renamed to The Humanist (now named New Humanist). Then in 1967, the Ethical Union became the British Humanist Association (now named Humanists UK). From the early 1960s, Humanist societies were formed in the various states in my home country of Australia. (For more on the history of humanism, see Tribe [1967], Dahlitz [1994], American Humanist Association [2021], Humanists UK [2023d] and Wikipedia [2024].)
All of these modern humanist organizations and the many others I have not mentioned continue the legacy of those earlier Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment pioneers who advocated for the use of human reason and the development of an ethic based on the human values of compassion and fairness. These ideas were promulgated as a more fruitful approach compared with the dogmatic and repressive religious creeds of the day.
Once we recognize the initial impetus and continuing raison d'être of the Humanist movement in providing a positive alternative to the religious view of life, humanists highlighting and pushing back against religious dogma and intolerance should come as no surprise. Given this historical focus, it should become clear that the humanist philosophy neither minimizes the moral significance of non-human sentient creatures nor the importance of our shared natural environment.
I would much prefer McDonald to be using his energies in dispelling these misconceptions of humanism instead of further propagating them. Humanism is not a decrepit form of Mystrikism that requires decommissioning. It has its own unique place in history and serves a vital function in today's world of dangerous conspiracy theories, rising religious nationalism and persecution of free thinkers. I will have more to say on this in the next section.
