by Doug Berger

In my last essay I described some of the basic assumptions of Humanism. In this edition I want to talk about one of the prime precepts of Humanism, and all of Freethought.

Critical thinking is THE most important tool we can use to evaluate truth and to work out human solutions to human problems. You would be surprised at the number of people who think they know what critical thinking means and either have it all wrong, or use it incorrectly. Critical thinking is not just having two or more sides to an issue or story. Critical thinking helps us construct and understand a reasoned argument. It also helps us discover false arguments. The question of if we like the conclusion of the argument we reach isn’t that important, only that the conclusion follows from the premise or starting point and whether that premise is true.

Carl Sagan, astronomer and astrobiologist, in his book “The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark” (1996), gives some tools to use in our critical thinking. He says these tools are a ‘baloney detection kit’. Although Sagan focuses on science arguments, we can use these tools, with slight adjustments, for other areas of our lives. The tools include:

• Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the “facts.”
• Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
• Arguments from authority carry little weight — “authorities” have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.
• Spin more than one hypothesis. If there’s something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among “multiple working hypotheses,” has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.
• Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don’t, others will.
• Quantify. If whatever it is you’re explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you’ll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses. What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations. Of course there are truths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront, but finding them is more challenging.
• If there’s a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work (including the premise) — not just most of them.
• Occam’s Razor. This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.
• Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified. Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much. Consider the grand idea that our Universe and everything in it is just an elementary particle — an electron, say — in a much bigger Cosmos. But if we can never acquire information from outside our Universe, is not the idea incapable of disproof? You must be able to check assertions out. Inveterate skeptics must be given the chance to follow your reasoning, to duplicate your experiments and see if they get the same result.

Sagan also describes thinks we shouldn’t do when trying to use critical thinking. Your argument or reasoning will fail if you use these:

• ad hominem — Latin for “to the man,” attacking the arguer and not the argument (e.g., The Reverend Dr. Smith is a known Biblical fundamentalist, so her objections to evolution need not be taken seriously);
• Argument from authority (e.g., President Richard Nixon should be re-elected because he has a secret plan to end the war in Southeast Asia — but because it was secret, there was no way for the electorate to evaluate it on its merits; the argument amounted to trusting him because he was President: a mistake, as it turned out);
• Argument from adverse consequences (e.g., A God meting out punishment and reward must exist, because if He didn’t, society would be much more lawless and dangerous — perhaps even ungovernable.* Or: The defendant in a widely publicized murder trial must be found guilty; otherwise, it will be an encouragement for other men to murder their wives);
• Appeal to ignorance — the claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa (e.g., There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the Earth; therefore UFOs exist — and there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe. Or: There may be seventy kazillion other worlds, but not one is known to have the moral advancement of the Earth, so we’re still central to the Universe.) This impatience with ambiguity can be criticized in the phrase: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
• Special pleading, often to rescue a proposition in deep rhetorical trouble (e.g., How can a merciful God condemn future generations to torment because, against orders, one woman induced one man to eat an apple? Special plead: you don’t understand the subtle Doctrine of Free Will. Or: How can there be an equally godlike Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in the same Person? Special plead: You don’t understand the Divine Mystery of the Trinity. Or: How could God permit the followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — each in their own way enjoined to heroic measures of loving kindness and compassion — to have perpetrated so much cruelty for so long? Special plead: You don’t understand Free Will again. And anyway, God moves in mysterious ways.)
• Begging the question, also called assuming the answer (e.g., We must institute the death penalty to discourage violent crime. But does the violent crime rate in fact fall when the death penalty is imposed? Or: The stock market fell yesterday because of a technical adjustment and profit-taking by investors — but is there any independent evidence for the causal role of “adjustment” and profit-taking; have we learned anything at all from this purported explanation?);
• Observational selection, also called the enumeration of favorable circumstances, or as the philosopher Francis Bacon described it, counting the hits and forgetting the misses (e.g., A state boasts of the Presidents it has produced, but is silent on its serial killers);
• Statistics of small numbers — a close relative of observational selection (e.g., “They say 1 out of every 5 people is Chinese. How is this possible? I know hundreds of people, and none of them is Chinese. Yours truly.” Or: “I’ve thrown three sevens in a row. Tonight I can’t lose.”);
• Misunderstanding of the nature of statistics (e.g., President Dwight Eisenhower expressing astonishment and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below average intelligence);
• Inconsistency (e.g., Prudently plan for the worst of which a potential military adversary is capable, but thriftily ignore scientific projections on environmental dangers because they’re not “proved.” Or: Attribute the declining life expectancy in the former Soviet Union to the failures of communism many years ago, but never attribute the high infant mortality rate in the United States (now highest of the major industrial nations) to the failures of capitalism. Or: Consider it reasonable for the Universe to continue to exist forever into the future, but judge absurd the possibility that it has infinite duration into the past);
• Non sequitur — Latin for “It doesn’t follow” (e.g., Our nation will prevail because God is great. But nearly every nation pretends this to be true; the German formulation was “Gott mit uns”). Often those falling into the non sequitur fallacy have simply failed to recognize alternative possibilities;
• Post hoc, ergo propter hoc — Latin for “It happened after, so it was caused by” (e.g., Jaime Cardinal Sin, Archbishop of Manila: “I know of … a 26-year-old who looks 60 because she takes [contraceptive] pills.” Or: Before women got the vote, there were no nuclear weapons);
• Excluded middle, or false dichotomy — considering only the two extremes in a continuum of intermediate possibilities (e.g., “Sure, take his side; my husband’s perfect; I’m always wrong.” Or: “Either you love your country or you hate it.” Or: “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem”);
• Short-term vs. long-term — a subset of the excluded middle, but so important I’ve pulled it out for special attention (e.g., We can’t afford programs to feed malnourished children and educate pre-school kids. We need to urgently deal with crime on the streets. Or: Why explore space or pursue fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?);
• Slippery slope, related to excluded middle (e.g., If we allow abortion in the first weeks of pregnancy, it will be impossible to prevent the killing of a full-term infant. Or, conversely: If the state prohibits abortion even in the ninth month, it will soon be telling us what to do with our bodies around the time of conception);
• Confusion of correlation and causation (e.g., A survey shows that more college graduates are homosexual than those with lesser education; therefore education makes people gay. Or: Andean earthquakes are correlated with closest approaches of the planet Uranus; therefore — despite the absence of any such correlation for the nearer, more massive planet Jupiter — the latter causes the former);

The boloney detection kit isn’t 100% perfect but when used correctly it can help us make reasoned decisions about many areas of our lives.

Part of this essay originally appeared in the July/August 2006 Central Ohio Humanist. Doug is the founder and editor of iHumanism, editor of the Central Ohio Humanist, and founder and editor of the Secular Left blog. ©2006 Doug Berger, used with permission. Please give proper attribution if using parts of this essay in other works.

by Doug Berger

Most of us, when finally discovering Humanism and taking the plunge, ask ‘What’s next?’ Some of us wonder how to apply our new found philosophy to our daily lives. Even some of us want to learn about the different aspects of the philosophy.

This is the first of a series where I will discuss some of the items noted above. I will touch on what the basic Humanist consensus is and how to apply it in one’s daily life.

Of course since Humanism is not dogmatic and I’m not the Humanist Pope, I’m just going to express my view and interpretations of Humanism. You may not agree with everything I have to say, but I hope I give you something to think about.

In future articles I may include what other HCCO members and friends have to say about a particular topic.

To start this undertaking, I need to state some basic common assumptions about Humanism so you understand what I am talking about in later articles. You could call them assumptions, precepts, or foundations. They are based on my reading of various texts from Humanists about Humanism.

My sources include Corliss Lamont and Lloyd and Mary Morain for a start. I’ll try to introduce some other writers and thinkers about Humanism in later essays.

Humanism is a non-theistic worldview. Notice I didn’t say atheist or agnostic. That is because it isn’t about a belief or non-belief in a deity that is important. What is important is that a belief of or about some deity or force outside of nature is irrelevant to living ones life as a Humanist. People may feel good with the rituals or the traditions of a religion but those items don’t have any bearing on living as a Humanist.

In his book “The Philosophy of Humanism,” Corliss Lamont wrote:

Humanism believes in a naturalistic metaphysics or attitude toward the universe that considers all forms of the supernatural as myth; and that regards Nature as the totality of being and as a constantly changing system of matter and energy which exists independently of any mind or consciousness.

It is important to note that while a belief in a deity is not of primary importance, freedom of conscience is important. That’s why it can seem, from the outside, that Humanists are anti-religious. We aren’t “anti-religious.” We support religious liberty and freedom of conscience for all and when we do try and protect those issues we are speaking and acting against religious authoritarians but not the average people who may believe in a deity.

Humanism supports justice and equality for all. This idea is about fairness. Philosopher John Rawls wrote a book in 1971 called A Theory of Justice. Rawls lays out the basic idea.

First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others. [Rawls, p24]

Second: social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that:
a) offices and positions must be open to everyone under conditions of fair equality of opportunity
b) they are to be of the greatest benefit to the least-advantaged members of society (the difference principle).[Rawls, 1971, pg. 303]

In 2001 he published a revised theory that had been corrected over the years since the first book but it still contained the core idea that:

Society’s institutions should be set up such that we would find the outcome fair and just even if we entered society without knowing in advance what our race, religion, or social class might be. We should consider the system just regardless of where in that system we find ourselves.

Of particular importance for Rawls in this book is the question of pluralism in society: if people differ on morality, religion, and philosophy, how can they live together in a single democratic society? Rawls argues that conformity on ‘comprehensive worldviews’ can only be achieved by imposing it via a repressive state; therefore, significant pluralism must be accepted. [Review by Austin Cline - atheism.about.com]

Humanism is a-political. Neither extreme is correct. Some Humanists have claimed one must be a Liberal while another group thinks one has to be a Libertarian. While applying Humanism to political issues tends to fit a more liberal outlook, the philosophy is not predicated on a particular political belief or agenda.

Most Humanists I know, myself included, are independent politically. We believe in the greatest good for the greatest number of people while mitigating any harm to those who may be left out. It is also about finding the best solution for human problems and the best might come from the right or the left.

Lloyd and Mary Morain wrote in their book “Humanism As The Next Step”:

Consider these central ideas. We ourselves must take responsibility for making the world a better place in which to live, as there is no being or power, called by whatever name, to whom we can shift this task. We have the means to improve the world through effective use of our human abilities.

Humanism is filtered by one’s experiences and background so it important to have new experiences and to learn about other perspectives.

Lamont wrote:

Humanism believes that the individual attains the good life by harmoniously combining personal satisfactions and continuous self-development with significant work and other activities that contribute to the welfare of the community.

We must be open to new ideas and challenges to our established ideas if we are progress and evolve toward a better world and life.

Humanism uses logic and reason tempered by compassion to find truth in our world. Rather than relying on faith or revelation, Humanists require concrete evidence and testable information. Using logic and reason to find truth has led to some complaints that we are cold people who support a survivor of the fittest social Darwinism. That’s where the compassion comes in.While we use reason and logic, we also have to remember that we are dealing with issues that affect people ? real people. What might be “true” from reason and logic may not be the correct way as it might do harm to others.

One concept that was “true” but not correct was Humanist support for Eugenics before World War II. It was a social philosophy, which advocated the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention. The purported goals were to create healthier, more intelligent people, save society’s resources, and lessen human suffering. Unfortunately, Eugenics was used to justify coercive state-sponsored discrimination and severe human rights violations, such as forced sterilization and even genocide.

Humanism is not static. It continues to evolve as new information and thinking comes up. Unlike the average theist, Humanists don’t rest when we find an answer. Like on the issue of Eugenics, Humanists can and do change our minds when new information requires it.

Humanism is first about the individual but the community in which we live is also important. It is pretty simple really. We as individuals are better off and happier when the community in which we live is happy, and the community can be happy when each of us, as individuals, work to make it so.

It isn’t an all consuming altruism but we do what we do to benefit the community because it will benefit ourselves.

Notice that many of these assumptions seem to overlap or are dependent on other assumptions. I’m sure many wish it could all be absolute like say the 10 Commandments, but what I like about Humanism is that these precepts feed on one another. It adds interest and complexity that make for good philosophical discussions.

Next time - How do we apply Humanism in our daily lives?

This essay originally appeared in the May/June 2006 Central Ohio Humanist. Doug is the founder and editor of iHumanism, editor of the Central Ohio Humanist, and founder and editor of the Secular Left blog. ©2006 Doug Berger, used with permission. Please give proper attribution if using parts of this essay in other works.

by Alistair Robinson

Most of us are outraged by the violent actions of animal rights extremists, but at the same time the movement’s ideas and assumptions are gaining a foothold in the media and the public imagination. From my own experience it seems that among the young thinking people of this country animal rights is a very attractive political and ethical stance. My question is this: how can we be sure that things such as empathy for animals, concern for their moral status, and a desire to put them on a par with humans, do not stem only from a false attribution of uniquely human emotions?

We have a predisposition to see ourselves in the world around us: we endow the universe with human characteristics such as consciousness, and call it God; we hear an expression of love in a cat?s purr; we see an ancient oak as dignified and venerable. This is anthropomorphism. We attribute human characteristics to the things of the world, and those things are independent of that attribution: the fact that we have decided that they have qualities of our own does not make a difference to the actuality of the things themselves. It is, though, natural and important to the way we perceive the world. Unfortunately this means that we often naturally perceive the world falsely, that is, irrationally. Now this is not always a problem (the dawn chorus sounds like joy, and it makes us joyful - so what?), and it is mostly resisted in the areas where it might bias our judgement to dire effect, such as science. But there is an increasing acceptance of anthropomorphism in supposedly rational debates about the differences between humans and animals. And as we shall see, even in some scientific research there is a susceptibility to it.

Leaving aside the arguments about whether or not animals have, or should have, inalienable rights, one persuasive argument for better animal welfare is that the inhumane treatment of animals is uncivilized: that it dehumanizes and brutalizes us. After all, our actions are conscious and chosen, because we are uniquely self-aware and free. We can see that if cruelty repulses us and evokes imaginative emotions and empathy (anthropomorphic as we are) then it might follow that continually straining these responses will desensitize us to cruelty in general, stripping us of our compassion for all beings, including our fellow humans. And this may be true for society as well as for individuals.

Philosopher Daniel Dennett suggests that just as the mistreatment of the dead bodies of our loved ones would be unacceptable to us - despite our knowing that the person has gone - so there may be a similarly good reason to treat animals well, no matter if our empathy and compassion are anthropomorphic. Culture carries with it beliefs and customs that are important to us, and not necessarily because they have obvious practical value or a basis in a true perception of the world.

I do believe that the humane treatment of animals is preferable for these reasons, but we are now seeing anthropomorphism encroach on the part of our society that should be free from it: science. Anthropomorphic conclusions are being presented as additions to our body of knowledge about the world. Some science is now being claimed - often, it seems, by the scientists themselves - to bear out the assumptions of animal rights activists: ?Does a hook hurt a fish? The evidence is reeling in.?¹

In this article I will concentrate on the ideas of cruelty and suffering. There are more fundamental problems to be tackled when looking deeply into animal rights philosophy: if we decide to give an animal independent moral status, doesn?t that mean that we presuppose the capacity to make moral decisions, and ultimately the capacity of consciousness? Can a species be conscious at all if it has not developed language? Some neuroscientists, as well as some modern philosophers, have said that it cannot. And then we have the controversy over the communicative abilities of chimpanzees. I will look briefly at consciousness further on, but here I leave these issues open, and turn to suffering.

A recent study by a team from the Roslin Institute and the University of Edinburgh concluded that fish feel pain, implying that angling is cruel. Researchers tested the neural responses of rainbow trout and injected the fish with mild poisons. A few incontrovertible statements can be made in the light of the study?s findings: fish have specific neural receptors that respond to heat, mechanical pressure and acid; the neurons fire in a way very similar to the firing patterns of human neurons in response to adverse stimuli; fish behave abnormally when their lips are injected with bee venom and vinegar, rocking from side to side and breathing very rapidly; and the abnormal behaviours and symptoms are not seen - or at least not to the same extent - either in fish that are simply handled or those that are given an injection of a harmless substance.

What are we to conclude from all this? It is truly an addition to our knowledge - it is especially enlightening on the evolutionary divergence of bony fishes and cartilaginous fishes - but can we conclude from it that fish feel pain? To begin with there is the problem that such a conclusion depends upon a scientific definition of pain, of which there is none. We might define it with reference to the actions of neurons in response to adverse stimuli, but this is only the physiological cause: when we use the word we mean the experience. Even behavioural responses need not be concomitant with an experiential mental state. It seems to me that an adequate definition must take in psychology as well as physiology and behaviour. So it might be that we cannot proceed strictly by deduction from the scientific results to the presence of pain. But why shouldn?t we make a reasonable conclusion based on some other reasonable assumptions? It may seem too obvious to be denied that if another vertebrate species behaves in the same way as we do under a corresponding stimulus, and if its physiological responses to that stimulus are the same as ours, then it feels what we feel.

We can see the assumptions being made here more clearly if we consider a definition, given by contemporary philosopher David DeGrazia, of another kind of suffering: anxiety. DeGrazia gives four components to anxiety, all having been observed scientifically in animals:

1. Autonomic hyperactivity (rapid pulse and breathing, sweating, etc.)
2. Motor tension (jumpiness)
3. Inhibition of normal behaviours
4. Hyperattentiveness (visual scanning, etc.)

These are the symptoms of anxiety that we see in humans. But it might be misleading to group these as a definition of anxiety, because we are accustomed to using the word to signify more than the physiological and behavioural symptoms. When we say anxiety and mean an experience, we cannot omit the thing that allows us to experience in the first place: consciousness of the self existing through time, or temporal self-awareness - the very thing that allows us to be aware of what is happening to us. And DeGrazia does in fact assume this to be the context of the four components, both in humans and in animals. So the definition above, if we are to apply it across the board, asks that we assume what we are trying to prove: that animals experience things in the way that we do.

I now want to present a candidate for the presumed logical argument of all those who claim scientific back-up for the idea that animals experience something akin to human suffering; that fish feel pain or that deer suffer stress. But first I must clear up my meanings. In my argument so far, pain and anxiety are more or less interchangeable. We might also add fear to the list. They are kinds of suffering that have behavioural and physiological symptoms, and that are said by some to be experienced by animals. So to make things simpler I will use the word suffering. Now, I have cast doubt on certain uses of the words pain and anxiety. Taking this further (perhaps too far), even suffering could be said to apply only to humans. So for convenience I will use it to mean simply the state of a being subjected to adverse stimuli.

For the science to be conclusive on its own, the logic needs to run like this:

1. The nature of both human and nonhuman suffering is in essence physiological and behavioural
2. The human and nonhuman physiological and behavioural characteristics of suffering are the same
3. Therefore nonhuman suffering is in essence the same as human suffering

The logic is valid but not necessarily true: statement 2 is definitely provable but statement 1 is disputable. It could also be seen as an example of petitio principii reasoning, where the conclusion is taken for granted in a premise, in this case statement 1.

This is something of a caricature, and I did state earlier that even if a deductive argument doesn?t work, we might still reasonably make conclusions. A fairer representation of the argument might be that the evidence points to the probability of pain and anxiety in animals, if we also accept that many animals are to some extent temporally self-aware, or conscious. Here we can see the same problem cropping up again: whatever the scientific results tell us, they need to be interpreted in a certain way if they are to lead to: QED fish feel pain. So the whole question turns on whether it is a reasonable assumption that animals are conscious, something that I cannot cover here in much depth. But crucially we have seen that the cited scientific evidence alone is silent on the question of whether fish feel pain, because it is silent on the question of whether fish are conscious.

Suffering does take on a different quality in a conscious, imaginatively emotional being. As we experience it, it depends upon our sense of ourselves, our sense of the passage of time and of the changing fortunes in our lives. When we are subjected to adverse stimuli we feel pain, anxiety and fear for the very reason that we are conscious of what is happening to us - we experience the stimuli, not only respond unwittingly to them. But because we share so much of our evolutionary history with animals, the outward signs of these responses are similar. We recognize distress in another human being and can be forgiven for attributing the same set of emotions to an animal if we see it behave in the same way.

Even if we are looking only at the science we find disagreement. There is evidence to suggest that fish do not have the capacity to feel pain. Previous studies have found that they do not have an area of the brain corresponding to our own neural pain-processor - the neocortex - so that although the same signals are sent to the brain, there is no recognizable pain-experience-producing region to go to when they arrive. This at least tells us that we cannot describe what it is like to be a suffering fish, because its brain processes the signals in an alien way. How, then, can we make any sort of moral conclusion on this, unless we simply decide - guided by taste, inclination and sentiment - that fish do experience something like human suffering?

Before I conclude, I will touch upon the problem of consciousness, which is probably the crux of the matter. I suggested earlier that a being cannot be conscious without language. Neuroscientists Gerald M. Edelman and Giulio Tononi have written that the concepts of the self and the past and future emerged only when language appeared in the course of evolution, in communities of speakers. There must have been an intimate connection between social development and the evolution of consciousness, and language must be the likeliest contender for that connection.

It has been argued that although we (a) use language and (b) are conscious, (b) need not depend on (a). If it did, the argument goes, babies would not be able to feel pain or experience fear before they developed their language ability. There are two points to be made here. First, it is probably true that new-born babies are not quite conscious. We nurture and protect them while knowing that from the outset they are developing, becoming more and more human. Second, modern cognitive psychology and linguistics tells us that a baby is learning language right from the start. New-born babies have linguistic skills, because language is partly built-in: it is not just a matter of filling an empty brain with vocabulary and syntax. It seems problematic, then, to back up the claim that language is not necessary for consciousness by comparing animals to babies, which are just humans in development.

But consciousness is another story - a complicated one and the hottest topic for philosophers today - and I must leave it there.

Few of us want to see animals being treated inhumanely, but we would do well to consider how our natural and perhaps inaccurate assumptions about the inner lives of animals can affect our understanding of the true differences between ourselves and other species. Animal rights has more adherents than ever before, and many who profess no passionate beliefs on the subject seem to accept its ideas. The media is currently highly responsive to claims about pain and stress in animals, and science at times is taking anthropomorphism at face-value, and allowing it to bias its conclusions.

This could well be to do with the mood of the age, one that happily brings man down a peg or two on the scale of importance at every opportunity. While it is to be welcomed that thanks to science we no longer see ourselves at the centre of the universe as destiny?s chosen creatures, we also need to keep ourselves from allowing the spirit of the times to colour our unique, rational understanding of the world.

1. Randerson, J. 2003 Does a hook hurt a fish? The evidence is reeling in. New Scientist May: 15