But where are you getting the idea that humanists are basing their ideology on evolution (thereby committing the naturalistic fallacy)? — SophistiCat

As I said in my OP: there is a movement called "Evolutionary humanism" and in Germany it is the dominant philosophy/ideology among atheist humanists.

You have to be able to consider the meaning of actions for the idea of morality to mean anything. That’s why insanity is a defense.

They often believe that humans are smarter than other animals and capable of more things. I am not sure if 'human dignity' is one of their beliefs. They value human capabilities and nature. — Coben

If you take certain capacities of Homo sapiens as your base for human dignity or human rights, you 'll into troubled waters when a person does not have (any more) those capacities. Think of severely mentally handicaped persons, or comatose or demented people: they do not have those typically human faculties, but according to humanism they nevertheless have unalienable rights based on their specific human dignity. That is one of the basic aspects of humanism: that human beings have unalienable rights, regardless of their mental or physical capacities.

The one big question remains: where does this unalienable dignity come from? How can it be justified given that from the point of view of evolution H. sapiens is 'just' another animal?

An ethical system is typically named after its core value. The core value of humanism is the human being. If they are basing this value on something else, then they shouldn't be called humanists - they should be something else-ists (rationalists perhaps, if they claim to have purely rational foundations for their values). — SophistiCat

I am not sure humanism is an ethical system, but it does certainly value humans. However the main point is you are not taking my comment in context. When I say they can value whatever they want, I meant that Humanists are not bound, for some reason, to value based on evolution, which the other poster seems to think. Nor more than they need to justify or rationalize their values in terms of the theory of relativity or in terms of gravity.

I am not arguing that humanists don't value humans higher than other things. I am saying they are not bound to base their morality on evolution - a process in nature - or evolutionary theory. It's a category error to presume they must do this.

Humanists are not bound, for some reason, to value based on evolution, which the other poster seems to think — Coben

I guess that "the other poster" is me?
I never claimed that Humanism per se is bound to do this, only "Evolutionary humanism" which is the topic of my OP.
Of course humanism is much older than the idea of evolution and traditional, pre-Darwinian humanists based their core value on Christian ground: that Man - unlike any other creature - had been endowed with a divine spirit by his creator, and that therefore Man was the mediator between the sphere of the divine and sacred on the one side and nature on the other, lower side,

"Evolution" means:

- a blind and purposeless process driven by variation plus selection plus reproduction;
- survival of the fittest ;
- the absence of morality (to be a predator or parasite is not reprehensible) ;
- no species is superior to other species (only in the tautological sense that species A spreads at the expense of species B because A has traits that make it "fitter" in a certain environment. In a different environment the roles could be reversed) — Matias

Evolutionary theory is not a static science. There have been innovations in thinking about evolution among biologists since Darwin. Jean Piaget, Steven Rose and Francisco Varela are among those who posit a self-organizing systems approach to organic as well as cultural history.
In this approach, evolution is not blind and purposeless, but rather through natural drift and organism-environment coupling the organism is predisposed to mutate in directions that are compatible with its ongoing ways of functioning in its environment. The organizational principle of adaptive self-consistency is the 'morality' and 'purpose' of an organism, rather than blind conformity with an environment. Pragmatists like John Dewy and William James , and evolutionary psychologists like Dennett, also have called themselves humanists.

You have to be able to consider the meaning of actions for the idea of morality to mean anything. That’s why insanity is a defense. — Wayfarer

We know about human meanings of human actions; we can barely speculate about the different meanings of actions for the different kinds of animals.

How can it be justified given that from the point of view of evolution H. sapiens is 'just' another animal? — Matias

It is justified by the sentiment that H. sapiens is not just another animal, but our kind of animal. This is analogous to way the different kinds of social animals behave very differently towards their own kind than they do to other kinds. Think of the etymological connection between the words 'kindness' and 'kind'. Generally speaking to behave morally towards another is to behave with kindness.

In this approach, evolution is not blind and purposeless, but rather through natural drift and organism-environment coupling the organism is predisposed to mutate in directions that are compatible with its ongoing ways of functioning in its environment. — Joshs

Yes, although this approach does not advocate believing that evolution is intentional in the kind of way that human actions may be intentional. The kinds of 'self-organizing' 'embodied' 'enactivist' and 'systems' approaches you seem to be referencing generally have no truck with the idea that any supernatural or transcendent governing intelligence is "behind" the workings of nature, at least as far as I am aware. In other words such approaches are not at all transcendentalistic but rather immanentistic.

where does this unalienable dignity come from? How can it be justified given that from the point of view of evolution H. sapiens is 'just' another animal? — Matias

It comes from the religious conception that "Jesus died for all mankind". When that idea was introduced, it was extremely radical, as ancient Rome certainly didn't subscribe to any such notion, where captured people, slaves, and for that matter even Christians, were routinely subject to the most abominable treatment. Also interesting to note that the Chinese Communist Party seems not to subscribe to any such notion in that individual and group rights are invariably subjugated to the interests of the party-state.

But on a deeper level, it's also a question of philosophical anthropology. Does human kind represent anything more than other species? I would have thought the ability of humans to weigh and measure the Universe might suggest something along those lines. But one of the dogmas of the secular view of evolution, is that it has nothing like an overall direction or purpose, and so the fact of the existence of intelligent self-aware beings has no particular significance in the overall scheme.

one of the dogmas of the secular view of evolution, is that it has nothing like an overall direction or purpose, and so the fact of the existence of intelligent self-aware beings has no particular significance in the overall scheme. — Wayfarer

I would like to think that it is not necessary to create a barrier between the supposed human and the animal in order to affirm the worth of humanity. Wouldn't it be better to affirm the value of all living things? More specifically, in an era in which so many supposed distinctions between human mental functioning and that of higher animals have been shown to be in error (tool-use, emotion, altruism, language, self-awareness, culture), perhaps the lesson we should take from this is the danger of exceptionalist thinking.

As far as the issue of purpose in evolution, is it necessary, or even desirable, for that directionality to be pre-determined or totalized in a Hegelian sense? Can there not be self-organizational purpose whose direction constantly shifts in ways that maintain self-consistency but do not conform to final cause? Can we not be Nietzschean value-positers, simply there to enjoy the ride? Or Heideggerian disclosers of our ownmost uncanny, mysterious possibilities of being, whithout needing to get closer to some pre-figured end?

Morality has a survival advantage for the species and for the individual.

Therefore it is conceivable that morality entered the evolutionary process spontaneously or randomly, and as it turned out to be a survival advantage, many organizations (such as species, and Humanism) survived which otherwise maybe would have perished.

There, I just did this from the opening post.

Please note: this negates the point in the opening post which states that there is no room for morality in evolution. it is true that evolution has no principles and no guidance; in that sense, it has no morality. But some systems incorporated morality in their evolution. It's like evolution has no plans for legs to develop, and it has no legs, but those species that have legs are better off than those that don't. As a crude example.

It comes from the religious conception that "Jesus died for all mankind". — Wayfarer

The idea of a messiah predates the identification of Jesus as the Messiah. This was the "messianic age", an age in which it was believed that the messiah would come, and there were many who claimed or others believed was the messiah. The death of Jesus stood for some as evidence that he was not the promised messiah, but Paul, being the masterful rhetorician he was, turned it around and made Jesus' death fundamental to the Messiah's mission.

In any case, I do not see in this mythology the notion of inalienable rights and dignity. That is the language of Liberalism. For Paul there were the elect, those who would be saved, and everyone else. Salvation was open to all, but only those who sought it would be saved.

But one of the dogmas of the secular view of evolution, is that it has nothing like an overall direction or purpose, and so the fact of the existence of intelligent self-aware beings has no particular significance in the overall scheme. — Wayfarer

It is not clear what you mean by overall scheme if one rejects an overall direction or purpose. That there are intelligent self-aware beings is a given. One of the challenges of evolution is to figure out how this came to be. It is in this sense no different that figuring out how features, or feet, or lungs came to be.

Now one can put a metaphysical spin on it and claim something along the lines that in this way nature becomes aware of itself, but this kind of closed circle, teleological self-realization is not inherent in evolutionary theory.

Wouldn't it be better to affirm the value of all living things? — Joshs

Sure, absolutely. There was a depressing special on Australian TV Monday about the extinction rate here, and it's a national disgrace. It's a strong rationale for environmentalism. A lot of people would say that h. sapiens is currently like a plague on the Earth.

But the point about 'the human condition' is not that we're biologically different, but that we're existentially distinct. We can contemplate life, death and the meaning of it all. It's with that realisation that philosophy started. And one of the ancients remarked that, without the possibility of transcendence, then man would be the most miserable of animals. I think it behoves us to contemplate a destiny beyond that of procreation (although nowadays I think that's become sublimated into the wan hope of interstellar conquest).

Heideggerian disclosers of our ownmost uncanny, mysterious possibilities of being, without needing to get closer to some pre-figured end? — Joshs

Step back a little and recall the original motivation behind philosophy. According to Pierre Hadot ‘The goal of the ancient philosophies was to cultivate a specific, constant attitude toward existence, by way of the rational comprehension of the nature of humanity and its place in the cosmos. This cultivation required, specifically, that students learn to combat their passions and the illusory evaluative beliefs instilled by their passions, habits, and upbringing.’

As for the 'pre-figured end' - I see that very much in terms of how Christian doctrine became ossified into dogma. I think from the viewpoint of the gnostics, the Christian theories of the end of the world and second coming are all the consequence of the misinterpretation of the real facts of Christ's life and resurrection, projected onto the temporal world. What if the 'Kingdom of Heaven' never was a political state in the first place?

Now one can put a metaphysical spin on it and claim something along the lines that in this way nature becomes aware of itself, but this kind of closed circle, teleological self-realization is not inherent in evolutionary theory. — Fooloso4

Of course, but that is very much due to the Enlightenment context of evolutionary theory. Darwin was often equivocal about his philosophical outlook but his desire to conform with the general hard-headed scientific rationalism of the 'Scottish Enlightenment' was a deciding factor. I don’t think Darwin himself was at all strident about philosophy - Darwin was never strident - but his later acolytes were able to adapt that hard-edged rationalism for polemical purposes, which is what gives rise to the so-called 'ultra darwinism' that you find in much atheist polemics. Whereas, there has also been a vein of evolutionary idealism, if you like - in fact even Alfred Russel Wallace was more inclined to that view, with his interest in spiritualism, although of course in current culture, that immediately puts him outside the pale! (Worth being familiar with his Darwinism Applied to Man.)

One of the challenges of evolution is to figure out how this came to be. It is in this sense no different that figuring out how features, or feet, or lungs came to be. — Fooloso4

But not quite. Again, I fully accept the biological account - one of my favourite books a few years back was Your Inner Fish, by Neil Shubin, which provided a great telling of how many of our anatomical features can be found in rudimentary form in an ancient fossil and how they evolved through the billions of years since. No question there - except, again, for 'why'? What drove that? Is there any overarching purpose to it beyond survival and propagation? You may or may not agree but whichever view you take, I don't think that's a scientific question.

I would put it like this: there's methodological naturalism, which excludes factors that can't be considered by empirical observation and measurement; but this easily morphs into metaphysical naturalism, which says that, therefore, nothing beyond empirical observation and measurement can be said to be real. That is particularly evident in the polemics of scientific atheism. From the fact of biological evolution, many judgements of meaning are drawn which are actually well beyond its scope. Like, questions of meaning and purpose have been 'bracketed out', not 'discovered not to exist'.

Case in point - there's a well-known and often quoted saying from a famous evolutionary biologist, 'nothing makes sense in biology except in the light of evolution', which was the title of an essay by Theodosius Dobzhansky, criticising anti-evolution creationism. He was one of the founders of the 'modern evolutionary synthesis':

'In 1937, he published one of the major works of the modern evolutionary synthesis, the synthesis of evolutionary biology with genetics, entitled Genetics and the Origin of Species, which amongst other things, defined evolution as "a change in the frequency of an allele within a gene pool'.

So, one of the founders of the neo-Darwinian synthesis. But he also professed the Orthodox faith. Later in life he published a book, The Biology of Ultimate Concern, which argued against any form of orthogenesis (directional evolution), creationism or what would become 'intelligent design' (the term hadn't been coined then), but he remained an admirer of Teilhard du Chardin, and certainly contemplated evolution in light of a spiritual 'summum bonum' (highest good) - hence the title!

Many blurry lines and porous boundaries in this area; never so cut-and-dried as the fundamentalists on both sides would like to think.

No question there - except, again, for 'why'? What drove that? Is there any overarching purpose to it beyond survival and propagation? You may or may not agree but whichever view you take, I don't think that's a scientific question. — Wayfarer

I do agree that these are not scientific questions, but whether they are a good philosophical question is open to discussion. The ability to ask such questions does not mean they must have answers.

i suppose i often dont have too much to say
— Frotunes

Then don't. — SophistiCat

I second this.

My advice is don't lose faith in Philosophy, believe in yourself.