Discussion Group Report

"We constantly hear the same refrain, that without God, morality is impossible," says Paul Kurtz in his article, "The Common Moral Decencies: Essential Guidelines for Humanists," in The Newsletter of the Secular Family Network, Winter 2000\01. "Religious folks everywhere tell us that moral conduct requires religious foundations: 'If it is absent, anything goes!.'"

We deny this claim. Not all religious believers are moral and many or most humanists are. Kurtz points out that believers of different faiths have argued for or against monogamy, polygamy, divorce, suicide, slavery, women's rights, democracy, or the divine right of kings. Some of the great humanists in history have made significant contributions to human welfare and have demonstrated in their own lives the principles of moral conduct.

Humanists ought to strive to be considerate of the needs and feelings of others. There can be a rational foundation for ethical conduct, and the humanist morality is rooted in both reason and compassion. Like Aristotle, we should encourage the moral development of character in our children.

Kurtz thinks our basic principles should be: 1) That each individual has only one life to live, and that he or she should live it fully. We should take personal responsibility for our individual destiny; should satisfy our creative potentialities in order to achieve a significant, satisfying, and happy life; should strive to attain levels of excellence within our own personal lives; and should cultivate critical thinking and the reflective attitude to evaluate our values. 2) That each person has equal dignity and value. 3) That we should develop an empathetic other-regarding attitude toward others. 4) That the second and third principles above apply first and foremost to the individuals we encounter immediately in our own family, school or workplace, and the face-to-face communities in which we interact, 5) That these ethical principles should be extended to the broader society in which we live and indeed to the entire planetary community. Still, our first responsibility is to the small communities in which we are daily engaged.

He suggests our obligation in principle to follow what he calls the common moral decencies: 1) integrity: to tell the truth, keep our promises, be sincere, and be honest; 2) trustworthiness: to express fidelity and loyalty to our friends and relatives and be dependable; 3) benevolence: to have good will toward others, never knowingly harm other persons nor seize their property, never force our sexual desires on others, and show beneficence toward others; 4) fairness: to express gratitude for past deeds performed on our behalf, be held accountable to others for any misdeeds we have done, try to abide by the principles of justice, be tolerant of others, and try to cooperate and negotiate our differences peacefully.

We should avoid, where we can, untruthfulness, infidelity, disloyalty, hatred, envy, resentment, and unfairness; and we should emphasize a positive moral attitude toward others. Why? Because we have internalized these principles; we see that they make eminent good sense and we judge them consequentially by their effectiveness within the community. "As humanists," Kurtz proposes, "we are not decent because a church dictates such behavior or threatens to punish our sins or transgressions, but because we recognize morality's rational basis."