Humanistic Values: Definition and Examples

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:44

Humanism is a definition for a range of beliefs and values. To the extent that a person shares these beliefs and attitudes, he can call himself a humanist. What is important for humanists is that there are many values, and they are based on the ideas of the humanities. They flow from human relationships; subsequently, they also help shape social institutions and determine human activities.

What are values

Values are ideas that help us act. In this they are like plans, goals, fears, intentions, policies, etc. All these are ideas that lead us to action.

Among these ideas, some values refer only to the way we act, not the consequences (as plans, goals, and fears) or the mere fact of their work (both intentions and policies).

There is no definite way to separate the values, but there is a partial taxonomy. For example, there are values associated with the attitude towards other people, with actions, with the attitude towards things.

The concept of humanism

It can be seen as a worldview or a way of life, as a more or less undeniable doctrine. Collectively, it is a set of beliefs and values that are a way of looking at the world - a philosophy that many people live their lives by.

The word "humanism" is used in a variety of ways - it was coined in the eighteenth century to describe the renaissance of classical learning during the Renaissance, is associated with the idea of the liberal arts, and came to be applied to the current kind of non-religious lifestyle only in the early twentieth century. The meaning of words is determined by their use, and the organized humanist movement does not have a monopoly on the use of the word "humanism".

Humanism and morality

One of the key ideas that the representatives of the humanistic direction adhere to is that people are part of human nature, moral beings. On the other hand, people are not moral in the sense of good, but all of them, with the exception of psychopaths and extremely autistic people, have the ability to think morally and cannot avoid it. What is called morality (these are ideas of right or wrong) arises simply from human nature.

In fact, humanism is an alternative to religion that performs the same function as the latter. It allows a person to shape his attitude to the world.

Mind

One of the core humanistic values is the importance given to truth and rational thought as the only proven way to ensure knowledge of the facts of the universe.

Religious people often give excellent or comforting answers, even if they doubt how true they are or will rely on undeniable dogma in the face of evidence that it is clearly false. Often critics of the so-called new atheism dismiss the critique of religion, saying that it relies on religion as a set of assumptions, hypotheses that seem to make no sense. Instead, these critics say, religion is a felt experience, a relationship, or something else.

It is difficult for humanists to see the difference, except in comparative antiquity, between mainstream religion and "new age" people who accept mindless nonsense about crystal healing powers, feng shui, astrology or alternative medicine, and who refuse to test it in controlled tests. For humanists, faith must be proportionate to the evidence. Humanists see the value of skepticism when the evidence is inadequate and reject dogma, religious, political or any other kind.

Thus, humanists reject ideas and theories that are not reasonable, and do not accept concepts that are not supported by adequate evidence. The goal of the humanists is to get as close to the truth as possible. They think it's crazy to believe things without enough evidence.

The role of science

Science is simply the best, almost the only way to truly know about the world, but its answers are always temporary, always open to re-examination in the light of new evidence. They are not eternal truths, never irrefutable. Newton's laws were overthrown by Einstein; Einstein's theories cannot account for quantum physics; string theory could overturn current ideas.

What science gives is not the truth, but a gradual approach to the truth. Science refuses to accept dogma, refuses to allow anything to be indisputable, admits that it can make mistakes, but contains its own means of correcting them. Of course, scientists can make mistakes, but this is a human error, not a method error. And this spirit of unbiased, intelligent inquiry is an important part of humanist ideas.

Morals and ethics

Human moral instincts are not necessarily a guide to how to behave, but they are a good starting point because they derive from patterns of group survival that have been shaped, developed and adapted over thousands of years of moral philosophy and practice. reasoning.

But circumstances change situations, and specific formulations of morality and ethics can become outdated. People are responsible for maintaining morality. The purpose of morality, as humanists see it, is not to conform to some model. She exists to serve man.

Moral sense along withbeliefs provides a framework for ethics within which humanists can apply utilitarian ethics or virtue ethics, or can take any number of positions. At the same time, humanistic morality does not go so far as to lay down fixed rules. This requires people to judge within the circumstances of each situation. This flexibility, this commitment to dialogue and ethical discourse is fundamental to humanistic moral values. They play a big role in shaping personality.

Thus, humanistic morality gives value and meaning to the individual. The interdependence of the individual and society implies the obligation of a person in relation to society - individual responsibility for their behavior, since it affects society.

Spirituality

This concept is rather controversial for humanists, as they reject the existence of a transcendental realm, souls and spirits. However, this experience is still very real, even if it is of natural origin. The point is that the mystical sense of expansion, of union, has no concrete intellectual content. In addition, one should take into account the breadth of the humanistic tradition, represented by some thinkers who are recognized as representatives of humanism, although this concept did not exist before. This tradition includes Confucius, Epicurus, the Stoic Marcus Aurelius, David Hume, John Locke, French philosophers, Tom Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, George Eliot. Accordingly, spiritualityregarded as an important part of the humanistic value system.

Rights and Dignity

There are a number of other values. The humanist position is that all human beings have the right to dignity. This statement introduces the key idea that people have the right to life, thereby increasing the value and problems of the universality of rights, the diversity of rights (individual and collective, i.e. groups), their differentiation (civil, religious, relatives). Dignity as a humanistic value opens the door to a multitude of human rights. They must become part of the world culture, contributing to the formation of a truly human society with the same rights and dignity for all people.

The inner world of man

This concept is considered by both philosophers and psychologists, educators. It is considered as a subjective reality, that is, everything that is the internal content of psychological activity is characteristic of only one particular person. This determines the individuality and uniqueness of each person. On the other hand, this concept is of great importance when considering the humanistic values of a person.

The formation of the inner world is indirect. This process is associated with certain external conditions. This provision is explained by the fact that the inner world of a person is a specific form of reflection of the external world, which is characterized by its own spatio-temporal characteristics and content.

Some religious andphilosophical concepts believe that a person initially has a certain inner world, and during his life his discovery and knowledge takes place. Other ideas about this category are based on a more materialistic basis. According to this point of view, the emergence and development of the inner world occur in the process of the formation of a person as a person who is characterized by activity associated with the reflection and development of the surrounding reality.

Humanistic values in education

One of the goals of modern education is the upbringing of personality. Spirituality and morality, related to humanistic values, act as the most important, basic characteristics of a person. The child thus acts as the center of spiritual life. Spiritual and moral education is an organized, purposeful process, which is both external and internal (emotional-cordial) influence of a teacher on the spiritual and moral sphere of a developing personality. This sphere is system-forming in relation to the inner world of the child. Such an impact is determined by a complex, integrated nature in relation to the feelings, desires, opinions of the individual. It is based on a certain system of humanistic values embedded in the content of education. The actualization of this system is determined by a certain position of the teacher.

Humanistic education

Despite the fact that humanistic values are indispensablepart of the content of education, their identification does not occur by itself. This process must be purposeful, and the values themselves must be structured, didactically processed, after which the teacher accepts them as a personal system of values. And only after that they can be used as a system of value orientations of students, taking into account their age characteristics. Only in this case they can act as the basis of the spiritual and moral education of schoolchildren.