This little two-hundred-page book
is a paperback reissue of a collection, originally published in 2002, of sixty
one "humanist meditations," which it would have been more accurate to
describe as humanist sermons. Whatever they are called, all are short, all have
one-name titles, all were written for the general public (many for newspapers),
and all take a liberal secular view of their topics. They praise "social
justice," internationalism, pacifism, environmentalism, vegetarianism,
tolerance for diverse "life-styles," courage in facing the trials and
tragedies of life, resoluteness in opposing the imprecations of "Victorian
moralists," etc.; they condemn racism, patriotism, capitalism, sexism,
"speciesism," fundamentalist faith, organized religion, differential
treatment of women, dislike of homosexuality, etc.  In short, they display all
the tics of leftist sentimentality, including contempt for popular American
culture.  Though written by a distinguished British philosopher and bearing the
name of a great academic publishing house, they are with notable exceptions
nearly devoid of argumentation and exhibit little of the spirit of inquiry.
Their predominant style is declamation, not ratiocination; their over-riding
purpose is inspiration or edification, not information; their usual tone
happy-talk and self-congratulation, not hard thought or discipline. 
Inevitably, this makes them superficial.  Nevertheless, all are gracefully
written, and several–e.g., the sermons on "Love,"
"Happiness," and "Intemperance"–are erudite and insightful. 
Taken all together, they strike one as the divagations of a philosopher
reverting on holidays to the ancient role of priest.  It is just that this
priest, like many another these days, preaches love-your-fellow-man ethics
bereft of its theological underpinnings, and favors a paternalistic state over
the Church as keeper of the public welfare.  Anxious to replace worship of a
mythical God with reverence for an undifferentiated Mankind, this secular
priest forgets that the latter entity is as unreal as the former. 

© 2005 Max Hocutt

Max Hocutt,
Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, the University of Alabama, author of Grounded
Ethics:  The Empirical Bases of Normative Judgments (Transaction,
2000), and former editor of Behavior and Philosophy.

Categories: Ethics