Recently one of my valued interlocutors here, an intellectual who espouses secular humanism, asked me to consider the arguments of Jacob Bronowski. Bronowski argued that the human species has special value and dignity because of the capacities it has (we have) such as complex language and the ability to communicate and hand down discoveries and ideas through the centuries and across cultures.
This was in response to my argument that secular humanism contains at its heart a conundrum: that it cannot establish why humans are special and worthy of special dignity and value among the species.
Anyone who reads Bronowski’s argument (and that of the interlocutor) should immediately see the problem at its heart. IF the ONLY reason for humanity’s special status of value, worth, dignity is its/our capacities such as those identified by Bronowski (and most other secular humanists), then those humans who lack those capacities are of lesser value, worth, dignity than those who do possess them.
This idea (not secular humanism itself but Bronowski’s argument) is exactly what lay at the center and foundation of National Socialism’s practice of eradicating “subhumans.” No, I am not arguing that secular humanists advocate that; what I am arguing is that the argument made by Bronowski and other secular humanists ineluctably leads there, even if they themselves find it highly objectionable. The question arises: Why find it objectionable?
I suppose one possible but deeply flawed answer would be that “humanity” is an organic whole and not just a collection of individuals—something I have argued here. But that view requires something more than matter, a spiritual unity that transcends physicality. In fact, something supernatural (transcending nature alone).
This is why theists of all kinds reject secular humanism, not because it does not have room for God per se, but because of its logical consequences. Taken to its logical end, secular humanism can only support Social Darwinism (even though most secular humanists are not Social Darwinists).
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