Positive humanism is an applied secular humanistic philosophy based on the scientific findings of positive psychology that focuses on personal, professional, and societal flourishing. As an applied philosophy its focus is on ideas that lead to increased well-being. As a secular humanistic philosophy, there are no appeals to the supernatural, the magical, or the mystical. The philosophy is founded on reason and critical thinking. The philosophy is science-based, meaning it is void of the unsupported and/or exaggerated claims and the constant confusing of correlation with causality often found in the self-help genre. The philosophy is grounded in the theories of positive psychology, which is the study of the positive side of the mental health spectrum–human flourishing.
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Bo Bennett. Positive Humanism: A Primer
Preface
Positive Humanism 2.0: Living the Good, Secular Life
Why Positive Psychology?
Why Positive Humanism?
The Morality of Positive Humanism
So Man Created God in His Own Image
Objectivity, Relativity, or Both?
The Collective Well-Being of Humanity: The Humanistic Moral Foundation
No Moral Anarchy Nor Utility
Changing Morality: A Tough Pill To Swallow
A Complex Topic Too Often Made Simplistic
Religion: A Middleman to Well-Being
A Means to an End
“Proof” That Religion is Just a Middleman
Making Sense of Reason
The Origin of Reason
The Foundation of Reason
The Development of Reason in Our Species
The Secular Justification for Reason
Exploring the “F” Word: Freewill
What is “Freewill?”
The Real Problem of Freewill
The Freewill Controversy
What Does Matter
Freewill and the Positive Humanist
“Balance” Does Not Have To Mean Being Irrational
Kicking Old Ladies
Arationality: Neither Rational Nor Irrational
Love and “Soulmates”
A Feeling Is Not the Same as an Explanation of the Feeling
Keep the Good, Lose the Bad
On Dying and Living
How Did You Feel About Not Being Born Yet?
Why Do We Fear Death?
Facing Reality (a Humanist Perspective)
Taking Action
About Me (the Author)
My Drug of Choice: Tony Robbins
Jackpot!
The Frustration Begins
Becoming an Angry Atheist, Then a Positive Humanist
It’s a Wonderful Life
References
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Positive humanism is an applied secular humanistic philosophy based on the scientific findings of positive psychology that focuses on personal, professional, and societal flourishing. As an applied philosophy its focus is on ideas that lead to increased well-being. As a secular humanistic philosophy, there are no appeals to the supernatural, the magical, or the mystical. The philosophy is founded on reason and critical thinking. The philosophy is science-based, meaning it is void of the unsupported and/or exaggerated claims and the constant confusing of correlation with causality often found in the self-help genre. The philosophy is grounded in the theories of positive psychology, which is the study of the positive side of the mental health spectrum—human flourishing.
Positive humanism is not anti-religion; it is however anti-anti-humanism. There are many aspects of religions that are anti-humanism, such as denying gays’ rights to marry, the belief that humanity is sinful and worthy of eternal punishment, the denial of science on religious grounds, and several others. However, it would be fallacious and unreasonable to be against an entire religion or worse, against religion itself, because of its anti-humanistic elements without considering its pro-humanistic elements, as well. There are many atheistic philosophies that take a hard approach by attacking religion and calling attention to its harmful elements. This approach has its purpose, but this is simply not what positive humanism is about. Positive humanism’s focus is almost entirely on promoting positive humanism and defending it when necessary, but avoiding “attacking” religion (i.e., avoiding making aggressive arguments against religion). Abstaining from all arguments against all aspects of religious belief is not always possible, especially when such arguments are necessary to understand arguments for positive humanism. As a positive humanist, when I do make such arguments, I am committed to representing the religious argument as accurately as possible, and avoiding ridicule or other rhetorical devices that might otherwise reasonably offend.
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My goal is to provide an evidence-based, secular philosophy of well-being for the rapidly growing number of people leaving religion and embracing reason, or just contemplating a more secular worldview, who want a higher quality of life than they had under their religious world view.
Positive humanism is not the same as positive psychology. In the simplest terms, there are parts of positive psychology that overlap with humanism. However, there are also parts of positive psychology that are not only outside of humanism, but also quite contrary to humanistic values. For example, Martin Seligman, considered the founder of positive psychology, stresses the importance of personal agency and responsibility. While this is certainly important, this focus greatly underestimates and undervalues the biological and social factors that influence behavior. Critics of positive psychology (of whom I am one) argue that this focus on personal agency leads to a “blame the victim” mentality. Essentially, it is the issue of free will—perhaps the most complex philosophical issue of the last couple millennia. Positive psychology also fails to “secularize” the well-being benefits that arise from religious and spiritual practices, and keeps them in a religious or spiritual context. This is understandable considering positive psychology is an American initiative, and an estimated 90% of Americans work within these contexts. Positive humanism translates these benefits to the secular.
