The Humanist Imagination
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forms of anthropocentricism.are mystifications that impede the march of science and rational consistency necessary to meet the moral imperative to relieve suffering. Assisted suicide to aid those in chronic pain, unrestricted genetic research to help future genera-^18 “Reverence for life” and the “sanctity of life”
tions, and the escape from entrenched ideas about human dignity in order to stop the exploitation of animals, require attention to morally valid ways in which to relieve suffering. Singer also utterly rejects longstanding religious and moral beliefs that certain virtues (courage, patience, compassion) only
arise in response to suffering, loss, and death.ethics warrants a false and dangerous view of human transcendence, a search for some other-worldly good. Singer uses a utilitarian calculation to deter-mine what policies and courses of action best advance preferences and reduce^19 Any religious claim within
suffering. The rejection of humanism is in terms of the special value Western cultures and especially religions have granted human beings, a type of which does not hold once we focus on sentient life and its interests.The four positions we have briefly noted have found different expression specism
in thought and society. They exemplify the range of anti-humanist argu-ments, including theistic rejections of humanism. After all, one could argue that God alone governs all that is for the sake of his glory, God alone is worthy of supreme devotion because God alone is good, or that God’s Will
or Substance is ultimate reality and everything else an illusion or mere figment of God’s being. In each case, classic humanism would be rejected as atheistic but in ways similar to the position we have briefly explored. Humanism is plainly not without its detractors.
totoabout human beings as “things in between.” This will also allow us to isolate further criticisms of humanism especially important for the more recent forms As the next step in the argument we turn from criticisms of humanism and explore images and metaphors classical humanists developed to speak in
of neohumanism found throughout the academy and around the world.Masks in the World’s Theatre
“All the world’s a stage,” Shakespeare wrote. The idea that the place of human existence is a “stage” and that human beings are actors is widespread among humanistic thinkers.wrote in his Fabula de homine (^20) Juan Luis Vives, the Renaissance Spanish author, , that “man himself is a fable and a play.” The
distinctiveness to appear under various “masks” and even be the archmime of the gods. “Verily, man, peering oft through the mask which hides him, almost ready to burst of a human being is the power to transform herself or himself,