Humanism, Rational Humanism and Scientific Humanism: HSC Studies of Religion II

What this dot point is asking

In the Religion and Non-Religion study (Studies of Religion II only), the syllabus places humanism within "non-religious worldviews" and "the human search for personal fulfilment through non-religious practices", alongside atheism and agnosticism. Students learn to:

1. Outline the essential features of atheism and agnosticism (covered briefly here and on the new atheism page).
2. Outline the positions of Rational Humanism and Scientific Humanism.
3. Discuss how agnosticism, atheism and humanism determine the aspirations and behaviour of individuals.

Humanism is examined every year. It was the 5-mark short answer in 2023 ("explain how humanism influences people to do the right thing"), and it has appeared in multiple choice in 2024 (scientific humanism's core aspect; rational humanists' behaviour) and 2025 (scientific humanism's goal).

The answer

What humanism is

Humanism is a worldview that locates meaning, value and morality in human life and human reason rather than in God or the supernatural. It is non-religious in the syllabus's sense: it has no transcendent being, revelation, sacred text or afterlife. But it is not merely a negative position. Where atheism answers one question ("is there a God?"), humanism answers many: how should I live, what makes life good, how should we treat one another?

Humanists International, the world body of humanist organisations, sets out its principles in the Amsterdam Declaration, first agreed at the first World Humanist Congress in 1952, updated in 2002 and most recently in 2022 in Glasgow. It presents humanism under four headings:

1. "Humanists strive to be ethical." Morality is "inherent to the human condition, grounded in the ability of living things to suffer and flourish, motivated by the benefits of helping and not harming, enabled by reason and compassion, and needing no source outside of humanity."
2. "Humanists strive to be rational." "The solutions to the world's problems lie in human reason, and action ... while science provides the means, human values must define the ends."
3. "Humanists strive for fulfillment in their lives." Humanists value "all sources of individual joy and fulfillment that harm no other".
4. Humanism offers "a source of meaning and purpose" as an alternative to "dogmatic religion, authoritarian nationalism, tribal sectarianism, and selfish nihilism".

Roots of humanist thought

• Classical Greece. Protagoras' saying that "man is the measure of all things" (reported by Plato in the Theaetetus) and the Greek confidence in reason and inquiry are often cited as early humanist ideas.
• Renaissance humanism (14th to 16th centuries) revived classical learning and celebrated human creativity and dignity. Most Renaissance humanists were Christians, so "humanism" in this historical sense was not yet non-religious.
• The Enlightenment (17th and 18th centuries) urged people to think for themselves; Kant's motto for the age was Sapere aude, "dare to know". Freethinkers began to argue that ethics could stand on reason alone.
• Modern organised humanism grew in the 19th and 20th centuries through rationalist, ethical and secular societies. In Australia the Rationalist Society of Australia traces its origins to a meeting of freethinkers at the University of Melbourne in 1906.

The position of Rational Humanism

Rational Humanism holds that reason is the proper foundation for belief and for ethics.

• Knowledge. Beliefs should be accepted on the basis of logic and argument, not authority, tradition or revelation.
• Ethics. Right and wrong can be worked out by reasoning about consequences, fairness and the interests of those affected, together with empathy. Moral rules are human agreements that can be examined and improved.
• Freedom of thought. Every person has the right and the responsibility to think for themselves, so rational humanists defend free speech and free inquiry and oppose dogma.
• Human dignity and autonomy. People are capable of governing their own lives by reason.

In the words of the 2024 HSC answer key, "Rational humanists' actions are guided by reason and logic."

The position of Scientific Humanism

Scientific Humanism holds that the scientific method is the most reliable way to understand reality and that its results should guide human life.

• Knowledge by evidence. Humanist Manifesto III (the American Humanist Association's Humanism and Its Aspirations, 2003) states that knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation and rational analysis. Claims are tested, provisional and open to revision.
• Naturalism. The universe is a natural system; the same manifesto describes the human species as an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change. There is no supernatural realm or life after death.
• Science for welfare. Science and technology should be used to relieve suffering and improve human life: medicine, public health, education, food and energy. The 2025 HSC multiple choice summed up the position as an "emphasis on welfare, ethics and reason".
• Ethics grounded in human need. Manifesto III holds that ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience.

Julian Huxley (1887 to 1975), an evolutionary biologist, the first Director-General of UNESCO and the first president of the British Humanist Association, was a leading voice of this position, arguing that evolution rather than revelation should frame humanity's understanding of itself.

A fair treatment notes the critique. The same confidence in science was once used to support eugenics (Huxley himself was president of the British Eugenics Society from 1959 to 1962), which is why modern humanist statements insist that science is used "never callously or destructively" and that "human values must define the ends".

Rational and Scientific Humanism compared

They differ in emphasis more than substance, and most humanists today hold both.

Humanism, atheism and agnosticism

• Atheism is the view that there is no God (or the absence of belief in any god). It is a position on one question and implies no particular ethic.
• Agnosticism holds that whether God exists is unknown or unknowable, and withholds judgement. The 2025 multiple choice ("I'm open to the idea that something might be out there but I haven't seen anything that proves it") described an agnostic.
• Humanism is a positive ethical worldview. Most humanists are atheists or agnostics, but not every atheist is a humanist, and the 2024 multiple choice turned on keeping these apart.

How humanism determines the aspirations of individuals

• Fulfilment in this life. Because humanists believe this is the only life, the goal is a good life now, not salvation or liberation hereafter. The Amsterdam Declaration names knowledge, "artistic creativity and imagination", literature, music, the arts, the beauty of nature, physical activity and "comradeship" as sources of fulfilment.
• Personal growth. "Personal development through the cultivation of creative and ethical living is a lifelong undertaking."
• The flourishing of others. Humanists feel "a duty of care to all of humanity, including future generations, and beyond this to all sentient beings".
• A better world. Humanists express confidence that humanity "has the potential to solve the problems that confront us, through free inquiry, science, sympathy, and imagination". Bertrand Russell's summary is often quoted: "The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge" (What I Believe, 1925).

How humanism determines the behaviour of individuals

• Ethical decision-making by reason and empathy. A humanist asks what the consequences will be, who will be affected, and whether it is fair, rather than what a text commands. Many humanists express this as a reasoned form of the golden rule.
• Doing right without supervision. Because there is no divine judge or reward, goodness must be self-motivated: the point of the 2023 stimulus, "does the right thing even though they know that no one is watching".
• Social responsibility and activism. Support for human rights, democracy, secular education and freedom of belief (Humanists International publishes the Freedom of Thought Report, recording discrimination against the non-religious worldwide), and involvement in charity and volunteering.
• Life-cycle ceremonies. Humanist and civil celebrants lead non-religious naming ceremonies, weddings and funerals that celebrate the person and their relationships without religious ritual. World Humanist Day is marked on 21 June.
• Openness to revision. Humanists expect to change their views in the light of new evidence, and "seek neither to avoid scrutiny nor to impose our view on all humanity".

Evaluating humanism's influence

Strong answers evaluate as well as describe:

• Strengths. A clear, reasoned ethic accessible to anyone; strong commitment to human rights and to evidence; personal responsibility for one's actions; fits a pluralist, secular society. In Australia, where 38.9% of people reported no religion in the 2021 Census, humanist ideas give many non-religious people a framework for meaning and ethics.
• Limits and critiques. Without shared authority, humanists can disagree widely on hard ethical questions; religious critics ask whether human reason alone can ground ultimate meaning or obligation; scientific optimism has at times been misused (eugenics). Humanists reply that disagreement is resolved by reasoned debate, and that the history of misuse is why values must govern science.
• Fairness. Neither religious nor non-religious people have a monopoly on ethical behaviour; the syllabus asks you to present both respectfully.

In one sentence

Humanism is a non-religious worldview in which Rational Humanism grounds belief and ethics in reason and logic and Scientific Humanism grounds them in the scientific method and human welfare, so that individuals aspire to fulfilment and flourishing in this one life and behave ethically out of reason, empathy and responsibility, "even though ... no one is watching".

Try this

Q1. Outline the position of Rational Humanism. (2 marks)

• What the marker wants. Reason and logic as the basis of belief and ethics, rejecting revelation, with one supporting detail.

Q2. Distinguish between atheism, agnosticism and humanism. (3 marks)

• What the marker wants. One accurate defining feature of each, and the point that humanism is a positive ethical worldview.

Q3. Discuss how humanism determines the behaviour of individuals. (5 marks)

• What the marker wants. Specific behaviours (ethical reasoning, activism, ceremonies, doing right unobserved) explained through humanist beliefs, with a quotation or statement as evidence.