Philip Kitcher (2026): The human project or what difference would God make?
Kitcher P. The human project or what difference would God make? Religious Studies. Published online 2026:1-13. doi:10.1017/S0034412526101863
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| ΠΗΓΗ ΕΙΚΟΝΑΣ |
Many people believe that, without any God or something similarly ‘transcendent’, human life would be meaningless. I oppose this position. In its most popular form, it supposes that meaning accrues because our mundane life is merely a prelude – a time of trial, to decide the character of our life in the hereafter. When probed, this approach involves a number of implausible corollaries. More abstract approaches suggest that meaningfulness results from human contributions to a larger project, the fulfilment of some divine (or transcendent) scheme for the universe. That idea is more promising, but it fails to recognize the possibility of a larger – ‘human’ – project to which our lives may also contribute, and that from such contributions can arise significance. This possibility is suggested by John Dewey, and traces of it can be found in a number of insightful poets, Herbert, Wordsworth, and Whitman. Finally, I rebut the thought that, without something transcendent, there can be no values.
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Εκκοσμίκευση σημαίνει τον περιορισμό της επιρροής που ασκεί η
θρησκεία στο κοινωνικό, πολιτικό και πολιτισμικό πεδίο [Θρησκευτικά Β΄ Λυκείου (22-0265), σελ. 95]. |
My purely secular vision appreciates the valuable things that have sometimes emerged from religious communities – my hope is to encourage the world’s religions to deliver them more consistently. [p. 1]
I may seem to have been hostile to religion, but that is an illusion. My hostility is directed only at the suggestion, often made by well-intentioned religious people, that meaning in human life can only be delivered by religion. Although I count as an atheist – with respect to all the religions I know, I believe some of their central factual doctrines to be false – I oppose the indictments issued by the New Atheists, when they campaign to sweep religion from the face of the Earth. To be sure, in human history, great harm has sometimes been done in the name of religion. Yet religious movements have also made large positive social contributions. Anyone of my age should immediately recall the leadership of the American Civil Rights Movement.
The major religions of the world have progressed when they have withdrawn from emphasizing the factual claims (centrally, the existence of a deity or of deities) and when they have focused on an ethical message. If, as I claim, our ethical progress consists in amplifying our responsiveness to others, we should welcome as allies those who proclaim the importance of loving our neighbours, as the major religions have done: often loudly. Their support of this theme is only sporadic, though: in the United States, allegedly Christian spokesmen preach a hatred that should be denounced as a vile travesty of the Gospel they claim to follow. Despite such deviations, there have been religious movements, within all the major faiths, that have concentrated on amplifying responsiveness.
Indeed, organized religion continues to serve as a sphere in which people find community with one another. Whatever is factually incorrect in what is said or sung in religious services and festivals can be forgiven: for these rituals have a power to bring people together and to promote broader human understanding that is unmatched in anything the secular world can offer. The ceremonies have evolved over millennia, the stories and the art and the music inspire. Whether or not one accepts religious doctrines as literally true, they can be part of something valuable. Religious lives can be truly meaningful… through the contributions they can make to the Human Project.
I hope that religions will continue to progress, that they will gradually shed their false metaphysics. Even if they do not, their ability to open people up to ethical advances, honed over centuries of experimentation is to be welcomed. Many religious lives are meaningful, because of what those who live them have given to the world around them. The only error that concerns me here is to mislocate the source of the meaning. It lies in the thoroughly secular Human Project. [pp. 12-13]
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[A]n ethical life does not arise out of fear and bribery. To become an ethical agent requires going beyond stories about potential rewards and punishments. What comes to matter to you is not whether or not you are burning in eternal fire or strumming your harp for the almighty. It is whether you have caused harm or contributed something good. [p. 3]