''Humanism and Its Aspirations'' (subtitled ''Humanist Manifesto III, a successor to the Humanist Manifesto of 1933'') is the most recent of the ''

Humanist Manifesto ''Humanist Manifesto'' is the title of three manifestos laying out a humanist worldview. They are the original '' Humanist Manifesto'' (1933, often referred to as Humanist Manifesto I), the ''Humanist Manifesto II'' (1973), and ''Humanism and I ...

s'', published in 2003 by the

American Humanist Association The American Humanist Association (AHA) is a non-profit organization in the United States that advances secular humanism. The American Humanist Association was founded in 1941 and currently provides legal assistance to defend the constitutiona ...

(AHA). The newest one is much shorter, listing six primary beliefs, which echo themes from its predecessors: * Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis. (See

empiricism In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empir ...

.) * Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

ary change. *

Ethical Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...

values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience. (See

ethical naturalism Ethical naturalism (also called moral naturalism or naturalistic cognitivistic definism) is the meta-ethical view which claims that: # Ethical sentences express propositions. # Some such propositions are true. # Those propositions are made true ...

.) * Life's fulfillment emerges from individual participation in the service of humane ideals. * Humans are social by nature and find meaning in relationships. * Working to benefit society maximizes individual happiness. It has been used as source material for secular and atheist ethics.

Signatories

The following academics and other prominent persons were signatories to the document, who signed the statement "We who sign ''Humanism and Its Aspirations'' declare ourselves in general agreement with its substance":

Notable signatories

* Philip Appleman (poet and distinguished professor emeritus of English, Indiana University) *Khoren Arisian (senior leader, New York Society for Ethical Culture) * Bill Baird (reproductive rights pioneer) * Frank Berger (pharmacologist, developer of anti-anxiety drugs) *Howard Box (minister emeritus, Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church, Tennessee) *

Lester R. Brown Lester Russel Brown (born March 28, 1934) is an American environmental analyst, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, and founder and former president of the Earth Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C. BB ...

(founder and president,

Earth Policy Institute Earth Policy Institute was an independent non-profit environmental organization based in Washington, D.C., in the United States. It was founded by Lester R. Brown in 2001 and functioned as an environmental think tank, providing research and analy ...

) *August E. Brunsman IV (executive director,

Secular Student Alliance The Secular Student Alliance (SSA) is an American educational nonprofit organization whose purpose is to educate high school and college students about the value of scientific reason and the intellectual basis of secularism in its atheistic and ...

) *Rob Buitenweg (vice president,

International Humanist and Ethical Union Humanists International (known as the International Humanist and Ethical Union, or IHEU, from 1952–2019) is an international non-governmental organisation championing secularism and human rights, motivated by secular humanist values. Found ...

) *

Vern Bullough Vern Leroy Bullough (July 24, 1928 – June 21, 2006) was an American historian and sexologist. He was a distinguished professor emeritus at the State University of New York ( SUNY) at Buffalo, Faculty President at California State University, No ...

(sexologist and former co-president of the International Humanist and Ethical Union) *David Bumbaugh (professor, Meadville Lombard Theological School) *Matthew Cherry (executive director,

Institute for Humanist Studies The Institute for Humanist Studies (IHS) is a think tank based in Washington, DC, USA, that says it is "committed to information and practices meant to address the sociopolitical, economic and cultural challenges facing communities within the Uni ...

) *Joseph Chuman (visiting professor of religion,

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, and leader, Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County, New Jersey) *Curt Collier (leader, Riverdale-Yonkers Society for Ethical Culture, New York) *Fred Cook (retired executive committee member, International Humanist and Ethical Union) *Carl Coon (former U.S. Ambassador to Nepal) *

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An ath ...

*Charles Debrovner (president, NACH/

The Humanist Institute The Humanist Institute is a training program for leaders within the humanist, and secular humanist movement. Purpose and organization The Humanist Institute offers several kinds of educational programs to the humanist community. These program ...

) * Arthur Dobrin (professor of humanities, Hofstra University and leader emeritus Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island, New York) *

Margaret Downey Margaret Downey (born August 16, 1950) is a nontheist activist who is a former President of Atheist Alliance International and founder and president of the Freethought Society (formerly Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia). She also founde ...

(president, Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia) *

Sonja Eggerickx Sonja Albertine Jeannine Eggerickx (born 8 February 1947) is a Belgian secular Humanist who was president of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), now Humanists International, a position she held for nine years until stepping down ...

(vice president, Unie Vrijzinnige Verenigingen, Belgium, and vice president International Humanist and Ethical Union) *

Riane Eisler Riane Tennenhaus Eisler (born 22 July 1931) is an Austrian-born American systems scientist and author who writes about the effect of gender politics historically on society. She is most known for her 1987 book ''The Chalice and the Blade'', in ...

(president, Center for Partnership Studies) *

Albert Ellis Albert Ellis (September 27, 1913 – July 24, 2007) was an American psychologist and psychotherapist who founded rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT). He held MA and PhD degrees in clinical psychology from Columbia University, and was certi ...

(creator of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy and founder of the Albert Ellis Institute) *Edward L. Ericson (leader emeritus, Ethical Culture) *Roy P. Fairfield (co-founder, Union Graduate School) *

Antony Flew Antony Garrard Newton Flew (; 11 February 1923 – 8 April 2010) was a British philosopher. Belonging to the analytic and evidentialist schools of thought, Flew worked on the philosophy of religion. During the course of his career he taught at ...

(philosopher) *

Levi Fragell Levi Fragell (born 30 March 1939) is a Norwegian humanist. He has been chairman and secretary of the Norwegian Humanist Association, and was President of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) between 1987–1990 (as one member of ...

(president, International Humanist and Ethical Union) *

Jerome Isaac Friedman Jerome Isaac Friedman (born March 28, 1930) is an American physicist. He is Institute Professor and Professor of Physics, ''Emeritus, ''at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He won the 1990 Nobel Prize in Physics along with Henry Kenda ...

(Nobel Laureate, Physics) *

Arun Gandhi Arun Manilal Gandhi (born April 14, 1934) is an Indian-American author, socio-political activist and son of Manilal Gandhi, thus a grandson of nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi. Although he has followed in the footsteps of his grandfather as an ac ...

(co-founder, M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence) *Kendyl Gibbons (president, Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association) * Babu R.R. Gogineni (executive director, International Humanist and Ethical Union) *Sol Gordon (sexologist) *Ethelbert Haskins (retired treasurer of the Humanist Foundation) *

Jim Herrick Jim Herrick (born 1944) is a British humanist and secularist. He studied history and English literature at Trinity College, Cambridge University, and then worked as a school teacher for seven years. He has written or edited several books on hum ...

(editor, the New Humanist) *

Pervez Hoodbhoy Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy (Urdu: ;;born 11 July 1950) is a Pakistani nuclear physicist and activist who serves as a professor at the Forman Christian College and previously taught physics at the Quaid-e-Azam University. Hoodbhoy is also a promine ...

(professor of physics at

Quaid-e-Azam University Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad ( ur, ; commonly referred to as QAU), founded as University of Islamabad, is a ranked 1 public research university in Islamabad, Pakistan. Founded as the University of Islamabad in 1967, it was initially dedi ...

, Islamabad, Pakistan) *Fran P. Hosken (editor, Women's International Network News) *Joan Johnson Lewis (president, National Leaders Council of the American Ethical Union) *Stefan Jonasson (immediate past president, HUUmanists) *Larry Jones (president,

) * Edwin Kagin (founder and director, Camp Quest) *Beth Lamont (AHA NGO representative to the United Nations) * Gerald A. Larue (professor emeritus of Biblical history and archaeology, University of Southern California) *Joseph Levee (board member,

Council for Secular Humanism The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a US nonprofit organization that works to mitigate belief in pseudoscience and the paranormal, as well as to fight the influence of religion in government. History The Center for Inquiry was established in 199 ...

) *Ellen McBride (immediate past president, American Ethical Union) *

Lester Mondale The Reverend Robert Lester Mondale (May 28, 1904 – August 19, 2003) was an American Unitarian minister and Humanist. Biography Mondale was born in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, the son of Methodist minister and World War I hero Theodore Sigvaar ...

(retired Unitarian Universalist minister and signer of Humanist Manifestos I and II) *

Henry Morgentaler Henekh "Henry" Morgentaler, (March 19, 1923 – May 29, 2013), was a Polish-born Canadian physician and abortion rights advocate who fought numerous legal battles aimed at expanding abortion rights in Canada. As a Jewish youth during World War ...

(abortion rights pioneer) * Stephen Mumford (president, Center for Research on Population and Security) *William Murry (president and dean,

Meadville Lombard Theological School The Meadville Lombard Theological School is a Unitarian Universalist seminary in Chicago, Illinois. History Meadville Lombard is a result of a merger in the 1930s between two institutions, a Unitarian seminary and a Universalist seminary. M ...

) *Sarah Oelberg (president, HUUmanists) *Indumati Parikh (president, Center for the Study of Social Change, India) * Philip Paulson (Church-state activist) *

Katha Pollitt Katha Pollitt (born October 14, 1949) is an American poet, essayist and critic. She is the author of four essay collections and two books of poetry. Her writing focuses on political and social issues from a left-leaning perspective, including abo ...

(columnist, the Nation) *Howard Radest (dean emeritus, the Humanist Institute) * James "Amazing" Randi (magician, founder of the

James Randi Educational Foundation James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) is an American grant-making institution founded in 1996 by magician and skeptic James Randi. As a nonprofit organization, the mission of JREF includes educating the public and the media on the dangers of ...

) *Larry Reyka (president, the Humanist Society) *David Schafer (retired research physiologist, U.S. Veterans Administration) *

Eugenie Scott Eugenie Carol Scott (born October 24, 1945) is an American physical anthropologist, a former university professor and educator who has been active in opposing the teaching of young Earth creationism and intelligent design in schools. She coined t ...

(executive director,

National Center for Science Education The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is a not-for-profit membership organization in the United States whose stated mission is to educate the press and the public on the scientific and educational aspects of controversies surrounding t ...

) *

Michael Shermer Michael Brant Shermer (born September 8, 1954) is an American science writer, historian of science, executive director of The Skeptics Society, and founding publisher of ''Skeptic'' magazine, a publication focused on investigating pseudoscientific ...

(editor of

Skeptic magazine ''Skeptic'', colloquially known as ''Skeptic magazine'', is a quarterly science education and science advocacy magazine published internationally by The Skeptics Society, a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting scientific skepticism and re ...

) *James R. Simpson (professor of international agricultural economics, Ryukoku University, Japan) *

Warren Allen Smith Warren Allen Smith (October 27, 1921 – January 9, 2017) was an American writer, humanist and gay rights activist. A World War II veteran and an outspoken atheist, he dubbed himself as "the atheist in a foxhole". Biography From 1942 to 1946, ...

(editor and author) *Matthew les Spetter (associate professor in social psychology at the Peace Studies Institute of Manhattan College, NY) *

Oliver Stone William Oliver Stone (born September 15, 1946) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Stone won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay as writer of '' Midnight Express'' (1978), and wrote the gangster film remake '' Sc ...

(Academy Award-winning filmmaker) *John Swomley (professor emeritus of social ethics, St. Paul School of Theology) *Robert Tapp (dean, the Humanist Institute) *Carl Thitchener (co-minister, Unitarian Universalist Church of Amherst and of

Canandaigua, New York Canandaigua (; ''Utaʼnaráhkhwaʼ'' in Tuscarora language, Tuscarora) is a City (New York), city in Ontario County, New York, United States. Its population was 10,545 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Ontario County; some administrat ...

) *Maureen Thitchener (co-minister, Unitarian Universalist Church of Amherst and of Canandaigua, New York) * Rodrigue Tremblay (Emeritus professor of economics and of international finance, Universite de Montreal, Quebec, Canada) *

Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American writer known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. In a career spanning over 50 years, he published fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and ...

(novelist) *John Weston (ministerial settlement director, Unitarian Universalist Association) *

Edward O. Wilson Edward Osborne Wilson (June 10, 1929 – December 26, 2021) was an American biologist, naturalist, entomologist and writer. According to David Attenborough, Wilson was the world's leading expert in his specialty of myrmecology, the study of a ...

(professor,

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner) *

Sherwin Wine Sherwin Theodore Wine (January 25, 1928 – July 21, 2007), Hebrew name שמעון בן צבי, Shimon ben Tzvi, was an American rabbi and a founding figure of Humanistic Judaism, a movement that emphasizes Jewish culture and history as sou ...

(founder and president,

Society for Humanistic Judaism The Society for Humanistic Judaism (SHJ), founded by Rabbi Sherwin Wine in 1969, is an American 501(c)(3) organization and the central body of Humanistic Judaism, a philosophy that combines a non-theistic and humanistic outlook with the celebratio ...

)

Nobel laureates

22 Nobel laureates signed the statement, these being: *

Philip W. Anderson Philip Warren Anderson (December 13, 1923 – March 29, 2020) was an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate. Anderson made contributions to the theories of localization, antiferromagnetism, symmetry breaking (including a paper in 1 ...

(Physics, 1977) *

Paul D. Boyer Paul Delos Boyer (July 31, 1918 – June 2, 2018) was an American biochemist, analytical chemist, and a professor of chemistry at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). He shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for research on the " enzy ...

(Chemistry, 1997) *

Owen Chamberlain Owen Chamberlain (July 10, 1920 – February 28, 2006) was an American physicist who shared with Emilio Segrè the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the antiproton, a sub-atomic antiparticle. Biography Born in San Francisco, Cali ...

(Physics, 1959) *

Francis Crick Francis Harry Compton Crick (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004) was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist. He, James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins played crucial roles in deciphering the helical struc ...

(Medicine, 1962) * Paul J. Crutzen (Chemistry, 1995) *

Pierre-Gilles de Gennes Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (; 24 October 1932 – 18 May 2007) was a French physicist and the Nobel Prize laureate in physics in 1991. Education and early life He was born in Paris, France, and was home-schooled to the age of 12. By the age of ...

(Physics, 1991) *

Johann Deisenhofer Johann Deisenhofer (; born September 30, 1943) is a German biochemist who, along with Hartmut Michel and Robert Huber, received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1988 for their determination of the first crystal structure of an integral membrane ...

(Chemistry, 1988) * Jerome I. Friedman (Physics, 1990) *

Sheldon Glashow Sheldon Lee Glashow (, ; born December 5, 1932) is a Nobel Prize-winning American theoretical physicist. He is the Metcalf Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Boston University and Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at Harvard U ...

(Physics, 1979) * David J. Gross (Physics, 2004) * Herbert A. Hauptman (Chemistry, 1985) *

Dudley Herschbach Dudley Robert Herschbach (born June 18, 1932) is an American chemist at Harvard University. He won the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Yuan T. Lee and John C. Polanyi "for their contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elemen ...

(Chemistry, 1986) *

Harold W. Kroto Sir Harold Walter Kroto (born Harold Walter Krotoschiner; 7 October 1939 – 30 April 2016), known as Harry Kroto, was an English chemist. He shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley for their discovery of ...

(Chemistry, 1996) *

Yuan T. Lee Yuan Tseh Lee (; born 19 November 1936) is a Taiwanese chemist and a Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He was the first Taiwanese Nobel Prize laureate who, along with the Hungarian-Canadian John C. Polanyi and America ...

(Chemistry, 1986) *

Mario J. Molina Mario José Molina-Pasquel Henríquez (19 March 19437 October 2020), known as Mario Molina, was a Mexican chemist. He played a pivotal role in the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, and was a co-recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemis ...

(Chemistry, 1995) *

Erwin Neher Erwin Neher (; ; born 20 March 1944) is a German biophysicist, specializing in the field of cell physiology. For significant contribution in the field, in 1991 he was awarded, along with Bert Sakmann, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for ...

(Medicine, 1991) *

Ilya Prigogine Viscount Ilya Romanovich Prigogine (; russian: Илья́ Рома́нович Приго́жин; 28 May 2003) was a physical chemist and Nobel laureate noted for his work on dissipative structures, complex systems, and irreversibility. Biogra ...

(Chemistry, 1977) *

Richard J. Roberts Sir Richard John Roberts (born 6 September 1943) is a British biochemist and molecular biology, molecular biologist. He was awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Phillip Allen Sharp for the discovery of introns in eukaryo ...

(Medicine, 1993) *

John E. Sulston Sir John Edward Sulston (27 March 1942 – 6 March 2018) was a British biologist and academic who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the cell lineage and genome of the worm '' Caenorhabditis elegans'' in 2002 wit ...

(Medicine, 2002) *

Henry Taube Henry Taube, (November 30, 1915 – November 16, 2005) was a Canadian-born American chemist who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "his work in the mechanisms of electron-transfer reactions, especially in metal complexes." He ...

(Chemistry, 1983) *

E. Donnall Thomas Edward Donnall "Don" Thomas (March 15, 1920 – October 20, 2012)Frederick R. Appelbaum.Perspective: E. Donnall Thomas (1920–2012) Science 338(6111):1163, 30 November 2012 was an American physician, professor emeritus at the University o ...

(Medicine, 1990) *

James Dewey Watson James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928) is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist. In 1953, he co-authored with Francis Crick the academic paper proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. Watson, Crick and ...

(Medicine, 1962)

Past AHA presidents

* Edd Doerr * Michael W. Werner * Suzanne I. Paul * Lyle L. Simpson * Bette Chambers * Lloyd L. Morain * Robert W. McCoy *

Vashti McCollum Vashti Cromwell McCollum (November 6, 1912 – August 20, 2006) was the plaintiff in the landmark 1948 Supreme Court case McCollum v. Board of Education, which struck down religious education in public schools. The defendant in the case was ...

AHA board

The then-current AHA board all signed, these being: * Melvin Lipman (president) * Lois Lyons (vice president) * Ronald W. Fegley (secretary) * John Nugent (treasurer) * Wanda Alexander * John R. Cole *

Tom Ferrick Tom Ferrick, Jr. (1949) is an editor, reporter and columnist long active in print and web journalism in Philadelphia. Until 2013, he was senior editor of Metropolis, a local news and information Web site based in Philadelphia that he founded in 20 ...

* Robert D. Finch * John M. Higgins * Herb Silverman * Maddy Urken * Mike Werner

Drafting committee

Finally, there was the drafting committee of: *

Fred Edwords Fred Edwords, born July 19, 1948, in San Diego, California, is a longtime agnostic or ignostic humanist leader in Washington DC. He served as director of planned giving for the Humanist Foundation, the endowment fund of the American Humanist ...

(chair) * Edd Doerr (also included above as a past president of the AHA) * Tony Hileman * Pat Duffy Hutcheon * Maddy Urken

References

{{Reflist

External links

''Humanism and Its Aspirations''

''Humanism and Its Aspirations'' – Speech by Maddy Urken

Notable Signers

Critical commentary on the Humanist Manifesto III
Humanist manifestos Nontheism publications 2003 essays 2003 documents