Ethics outside of morals: Modern German humanism

Abstract

The article reviews the ethics of evolutionary humanism, as expressed in the works of the modern German philosopher and critic of religion Michael Schmidt-Salomon. Drawing on the modern results of biological sciences, he provides his own interpretation of the sociobiological meaning of altruism and egoism as foundations of human ethics. Appealing to philosophical tradition, he finds support in the views of Epicurus who considered egoism and altruism as being connected within human nature, and saw altruistic acts as rooted in egoism. As a part of his concept of evolutionary humanism, Schmidt-Salomon presents an alternative to the biblical Ten Commandments in the form of recommendations “for a happy human life”. His theory also includes a kind of “categorical imperative”, which strongly resembles the Marxist formulation of humanism: “destroy all relationships in which the human being poses as a humiliated, enslaved, abandoned and solitary being”. Special attention is paid to the author’s approach to the separation of morality and ethics. The declared ethics of evolutionary humanism is not based on any norms of behavior, it considers only the cases when the interests of two or more individuals conflict and aims at a “fair” resolution of such conflicts. Schmidt-Salomon postulates the uselessness of morality in the presence of such constructed ethics. Some consequences of this are the human right for self-determination, and similar rights granted to animals. Schmidt-Salomon’s criticism of religious ethics is also reviewed. The ethics of evolutionary humanism are found to be somewhat contradictory. In addition to narrow-defined ethics limited to conflicts of interest, the theory actually includes both deontological statements and extensive virtue-based ethics.