The way faith-based traditions regard human nature and explain human behavior is consistent with a highly conservative worldview and agenda. Teaching that humankind has a sinful nature, and believing that we all have the ability to defy causation by asserting contra causal free will, is damaging to us personally, causing us to judge and blame ourselves and others. But at the societal level, these ideas support some of our most conservative, ruggedly individualistic, stingy and mean-spirited public policies.
If it’s true that people are truly inherently sinful – selfish, lazy, and anti-social, how can a generous social safety net be justified? It can’t be because a generous social safety net would reward those anti-social traits. Given this widely held belief it’s no wonder that even the miserly social safety net that was briefly offered was ultimately gutted.
In place of a misanthropic narrative, Naturalistic Humanism offers a proanthropic perspective, informed by social science and neuroscience. When people are the beneficiaries of sufficient developmental and life support, they are naturally inclined to be cooperative and caring, with a strong desire to participate and contribute precisely what society needs from them.
The traditional and faith-based belief that belief in contra causal freewill – that anyone can change their life simply by choosing to, is equally inimical to progressive change. If being successful in life is just a matter of individual choice, how does significant social intervention make sense? It doesn’t. The assumption is, those who want to change will choose to do so on their own. For those who won’t, all of the government checks in the world will not help.
A reason-based, naturalistic understanding makes it clear that our genetic and environmental determinants are always causing us to behave exactly as we do. There is no magical way that we can disconnect ourselves, from everything that leads us to where we are. With this understanding, which in Naturalistic Humanism is referred to as metawareness, there is no justification for rewarding some while punishing others. Through either fortune, or misfortune, we are all subject to circumstances that we did not choose.