If you happen to be in New York and free tomorrow night (10/28/04), I'll be speaking at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, 2 W. 64th St. for a book release event starting at 7:30 pm. I'll talk about my chapter "Facing facts: policy implications of the humanist commitment to science" in the just published "Toward a New Political Humanism" (Prometheus Books). There will be three other contributors speaking as well, including Arnell Dowret, and the event is sponsored by WBAI radio's "Equal Time for Free Thought." Details at http://www.naturalism.org/events.htm.
Applying naturalism to social policy is of course one of our primary objectives, so I'm pleased that Prometheus Books saw fit to print what even by secular humanist standards is a pretty radical proposal. But the implications are clear: conservatism is premised, partially, on a metaphysics of personhood that understands the individual as self-made, and therefore ultimately deserving of their fate and not much in need of outside help. Challenge this metaphysics, as naturalism does, and that justification for conservative social policy (e.g., death penalty, deep social inequality) goes by the boards. So naturalism has progressive policy implications.
yr obdnt srvnt,
Tom Clark Center for Naturalism
the latest at Nat.Org: http://www.naturalism.org/#new
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