Secular Ethics in Times of Crisis

On the Tacit Radicalism of the Humanist Manifestos I–III (1933, 1973, 2003)

Abstract

This essay examines the three Humanist Manifestos (1933, 1973, 2003) published under the auspices of the American Humanist Association and its predecessor organization, the Humanist Fellowship, as a unique sequence of activist texts that collectively trace the evolving discourse of secular ethics in the United States. While often treated as (counter-)theological documents, the analysis approaches them explicitly as manifestos—texts that seek to intervene in the public sphere through declarative and programmatic form. Reading them through the lens of manifesto theory and Charles Taylor’s concept of the “immanent frame,” the essay argues that, across seven decades, each manifesto reformulates the ethical foundations of humanism in response to crises of its time such as economic depression, political disillusionment, and renewed religious nationalism. Despite their measured rhetoric, the manifestos enact what may be called a tacit radicalism: a decisive relocation of moral legitimacy from the transcendental to the human domain that, within the American context of civil religion, constitutes a quiet yet profound challenge to the theological grammar of public ethics. As such, the Humanist Manifestos represent both historical documents of secular thought and performative acts that redefine the terms of moral discourse in modernity.