Grounding Non-Theological Morality: The Victorian Secularist Movement, Secular Ethics, and Human Progress
This article examines the formation of British Secularist ethics in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. The Secularist movement, initiated by George Jacob Holyoake in 1851, was a primarily artisan working-class social movement that sought to ground social ethics upon a rational, scientific...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
[publisher not identified]
[2019]
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| In: |
Secularism and Nonreligion
Year: 2019, Volume: 8, Pages: 1-11 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Great Britain
/ Culture
/ History 1837-1901
/ Secularism
/ Moral development
/ Moral act
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| IxTheo Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism KBF British Isles NCB Personal ethics NCC Social ethics TJ Modern history |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (doi) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | This article examines the formation of British Secularist ethics in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. The Secularist movement, initiated by George Jacob Holyoake in 1851, was a primarily artisan working-class social movement that sought to ground social ethics upon a rational, scientific, and non-theological foundation. This article examines how the quest for a science of morals informed Secularist expectations and judgements. In this article, I trace how the idea of a rational science of ethics was integrated into the secularist movement. I begin by briefly situating the Secularist movement within the wider moral and epistemological debates of the mid-Victorian period. I address the implications that atheism had on the development of Secularism, and on its contemporary reputation and respectability. I then examine how Holyoake sought to establish the non-theological grounds of morality and the tensions that arose from debates between Secularists regarding the necessity of atheism to Secularism. Finally, I argue that despite significant fissures within the movement created by the question of the necessity of atheism, Secularism nevertheless evinced a high degree of conceptual unity concerning the nature and grounds of morality. |
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| ISSN: | 2053-6712 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Secularism and Nonreligion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.5334/snr.93 |