Overview
1.The question and answer in a nutshell:
Human heartedness is an answer to the question of how to live a fulfilling and meaningful life. Most answers to this question involve some form of surrender to an alleged higher authority or interest - God, the nation, a political party, an ideology, money, power, etc. The human hearted way however, provides a path to answering questions about meaning and ethics, based on realising the best of our human potential, rather than through surrendering to a higher entity.
The core message of the human hearted tradition is that love compassion and sympathy come from the human heart, not from an external source. The only resource we need to start cultivating a life more based on love and compassion is to be open to accepting our own best potential. Building on human heartedness we can create better versions of ourselves, of our local communities, of all of humanity, and of our world.
We chose the term human hearted to describe this as the term itself puts a focus on the basic message that love comes from the human heart. We explain more about choosing the term human hearted in point 7 on this page, and here.
2. The human hearted answer is based on realising potentialities rather than surrender to external idols:
The human hearted way looks for the beginnings of answers inside ourselves rather than outside. It seeks fulfilment and meaning through realizing the best of our own human potentials, such as our potential for such things as love, sympathy, reason, etc. Historical figures as diverse as Confucius, David Hume, Charles Darwin and Abraham Maslow have all at some time advocated realising our potential as a path forward. From Confucius’ concept of Ren; our best human impulses of sympathy etc, as the foundation for ethics through Darwin’s idea that our “sympathies” may eventually become more developed until “they are extended to all sentient beings” to Maslow’s idea of “self actualization” the full realisation of an individual’s best potentialities as the best state of being, there is a common thread. This is the idea of realizing our own potential (rather than the external commands of Gods or ideologies) as the best and most fulfilling way to live; as the path to human flourishing.
3. The human hearted vision of self realisation is social rather than narrowly individualistic:
Of course, when we talk about realising human potentialities, there are many different views on how and which potentials we should promote. There are those who advocate focusing on potentials for selfishness, greed, domination and so on. What makes an approach a human hearted one is that its emphasis is on social potentials such as sympathy, compassion, empathy and love. It is this social focus which differentiates human heartedness from approaches to human self realisation which focus on hyper individualism, power and domination etc. The human hearted way focuses on the human source of compassion and sympathy; it is not a God or a philosophy, but the love in a person’s heart which enables us to be kind to others. Cultivating that love and sympathy is part of the human hearted way to personal development and fulfillment.
The human hearted way is one that is social, rather than putting the individual ahead of society, it seeks to realise our personality in the context of others. We are not isolated individuals. In fact our personalities are constituted through our actions in relating to others. Thus the answer to how to live the good life; realizing our potential as human beings, also provides the answer to how to live an ethical life; by using human heartedness as a guide to action in daily life.
It is not that our human heartedness will automatically tell us the best thing to do, although sometimes it does. Rather we can accept and embrace that we have it, cultivate it, and use it as a guide to how we should interact with others. For instance our human heartedness might provide us with the empathy to realize that other people have feelings too, and so should be treated with basic dignity to respect that. Our reason, and training, education and upbringing, can then all build on this to develop some general rules to follow; ethical rules such as treat all people with dignity.
4. Human heartedness is a potential we can utilise while accepting we must live with uncertainty:
We are not born with a natural ethical stance, but a potential based on our human heartedness. Having this potential does not mean we will all realise it to any particular degree, or at all. Whether through surrendering to fear, submitting to a cruel ideology, or many other possible circumstances, we may not realise the most of our potential.
Our human hearted potential is one we we can choose to realise as much as we can, depending on the circumstances we face. Building on this potential does not guarantee success in life. But it does give us some sort of path to living as best we can, in whatever circumstances we face. The human hearted way is about living with the uncertainty that life involves rather than surrendering to the false certainties of religion and ideologies.
5.Inspirational power of the human hearted way:
The inspirational power of the human hearted way comes in many ways.
It is evidence based: We do indeed have a potential for love and compassion, whereas supernatural beings and iron laws of history and morality are not supported by evidence.
It is developmental: It does not say we are innately perfectly good, just that we have a potential which we choose to realise as much as we can.
It offers hope: No matter how many times we fail we still have a potential we can try to realise at our next attempt.
It is flexible and adaptable: How we realise our best social potential may be different for different people, and may be different at different points in history.
It can lead to fulfillment and happiness: People who engage in acts of kindness and are open to love and compassion feel more happy and fulfilled.
6. Why focus on human heartedness today ?
For many years in the western world Christianity provided the main path to meaning. As Christianity continues its decline people, whether consciously or unconsciously, seek alternatives. Nationalism, freemarketism, consumerism, religious revivalism, marxism, fascism, self centred individualism, and various other approaches have, or are, being tried. All of these outlooks in effect create idols that are placed higher than humanity, these idols include: Gods, nations, the communist party, the market, the desires of one individual, and so on. Putting these idols higher than our common humanity and surrendering to them has mostly caused conflict, exploitation and persecution, and does not make people happier. Too often our fellow human beings are exploited and persecuted to serve these idols. The human hearted way is different: It does not offer a new idol. Instead it asks people to do the best they can with the uncertainty of life and still do their best to realise the best of their potential. It is both a more modest, and a more realistic, approach to the issues of our times.
The human hearted tradition has persisted and evolved where other master narratives such as religion and marxism crash against reality. This ‘human hearted’ tradition can continue to grow and change as it is based on the reality of our actual human potential rather than an externalizing fantasy. It is this way of looking at life and living; the human hearted way, that has inspired this website. The human hearted way is the best, sanest, and most reality based, path to facing and answering the existential issues we all face living in our contemporary world.
7. A Note on how we selected the term human hearted:
We chose to use ‘human hearted’ as a shorthand for the approaches we are discussing because it points (in a metaphorical way) to the source of the social potentials such as love, compassion and sympathy that can provide a foundation for meaning and ethics - our human heart.
The term itself first came to our attention as one of the phrases sometimes used to translate the Chinese word ‘Ren” into English. Other words such as sympathy, humaneness, benevolence and humanity have also been used. There is no one agreed upon translation for Ren, and some would say it is an untranslatable word which simply should be rendered in English as Ren without translation. On this website we are using human hearted to refer to all the people who share a human hearted approach rather than confining it to the specific concept of Ren. We use human hearted as an umbrella term for all outlooks that rely on human sourced compassion, sympathy, understanding etc.
Whilst there are many people who think and act in a human hearted way they are usually seen as connected to separate and distinct traditions; e.g. David Hume’s sympathy based approach to ethics in the West, Confucianism in the East, Charles Darwin’s evolution based understanding of our social sense leading to morality, and so on. There is not a word or phrase to indicate the overlapping views of all who use human heartedness, and the commonalities in approach are often missed.
One of our goals is to promote more dialogue across the various approaches rather than to pick one approach and say it is the one true one. We discuss in more detail our decision to use the term human hearted here. We know that it isn’t the ideal name to connect this diverse range of thinkers and practices. But until we do discover an ideal name human heartedness strongly expresses what we are advocating, and we plan to use it until a better name comes along.