What is the highest, most fundamental principle?

@write4u @lausten

Great to point that out.

I think Humanism role is to refine and defend this idea that the highest, most fundamental principle is human welfare, which is a large term to refer to a spectrum:

self-preservation (access to life) → welfare (access to health and psychological/intellectual autonomy) → individual development/fulfillment (hedonism and individualism)

Individualism is just a refinement of psychological/intellectual autonomy.
Hedonism is just a refinement of access to health.
Autonomy and access to health are just refinements of self-preservation.

At each state, science and Reason play a major role:

_You can not have self-preservation, access to health, and hedonism without science.
_You can not have self-preservation, psychological/intellectual autonomy and individualism without Reason.

(Therefore the topic on romanticism → What do humanists think of romanticism?)

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