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I understand humanism to be the meta‐ethical view that there exist discoverable (nonmoral) truths about the human condition, that is, about what it means to be human. We might think that as long as I believe I am realizing my unique human potential, I cannot be reasonably contradicted. Yet when we consider systemic oppression, this is unlikely. Systemic oppression makes dehumanizing conditions and treatment seem reasonable. In this paper, I consider the nature of understanding—drawing in particular upon recent defenses of realism in the philosophy of science—and argue that humanism makes sense if we recognize more thoroughly the role of cause and effect in practical deliberation. By this I mean the cause‐and‐effect relation between mind and body and between minds, bodies, and the world. Three philosophical sources—Marxism, Buddhism and Christianity—show what this might mean, as I indicate in the second half of the paper.

Secularists have aimed to make reason the motor of human progress to counter the supposed rigidity, absolutism, and condescending superiority of religious thought. I argue that reason cannot play this role, at least not as reason is most popularly conceived. In a world with a single dominant ideology, it is not religion but instead a certain arrogant approach to both reason and philosophy that should be the target of secularists desiring human freedom. Epistemic humility is identified as the key to genuinely free and progressive philosophical inquiry. I suggest that such humility is probably even rarer among nonreligious analytic ethicists than it is among religious ethicists.

In discussing Drucilla Cornell's remarks about Toni Morrison's Beloved, I consider epistemological questions raised by the acquiring of understanding of racism, particularly the deep-rooted racism embodied in social norms and values. I suggest that questions about understanding racism are, in part, questions about personal and political identities and that questions about personal and political identities are often, importantly, epistemological questions.