Contemporary humanity faces ethical problems whose scale and impact are irreducibly global: climate change, pandemic preparedness, emerging technologies, structural inequality, and large-scale violence. Addressing these challenges requires forms of ethical deliberation capable of operating across deep cultural, religious, and ideological disagreements. Yet traditional ethical frameworks—whether grounded in religious revelation, culturally particular moral traditions, or rigid political ideologies—struggle to provide shared epistemic bases for such global deliberation. This article proposes Scientific Humanism as an epistemic framework for ethical reasoning under conditions of pluralism. Scientific Humanism integrates three core commitments: (1) non-reductive epistemic naturalism; (2) a secular orientation toward human flourishing understood as a natural phenomenon; and (3) empathic rationality, which combines critical reasoning with attention to lived human experience. Together, these commitments enable ethical deliberation that is evidence-guided, corrigible, and accessible across deep metaphysical divides. The article argues that Scientific Humanism does not seek to replace moral diversity with a single moral doctrine, but rather functions as a lingua franca for ethical reasoning. Central philosophical objections are examined, including the fact-value distinction and concerns about cultural imperialism. A detailed illustrative case on human violence demonstrates how empirical knowledge can inform ethical reasoning without reducing normative judgment to mere scientific description.
Jakob Viñas Solé (Sat,) studied this question.