1 The Book of Chivalric Humanism: A Virtue Based Moral Framework By Carey Martell First Edition, July 19th, 2021. All rights reserved. ELECTRONIC COPY Welcome to the world of modern chivalry The symbol of the philosophy is a maltese cross, with each arm of the four arms of the cross representing a positive principle and the eight points of the arms representing virtues; the smaller silver arms inside each golden arm represent the four negative principles and eight faults that shadow the positive principles and eight virtues. The Maltese cross is an ancient symbol of the Knights Hospitaller and other knightly orders, whose ideals Chivalric Humanism is intended to be a secular spiritual successor to. 2 Epistle to the Reader Acknowledgements Book One: Humanism Chapter I: The Scope of Chivalric Humanism Chapter II: Morality Chapter III: Humans are Part of Nature Chapter IV: The Nature of Ideas Chapter V: Why Irrational Ideas Become and Remain Popular Chapter VI: Human Survival and Instincts Chapter VII: Collective Human Wisdom Chapter VIII: Cognitive Dissonance Chapter IX: Psychosis Is Commonplace Chapter X: Human Needs Chapter XI: Social Contracts Chapter XII: Reciprocity and Social Capital Chapter XIII: Fairness Chapter XIV: The Great Society Chapters XV: The Human Race Chapter XVI: Principles of Chivalric Humanism Book Two: Ethics Chapter I: The Nature of Good and Evil Chapter II: That Which is Good Chapter III: The Virtues of Chivalric Humanism Chapter IV: The Roots of Evil Chapter VI: Special Considerations Related to Virtues and Faults Chapter VII: Consequences are Reasonable Expectations of Choices Chapter VIII: Justice Defined Chapter IX: Pseudo-justice Chapter X: The Illusion of Safety Chapter XI: Happiness Versus Wholeness Chapter XII: Why People Suffer Chapter XIII: Aid Chapter XIV: Noblesse Oblige Book Three: Human Potential Chapter I: Defining Potential 3 Chapter II: Meditation and Mindfulness Chapter III: The Path of Chivalry Chapter IV: The Guides of Chivalry Chapter V: Life Counseling Chapter VI: The Role of Martial Arts Book Four: Science and Reason Chapter I. What Is Science? Chapter II: The Scientific Method Chapter III: Absolute Truths Chapter IV: Falsifiability Chapter V: The Value of Logic Chapter VI: Analytical Thinking Chapter VII: The Axioms of Logic Chapter VIII: When Logic is Misapplied Chapter IX: Types of Reasoning Chapter X: Common Fallacies Chapter XI: What Is Not Science In Closing 4 Epistle to the Reader READER, In your hands right now is the culmination of my lifelong search for truth. Not a subjective, personal truth but a truth that I believe can be known to all people equally. This truth is the path to ‘reality’. This work in your hands serves as the foundational book for the school of Chivalric Humanism I have founded to teach this truth. Now this thing that I call Chivalric Humanism is also characterized by its emphasis on virtue and excellence while also stressing that its adherents become champions for others. It is a form of humanism that explains the role of humans in the world and prescribes a rewarding purpose for our lives. Chivalric Humanism is a branch of naturalism philosophy; that is, it is rooted in the belief that only natural forces operate in the world. It does not endorse superstitious thinking. It is important to reject such magical ideas because in addition to leading people to follow bad advice that ruins the quality of human life, teaching children to ask non-existent magical beings to solve their problems often creates irresponsible adults who fail to find solutions to these problems. Until a person shakes off the curse of superstitious thinking they will never be able to obtain true wisdom. This is because rational explanations for the world and solutions to its problems can only best be found by people who base their decision-making on rational beliefs. The presence of strongly held irrational beliefs taints a person’s perspective and limits their ability to be reasonable. It restricts them from cooperating with others for the mutual benefit of all. I have been a lifelong student of religion, and while examining different religions I realized that the majority of the popular religions utilize the metaphysical concept of an afterlife to pressure followers into moral activity, promising that good deeds are rewarded in the afterlife and evil ones are punished. I came to recognize that while creating a fear of things such as death and desires for metaphysical rewards in adherents are a useful feature for recruiting people into religions, it also creates an unavoidable problem: if the primary thing that compels people to refrain from doing bad is fear of supernatural punishment or promise of supernatural benefit, then these people aren’t necessarily good, and that once the metaphysical ideas are abandoned the individual struggles to find reasons to do good actions when they recognize that evil actions can result in great personal benefit. Furthermore, many religions are created to allow the leader to manipulate others for their personal benefit, which requires the religion to “reprogram” the individual to relinquish control over their decision making to these leaders; often to the degree that the religious may behave hysterically if they are made aware of contradictions between objective reality and the delusions they have been taught. This causes individuals in the cult groups to be easily manipulatable, not only by the leaders of these religious groups but also by other individuals employing similar types of manipulative strategies as the cult leader has used. It tends to be the case that a person who believed one impossible thing can be easily led to believe in another impossible thing using a similar rhetorical argument that persuaded them to believe in the first impossible 5 thing. This kind of manipulation of the masses is neither healthy nor beneficial for human societies because while it can lead to short-term group cohesion, ultimately it creates long-term instability that results in the decline of the prosperity of human communities over time as the collective makes impactful choices for irrational reasons instead of rational ones. Even pre-existing religions which are viewed as largely secular, such as Theravada Buddhism, have failed to successfully create stable societies; the state of Cambodia during my time is overwhelmingly Theravada Buddhism yet the sex trafficking of pre-pubescent girls is so commonplace that it is estimated over half of all Cambodian families participate in this, and not because they are necessarily poor, but because it is viewed as socially preferable so that men do not have to work, as they can prostitute out their young daughters to foreign tourists, who they raise in the cultural belief the child owes a “life debt” to the parent for bringing them into the world and which the girl must repay. So even Theravada Buddhism has proven that it can culturally descend into hedonism and so its teachings are poor; if anything, the beliefs in reincarnation and karma are frequently used by Buddhists to justify atrocities against other people under the belief that some people deserve to be abused for some imagined past life transgression they must have committed. So, by realizing other religions do not necessarily produce people who are good or useful to humanity because their teachings do not lead to stable societies where evil is rare, I was able to de-program myself from the superstitious dogma I learned in childhood without the direct assistance of any other person, relying only on self-study of religions both old and new while simultaneously teaching myself about many psychological theories and reviewing related scientific research. Additionally, due to various reasons stemming from events that happened in my life, I developed awareness of those mental barriers that restricted my perceptions and scratched at them -- even those mental walls that exist to hold a person back from committing all manner of depravity. I questioned everything and dwelled deeply in my own mind. In my personal life I experienced great pleasures and suffered extraordinary anguishes, forcing me to reassess the very foundations of my own identity and the beliefs which that identity was founded upon. Through these re-assessments I gained the ability to choose my dogma with a surgical precision, cutting out those ideas from myself that were useless for objectivity and retaining only those which I deemed useful. Through these efforts I reached the state known to Taoists as ‘the Way’ and Buddhists as bodhi, or enlightenment, and realized there was nothing particularly mystical about it. The bodhi state is nothing more than obtaining awareness of the mental conditioning a person acquires in childhood, and to recognize the mechanisms of how the mind functions in regards to the formation of beliefs. It does not award any mystical powers nor reveal any type of supernatural ‘true self’, as is often claimed by those who misunderstand what a genuine enlightened state actually is. It is only the ability to correctly identify that which is a mental construct from that which is actually part of the physical world, which even with the scientific method many people still struggle to distinguish, which is why so many have difficulty distinguishing that which is scientific from that which is sociological. Many confuse sociology for a science, even among scientists. 6 I will also say that it is my view that the so-called Übermensch state of Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy is identical to the enlightenment state, as when comparing these philosophies, all these states in Taoism, Buddhism and Nietzsche’s writings generally require the same steps to obtain. So in my opinion they are the same thing, and as I find ‘enlightened’ to be a less grandiose sounding name for this state, I use it here instead to describe the state of awareness I obtained.