Concept
Ethical movement
Overview
The Ethical movement (also the Ethical Culture movement, Ethical Humanism, and Ethical Culture) is an ethical and educational movement established in 1877 by the academic Felix Adler (1851–1933). The premise of Ethical Culture is that honoring and living in accordance with a code of ethics is required to live a meaningful life and for making the world a better place for all people.
The movement originated from an effort among ethical secular people to develop and promote humanist codes of behavior, drawing on the developed moral traditions and moral philosophy of 19th century secular societies in Europe and the United States. In practice, members of the Ethical movement organized themselves as two types of organization: the secular humanist movement, which is avowedly non-religious, and a predominantly moral movement that saw itself as religious but not theistic.
In the United States, Ethical movements became organizations for the advancement of education (e.g., the American Humanist Association and the American Ethical Union). However, in the UK, they became secular humanist charities; the South Place Ethical Society and the British Ethical Union deliberately abandoned the congregational model of organization, becoming the Conway Hall Ethical Society and Humanists UK respectively.
Internationally, Ethical Culture and secular humanist organizations have always organized jointly; the American Ethical Union and the British Ethical Union were co-founders of Humanists International, whose original name, the "International Humanist and Ethical Union", reflected the philosophical unity of the Ethical Culture movement.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
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This is the character and tendency of human development, or of what is called civilization; and the obligation of seconding this movement--of working in the direction of it--is the nearest approach which M. Comte makes in this treatise to a general principle or standard of morality.
John Stuart Mill, Auguste Comte and Positivism
States what Ethical movement is.
to be happiness, but the notion of happiness is developed in such a way that it is seen to be equivalent to the Aristotelian notion of self-realization; "it is development of substance, and substance is activity." It is the union of one and the many; and the one, according to the invariable doctrine of Leibniz, is the spiritual element, and the many is the real content which gives meaning to this rational unity…
John Dewey, Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding
States what Ethical movement is.
The Real Criterion of Evolutionary Ethics. Mr. Spencer expressly recognizes that there exists (1) an ideal code of conduct, formulating the conduct of the completely adapted man in the completely evolved society. Such a code is called absolute ethics as distinguished from relative ethics--a code the injunctions of which are alone to be considered "as absolutely right, in contrast with those that are relatively right…
John Dewey, Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics
States what Ethical movement is.
Philosophers who discussed Ethical movement
Related ideas
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- Metaphysics
- Doctrine
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- Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Place in the tradition
Part of British philosophy.