22 Facts About Ethical Culture

Ethical movement, referred to as the Ethical Culture movement, Ethical Humanism or simply Ethical Culture, is an ethical, educational, and religious movement that is usually traced back to Felix Adler .

Ethical Culture movement is an outgrowth of secular moral traditions in the 19th century, principally in Europe and the United States.

Ethical Culture is premised on the idea that honoring and living in accordance with ethical principles is central to what it takes to live meaningful and fulfilling lives, and to creating a world that is good for all.

Practitioners of Ethical Culture focus on supporting one another in becoming better people, and on doing good in the world.

Ethical Culture movement was an outgrowth of the general loss of faith among the intellectuals of the Victorian era.

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Ethical Culture was especially drawn to the Kantian ideas that one could not prove the existence or non-existence of deities or immortality and that morality could be established independently of theology.

Ethical Culture therefore attempted to provide a universal fellowship devoid of ritual and ceremony, for those who would otherwise be divided by creeds.

Unlike the philanthropic efforts of the established religious institutions of the time, the Ethical Culture societies did not attempt to proselytize those they helped.

In 1885 the ten-year-old American Ethical Culture movement helped to stimulate similar social activity in Great Britain, when American sociologist John Graham Brooks distributed pamphlets by Chicago ethical society leader William Salter to a group of British philosophers, including Bernard Bosanquet, John Henry Muirhead, and John Stuart MacKenzie.

Ethical Culture was firmly entrenched in British ethicism, Coit remained in London and formed the West London Ethical Society, which was almost completely under his control.

Ethical Culture felt that the Anglican Church was in the unique position to harness the natural moral impulse that stemmed from society itself, as long as the Church replaced theology with science, abandoned supernatural beliefs, expanded its bible to include a cross-cultural selection of ethical literature and reinterpreted its creeds and liturgy in light of modern ethics and psychology.

Ethical Culture promoted the merger of the Ethical Union with the Rationalist Press Association and the South Place Ethical Society, and, in 1957, a Humanist Council was set up to explore amalgamation.

Ethical Culture principles are viewed as being related to deep truths about the way the world works, and hence not arbitrary.

Key to the founding of Ethical Culture was the observation that too often disputes over religious or philosophical doctrines have distracted people from actually living ethically and doing good.

Functionally, the Ethical Culture Societies were organized in a similar manner to churches or synagogues and are headed by "leaders" as clergy.

Since around 1950 the Ethical Culture movement has been increasingly identified as part of the modern Humanist movement.

Largest concentration of Ethical Culture Societies is in the New York metropolitan area, including Societies in New York, Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Westchester and Nassau County; and New Jersey, such as Bergen and Essex Counties, New Jersey.

American Ethical Culture Union holds an annual AEU Assembly bringing together Ethical Culture societies from across the US.

British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald was a strong supporter of the British Ethical Culture movement, having been a Christian earlier in his life.

Ethical Culture was a member of the Ethical Church and the Union of Ethical Societies, a regular attender at South Place Ethical Society.

Ethical Culture's collaborated with Al Black, Ethical Society leader, in the creation of her nationwide Encampment of Citizenship.

Ethical Culture's maintained her involvement with the movement as figures on both sides of the Atlantic began to advocate for organizing under the banner of secular humanism.