Ethical Perspective
While Ethical Culturists generally share common beliefs about what constitutes ethical behavior and the good, individuals are encouraged to develop their own personal understanding of these ideas. This does not mean that Ethical Culturists condone moral relativism, which would relegate ethics to mere preferences or social conventions. Ethical principles are viewed as being related to deep truths about the way the world works, and hence not arbitrary. However, it is recognized that complexities render the understanding of ethical nuances subject to continued dialogue, exploration, and learning.
While the founder of Ethical Culture, Felix Adler, was a transcendentalist, Ethical Culturists may have a variety of understandings as to the theoretical origins of ethics. 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. Consequently, "Deed before creed" has long been a motto of the movement.
Read more about this topic: Ethical Movement
Famous quotes containing the words ethical and/or perspective:
“Nothing that has ever been thought and said with a clear mind and pure ethical strength is totally in vain; even if it comes from a weak hand and is imperfectly formed, it inspires the ethical spirit to constantly renewed creation.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“The fact that illness is associated with the poor—who are, from the perspective of the privileged, aliens in one’s midst—reinforces the association of illness with the foreign: with an exotic, often primitive place.”
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