Ethical society

“ Now it is, as I understand, primarily the aim of an Ethical Society to promote the rational discussion of these underlying ethical principles. We wish to contribute to the clearest understanding we can of the right ends to which human energy should be devoted, and of the conditions under which such devotion is most likely to be rewarded with success. We desire to see the great controversy carried on in the nearest possible approach to a scientific spirit. That phrase implies, as I have said, that we must abandon much of the old guidance. ”

“ Among the voluntary associations which are doing effective work in the moral education of the people, and in the wise direction of public sentiment toward the practical solution of our social and political problems, the Ethical Society holds a unique and important place. ”

“ Leaving out of sight the question of a society wider than the state, we must say that a man’s life with its moral duties is in the main filled up by his station in that system of wholes which the state is, and that this, partly by its laws and institutions, and still more by its spirit, gives him the life which he does live and ought to live. ”

“ Why in this age of the world should it decide what is best for the human race in a temporal matter, and substitute an arbitrary and inflexible ethical standard of its own for the judgment of organized society? ”

“ In any other view it is a maze, a mystery, a hopeless embroilment.
That ethics is involved in society is of course admitted; what is not admitted is, that ethical terms should be settled under the social science in the first place. I may refer to the leading term "law," whose meaning in sociology is remarkably clear; in ethics remarkably the reverse. The confusion deepens when the moral faculty is brought forward. In the eye of the sociologist, nothing could be simpler than the conception of that part of our nature that is appealed to for securing obedience. ”

“ What each man is conscious of doing in his own inner life, society, in its solidarity or constitutional unity, is found doing and enforcing. Organic humanity reveals the presence of the ethical conception and sure lines of its action everywhere. However diverse may be its judgments, there is such a thing as a public conscience that holds up conduct to favor or reprobation, not simply as beneficial or injurious but as being intrinsically right or wrong. ”

“ The question of the ethical end should first appear as the question of the sociological end. For what purpose or purposes is society maintained? All the ethical difficulties are here met by anticipation, and in a form much better adapted to their solution. ”

“ The social institutions, the family, the organs of education, the vocation, the political organization, the organization of mankind, the ideal religious society are to be treated as a progressive series. The individual is to pass successively through them, advancing from station to station toward ethical personality. ”

“ This sharing must be carried out according to fixed principles; where sympathy is universal, differences of division can be justified only by the fact that the Goods divided, if otherwise divided, would not be in so high a degree Goods to those to whom they reverted, or would not conduce to so great progress of the society as a whole. The ethical law upon this standpoint, the standpoint of Humane Ethics, can be no other as to content, than that action shall conduce to the greatest possible welfare and the greatest possible progress of the greatest possible number of conscious beings ”

“ Viewing society as a whole, we realize that there are no remedial specifics in the case, that general happiness will be obtained only by a process of evolution, and that the process is one of continual readjustment of multitudinous relations, or unceasing adaptation of individual human life to a social environment, and of social environment to individual human life. The evolution of social environment proceeds towards the highest ethical state which implies a system of society based upon justice and equality. ”

“ Society cares for us, educates us, develops us, and it has claims upon us, not on purely selfish or utilitarian grounds, but under a higher ethical idea, whose sanction is the perfection and will of God. The law of God requires effort for humanity, government enjoins it, charity demands it. ”

“ A Society (The Society for Ethical Culture, Chicago.) has been founded which has shown, after an investigation of all religions, that not only do all of them teach morality but they are based for the most part on ethical principles; that it is one's duty to obey the laws of ethics whether or not one professes a religion; and that men who would not obey them could do no good either to themselves or to others, in this world or the next. The object of these societies is to influence those who have been led to look down upon all religions because of the prevailing hypocrisy. ”

“ No great modification of opinion takes place with respect to the moral faculties, which does not ultimately and in some degree modify the ethical practice and political working of the society in which it comes to prevail. ”

“ The question of ethical growth in society is a complicated one, and the most that can be said for any element of social constitution is that it tends to strengthen or weaken the individual's confidence in and regard for his fellows. ”

“ We believe that men collectively should also follow the principles of practice that guide the ethical individual. For whatever purpose men are associated, we believe they should endeavor to make the reasonable and continuous contribution that distinguishes the ethical man. And all the agencies and instrumentalities employed by men, singly or collectively, should be based upon the best ethical practice of the time, so that the end-in-view of society may thereby be hastened. ”

“ To realize that this is true, we need but look at the remarkable ethical gains made now year by year through laws voted for by many of the very men whose practice had hitherto been upon a lower moral level. Very many evils that once seemed fastened upon society have been thus legislated out of existence. ”

“ This problem has reference to that particular ordered arrangement of society which is best adapted to a development in the direction of ethical ideals. As the former problem leads inquiry out of the domain of ethics into that of pedagogics, so this one leads us from ethics into political economy and political science. ”

“ In several respects this work, among the many of its kind appearing in recent years, is eminently valuable, especially for the ample treatment given to ethics in the world of action in civil society, admidst the relations of political, economic, and family life. To trace the growth of morality, and to discover its laws and principles, with a view to their application to present social conditions and problems for progressive moral development, is the proper aim of ethical science as here unfolded. ”

“ Besides this the Comtist view of society as an organism was translated into the ethical consideration of the radiation of good and evil deeds throughout society. The moral progress of the world would depend, according to her, upon the degree in which men's minds were trained to see the consequences of their egoistic impulses. ”

“ It is the aim of the Ethical Societies to extend the area of moral co-operation so as to include a part, at least, of the inner moral life; to unite men of divers opinions and beliefs in the common endeavor to explore the field of duty; to gain clearer perceptions of right and wrong; to study with thoroughgoing zeal the practical problems of social, political, and individual ethics, and to embody the new insight in manners and institutions.... ”

“ It is encouraging to know, however, that life in its highest forms, that is, as represented by the most cultured aggregates of the human species, is evolving rapidly and irrepressibly toward the ideal, that is, toward a social state in which the interests and life of each individual being are more and more equally precious. What are civilization and morality? What do we mean by ethical progress? The growth of consideration for others—nothing more—simply cessation of, or abstinence from, exploitation. ”

“ And the ethical system of these men of the New Republic, the ethical system which will dominate the world-state, will be shaped primarily to favour the procreation of what is fine and efficient and beautiful in humanity—beautiful and strong bodies, clear and powerful minds, and a growing body of knowledge—and to check the procreation of base and servile types, of fear-driven and cowardly souls, of all that is mean and ugly and bestial in the souls, bodies, or habits of men. ”

“ When the ethical feeling develops, upon the basis of sympathy, to the feeling of duty and justice, the principle included in the above law becomes the standard according to which the individual judges his own actions as well as those of others, and pronounces them good or bad. The good is that which preserves and develops the welfare of conscious beings. ”

“ If the reply is that the principle must be taken as a guide for governmental action rather than for individual action, we are at once met by the inquiry, what is to be the guide for individual action? If individual action is not to be regulated solely for the purpose of achieving "the greatest happiness of the greatest number," some other principle of regulation for individual action is required, and "the greatest happiness principle" fails to furnish the needful ethical standard. ”

“ Virtue and right conduct consist in those affections and actions which terminate in the public good; justice and veracity, for instance, having nothing intrinsically excellent in them, separate from their relation to the happiness of mankind; and the whole system of right to power, property, and every thing else in society, must be regulated by the same consideration: the decisive question, when any of these subjects are examined, being, What is it that the good of the community requires? ”

“ The facts gathered, and the principles underlying such institutions, will be utilised in an attempt to give a scientific basis to ethics. The problems of right, duty and freedom, will be carefully considered.
Accepting the sociological truism, that the community is more important than any individual in it, the ethical standpoint of the lecturer is: that the idea of wrong depends upon the moral, intellectual, physical or financial danger or injury, which a thought, feeling, willing or acting, brings to humanity. ”

“ Of the science of ethics the foundation surely is our sense of the difference between right and wrong, and of our obligation to choose the right and avoid the wrong for our own sake and for the sake of the society of which we are members and the character of which reacts upon ourselves. ”

“ If we resume the moral progress of the nineteenth century, allowing for its inconsistencies, carefully weighing its negative and positive results, and taking as a balance what is original in its contribution to the ethical development of the human race, we will find that this contribution mainly lies in the direction of tolerance and of altruism. ”

“ This morality means the principles of Justice, Truth, Temperance, Honesty, Manliness, Forbearance, Considerate Kindliness, Industry, Thrift, Foresight, Responsibility. These are [525] political and social, and perhaps also economical, necessities of modern communities. They are now the first great wants of society. Speaking generally, they can be taught to the masses of the people, and to the whole people, best, and, in fact, only by the State. ”

“ This is the enormous advantage which society derives from the honor of its members, and for the sake of which society permits the individual to do things which are otherwise both by ethics and law positively forbidden. ”

“ In using that term I do not mean to imply that certain acts are moral when done from political motives which would not be moral if done from other motives, or vice versâ, but to emphasise the fact that there are certain ethical questions which can only be studied in close connection with political science. There are, of course, points of conduct which are common to all occupations. We must all try to be kind, and honest, and industrious, and we expect the general teachers of morals to help us to do so. ”

“ More important is it to deal with the springs of action, to teach the equal standard of purity for men and women, and the moral responsibility of parenthood to adolescent youth, and at the same time to impress upon [47] the whole community its responsibility of oversight of morals for the good of the next generation. Conviction of personal and social responsibility as superior to individual preferences is the only safety of society in all its relations, from eugenics through economics to ethics and religion. ”

“ When it rises higher, it revises and makes better rules of conduct: they derive all their objective and real value from their conformity with the law of God; all their subjective and apparent value, from their conformity with the nation's notion thereof. The only thing which makes it right, and a social moral duty for society, or any of its members, to keep these social statutes, is that they are right, or thought so. ”

“ So long as dialectic subtleties and exciting polemics afforded food for the intellect, the gulf between theory and practice might be ignored. But once let this system be presented to men in earnest about right living, and eager to profit by what they are taught, and an ethical reform is inevitable. Conduct for us will be separated from conduct for the sage. We shall be told not always to imitate him. There will be a new law, dwelling specially upon the “external duties” required of all men, wise or unwise; and even the sufficiency of virtue for our happiness may be questioned. ”