150-616: The Ethical movement (also the Ethical Culture movement , Ethical Humanism , and Ethical Culture ) is an ethical , educational , and religious 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 non-religious people to develop and promote humanist codes of behavior, drawing on
300-514: A motto of the movement. Functionally, the Ethical Societies are organized in a similar manner to churches or synagogues and are headed by "leaders" as clergy . Their founders had suspected this would be a successful model for spreading secular morality. As a result, an Ethical Society typically would have Sunday morning meetings, offer moral instruction for children and teens, and do charitable work and social action. They may offer
450-505: A reform of the Poor Laws , free trade , educational reform , prison reform , and public sanitation . Originally this movement sought to replace the exclusive political power of the aristocracy with a more democratic system empowering urban areas and the middle and working classes . The energy of reform emerged from the religious fervour of the evangelical element in the established Church of England, and Evangelical workers in
600-414: A secret ballot to prevent voter coercion, trickery and bribery. By 1885, Gladstone had readjusted the parliamentary district lines by making each district equal in population, preventing one MP from having greater influence than another. The Mexican Liberal Party, led by Benito Juárez and Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada , guided the emergence of Mexico, as a nation state , from colonialism . It envisioned
750-906: A Humanist Council was set up to explore amalgamation. Although issues over charitable status prevented a full amalgamation, the Ethical Union under Blackham changed its name in 1967 to become the British Humanist Association , establishing humanism as the principal organizing force for non-religious morals and secularist advocacy in Britain. The BHA was the legal successor body to the Union of Ethical Societies. Between 1886 and 1927, seventy-four ethical societies were started in Great Britain, although this rapid growth did not last long. The numbers declined steadily throughout
900-426: A certain manner by being wholeheartedly committed to this manner. Virtues contrast with vices , which are their harmful counterparts. Virtue theorists usually say that the mere possession of virtues by itself is not sufficient. Instead, people should manifest virtues in their actions. An important factor is the practical wisdom, also called phronesis , of knowing when, how, and which virtue to express. For example,
1050-428: A certain standpoint. Moral standpoints may differ between persons, cultures, and historical periods. For example, moral statements like "Slavery is wrong" or "Suicide is permissible" may be true in one culture and false in another. Some moral relativists say that moral systems are constructed to serve certain goals such as social coordination. According to this view, different societies and different social groups within
1200-399: A characterization of what is good and then define what is right in terms of what is good. For example, classical utilitarianism says that pleasure is good and that the action leading to the most overall pleasure is right. Consequentialism has been discussed indirectly since the formulation of classical utilitarianism in the late 18th century. A more explicit analysis of this view happened in
1350-596: A church. In a series of books, Coit also began to argue for transforming the Anglican Church into an Ethical Church while holding up the virtue of ethical ritual. He 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
1500-633: A cross-cultural selection of ethical literature and reinterpreted its creeds and liturgy in light of modern ethics and psychology . His attempt to reform the Anglican church failed, and ten years after he died in 1944, the Ethical Church building was sold to the Roman Catholic Church . During Stanton Coit's lifetime, the Ethical Church was never officially affiliated with the Union of Ethical Societies, nor did South Place. In 1920,
1650-711: A denial of tax-exempt status, the Texas State Appeals Court decided that "the Comptroller's test was unconstitutionally underinclusive and that the Ethical Society should have qualified for the requested tax exemptions... Because the Comptroller's test fails to include the whole range of belief systems that may, in our diverse and pluralistic society, merit the First Amendment's protection..." British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald
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#17327868015291800-470: A diversity of viewpoints. A universal moral norm is seen as valid if all rational discourse participants do or would approve. This way, morality is not imposed by a single moral authority but arises from the moral discourse within society. This discourse should aim to establish an ideal speech situation to ensure fairness and inclusivity. In particular, this means that discourse participants are free to voice their different opinions without coercion but are at
1950-452: A fundamental part of reality and can be reduced to other natural properties, such as properties describing the causes of pleasure and pain . Social reform Reformism is a type of social movement that aims to bring a social or also a political system closer to the community's ideal. A reform movement is distinguished from more radical social movements such as revolutionary movements which reject those old ideals, in that
2100-479: A general standpoint of what is objectively right and wrong. In a slightly different sense, the term ethics can also refer to individual ethical theories in the form of a rational system of moral principles, such as Aristotelian ethics , and to a moral code that certain societies, social groups, or professions follow, as in Protestant work ethic and medical ethics . The English word ethics has its roots in
2250-530: A great network of railways, partly to develop the natural resources of the country, and partly to increase its power for defense and attack. Military reforms included universal conscription, introduced for all social classes on 1 January 1874. A new judicial administration (1864), based on the French model, introduced security of tenure. A new penal code and a greatly simplified system of civil and criminal procedure also came into operation. Reorganisation of
2400-515: A lack of practical wisdom may lead courageous people to perform morally wrong actions by taking unnecessary risks that should better be avoided. Different types of virtue ethics differ on how they understand virtues and their role in practical life. Eudaimonism is the original form of virtue theory developed in Ancient Greek philosophy and draws a close relation between virtuous behavior and happiness. It states that people flourish by living
2550-549: A means to promote their self-interest. Ethical egoism is often criticized as an immoral and contradictory position. Normative ethics has a central place in most religions . Key aspects of Jewish ethics are to follow the 613 commandments of God according to the Mitzvah duty found in the Torah and to take responsibility for societal welfare . Christian ethics puts less emphasis on following precise laws and teaches instead
2700-563: A modern civil society and capitalist economy . All citizens were equal before the law , and Mexico's 1829 abolition of slavery was reaffirmed. The Liberal program, documented in the 1857 Constitution of Mexico , was based on: The Tanzimat, meaning reorganization of the Ottoman Empire , was a period of reformation that began in 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. The Tanzimat reform era
2850-611: A more general principle. Many theories of normative ethics also aim to guide behavior by helping people make moral decisions . Theories in normative ethics state how people should act or what kind of behavior is correct. They do not aim to describe how people normally act, what moral beliefs ordinary people have, how these beliefs change over time, or what ethical codes are upheld in certain social groups. These topics belong to descriptive ethics and are studied in fields like anthropology , sociology , and history rather than normative ethics. Some systems of normative ethics arrive at
3000-550: A person should tell the truth even in specific cases where lying would lead to better consequences. Another disagreement is between actual and expected consequentialism. According to the traditional view, only the actual consequences of an act affect its moral value. One difficulty of this view is that many consequences cannot be known in advance. This means that in some cases, even well-planned and intentioned acts are morally wrong if they inadvertently lead to negative outcomes. An alternative perspective states that what matters are not
3150-401: A pleasurable experience has a high value if it has a high intensity and lasts for a long time. A common criticism of Bentham's utilitarianism argued that its focus on the intensity of pleasure promotes an immoral lifestyle centered around indulgence in sensory gratification. Mill responded to this criticism by distinguishing between higher and lower pleasures. He stated that higher pleasures, like
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#17327868015293300-450: A religion in the sense that Religion is that set of beliefs and/or institutions, behaviors and emotions which bind human beings to something beyond their individual selves and foster in its adherents a sense of humility and gratitude that, in turn, sets the tone of one’s world-view and requires certain behavioral dispositions relative to that which transcends personal interests. The Ethical Culture 2003 ethical identity statement states: It
3450-558: A sermon. Due to the negative reaction he elicited, it became his first and last sermon as a rabbi-in-training. Instead, he took up a professorship at Cornell University and in 1876 gave a follow-up sermon that led to the 1877 founding of the New York Society for Ethical Culture , which was the first of its kind. By 1886, similar societies had sprouted up in Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis. These societies all adopted
3600-949: A sign that says "The Place Where People Meet to Seek the Highest is Holy Ground". The largest concentration of Ethical Societies is in the New York metropolitan area, including Societies in New York, Manhattan , the Bronx, Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture , Brooklyn , Queens, Westchester and Nassau County; and New Jersey , such as Bergen and Essex Counties, New Jersey. Ethical Societies exist in several U.S. cities and counties, including Austin, Texas ; Baltimore ; Chapel Hill ; Asheville, North Carolina ; Chicago ; San Jose, California ; Philadelphia ; St. Louis ; St. Peters, Missouri ; Washington, D.C. ; Lewisburg, Pennsylvania , and Vienna, Virginia . Ethical Societies also exist outside
3750-790: A single principle covering all possible cases. Others encompass a small set of basic rules that address all or at least the most important moral considerations. One difficulty for systems with several basic principles is that these principles may conflict with each other in some cases and lead to ethical dilemmas . Distinct theories in normative ethics suggest different principles as the foundation of morality. The three most influential schools of thought are consequentialism , deontology , and virtue ethics . These schools are usually presented as exclusive alternatives, but depending on how they are defined, they can overlap and do not necessarily exclude one another. In some cases, they differ in which acts they see as right or wrong. In other cases, they recommend
3900-464: A situation, regardless of their specific role or position. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) is one of the most well-known deontologists. He states that reaching outcomes that people desire, such as being happy, is not the main purpose of moral actions. Instead, he argues that there are universal principles that apply to everyone independent of their desires. He uses the term categorical imperative for these principles, saying that they have their source in
4050-425: A society construct different moral systems based on their diverging purposes. Emotivism provides a different explanation, stating that morality arises from moral emotions, which are not the same for everyone. Moral nihilists deny the existence of moral facts. They reject the existence of both objective moral facts defended by moral realism and subjective moral facts defended by moral relativism. They believe that
4200-506: A source of acute distress. The London Working Men's Association , under the guidance of Francis Place , found itself in the midst of a great unrest. In the northern textile districts the Chartists, led by Feargus O'Connor , a follower of Daniel O'Connell , denounced the inadequate Poor Laws. This was basically a hunger revolt, springing from unemployment and despair. In Birmingham, the older Birmingham Political Union sprang to life under
4350-422: A variety of educational and other programs. They conduct weddings , commitment ceremonies , baby namings, and memorial services . Individual Ethical Society members may or may not believe in a deity or regard Ethical Culture as their religion. Felix Adler said "Ethical Culture is religious to those who are religiously minded, and merely ethical to those who are not so minded." The movement does consider itself
4500-557: A virtuous life. Eudaimonist theories often hold that virtues are positive potentials residing in human nature and that actualizing these potentials results in leading a good and happy life. Agent-based theories, by contrast, see happiness only as a side effect and focus instead on the admirable traits and motivational characteristics expressed while acting. This is often combined with the idea that one can learn from exceptional individuals what those characteristics are. Feminist ethics of care are another form of virtue ethics. They emphasize
4650-423: Is a chief belief of Ethical religion that if we relate to others in a way that brings out their best, we will at the same time elicit the best in ourselves. By the "best" in each person, we refer to his or her unique talents and abilities that affirm and nurture life. We use the term "spirit" to refer to a person’s unique personality and to the love, hope, and empathy that exists in human beings. When we act to elicit
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4800-487: Is a moral obligation to refrain from lying. Because it relies on consent, contractualism is often understood as a patient-centered form of deontology. Famous social contract theorists include Thomas Hobbes , John Locke , Jean-Jacques Rousseau , and John Rawls . Discourse ethics also focuses on social agreement on moral norms but says that this agreement is based on communicative rationality . It aims to arrive at moral norms for pluralistic modern societies that encompass
4950-510: Is based upon selfishness, rivalry, and ignorance, and desiring above all things to supplant it by a life based upon unselfishness, love, and wisdom, unite, for the purpose of realizing the higher life among ourselves, and of inducing and enabling others to do the same. And we now form ourselves into a Society, to be called the Guild [Fellowship] of the New Life, to carry out this purpose. Although
5100-476: Is better than an unequal distribution even if the aggregate good is the same. There are disagreements about which consequences should be assessed. An important distinction is between act consequentialism and rule consequentialism. According to act consequentialism, the consequences of an act determine its moral value. This means that there is a direct relation between the consequences of an act and its moral value. Rule consequentialism, by contrast, holds that an act
5250-410: Is between naturalism and non-naturalism. Naturalism states that moral properties are natural properties accessible to empirical observation . They are similar to the natural properties investigated by the natural sciences , like color and shape. Some moral naturalists hold that moral properties are a unique and basic type of natural property. Another view states that moral properties are real but not
5400-456: Is embedded in and relative to social and cultural contexts. Pragmatists tend to give more importance to habits than to conscious deliberation and understand morality as a habit that should be shaped in the right way. Postmodern ethics agrees with pragmatist ethics about the cultural relativity of morality. It rejects the idea that there are objective moral principles that apply universally to all cultures and traditions. It asserts that there
5550-537: Is found in Jainism , which has non-violence as its principal virtue. Duty is a central aspect of Hindu ethics and is about fulfilling social obligations, which may vary depending on a person's social class and stage of life . Confucianism places great emphasis on harmony in society and sees benevolence as a key virtue. Taoism extends the importance of living in harmony to the whole world and teaches that people should practice effortless action by following
5700-486: Is most valuable and enduring in religious idealism. Humanity requires such a belief to survive, Einstein argued. He observed, "Without 'ethical culture' there is no salvation for humanity." First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was a regular attendee at the New York Society for Ethical Culture at a time when humanism was beginning to coalesce in its modern-day form, and it was there that she developed friendships with
5850-736: Is no one coherent ethical code since morality itself is irrational and humans are morally ambivalent beings. Postmodern ethics instead focuses on how moral demands arise in specific situations as one encounters other people. Ethical egoism is the view that people should act in their self-interest or that an action is morally right if the person acts for their own benefit. It differs from psychological egoism , which states that people actually follow their self-interest without claiming that they should do so. Ethical egoists may act in agreement with commonly accepted moral expectations and benefit other people, for example, by keeping promises, helping friends, and cooperating with others. However, they do so only as
6000-651: Is not interested in which actions are right but in what it means for an action to be right and whether moral judgments are objective and can be true at all. It further examines the meaning of morality and other moral terms. Metaethics is a metatheory that operates on a higher level of abstraction than normative ethics by investigating its underlying assumptions. Metaethical theories typically do not directly judge which normative ethical theories are correct. However, metaethical theories can still influence normative theories by examining their foundational principles. Metaethics overlaps with various branches of philosophy. On
6150-446: Is one of the earliest forms of consequentialism. It arose in the 5th century BCE and argued that political action should promote justice as a means to increase the welfare of the people. The most well-known form of consequentialism is utilitarianism. In its classical form, it is an act consequentialism that sees happiness as the only source of intrinsic value. This means that an act is morally right if it produces "the greatest good for
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6300-428: Is one of the main branches of philosophy and investigates the nature of morality and the principles that govern the moral evaluation of conduct , character traits , and institutions . It examines what obligations people have, what behavior is right and wrong, and how to lead a good life. Some of its key questions are "How should one live?" and "What gives meaning to life ?". In contemporary philosophy, ethics
6450-422: Is primarily concerned with normative statements about what ought to be the case, in contrast to descriptive statements , which are about what is the case. Duties and obligations express requirements of what people ought to do. Duties are sometimes defined as counterparts of the rights that always accompany them. According to this view, someone has a duty to benefit another person if this other person has
6600-438: Is right if it follows a certain set of rules. Rule consequentialism determines the best rules by considering their outcomes at a community level. People should follow the rules that lead to the best consequences when everyone in the community follows them. This implies that the relation between an act and its consequences is indirect. For example, if telling the truth is one of the best rules, then according to rule consequentialism,
6750-434: Is that codes of conduct in specific areas, such as business and environment, are usually termed ethics rather than morality, as in business ethics and environmental ethics . Normative ethics is the philosophical study of ethical conduct and investigates the fundamental principles of morality . It aims to discover and justify general answers to questions like "How should one live?" and "How should people act?", usually in
6900-422: Is the only thing with intrinsic value is called ethical or evaluative hedonism . Classical utilitarianism was initially formulated by Jeremy Bentham at the end of the 18th century and further developed by John Stuart Mill . Bentham introduced the hedonic calculus to assess the value of consequences. Two key aspects of the hedonic calculus are the intensity and the duration of pleasure. According to this view,
7050-437: Is to have a good will. A person has a good will if they respect the moral law and form their intentions and motives in agreement with it. Kant states that actions motivated in such a way are unconditionally good, meaning that they are good even in cases where they result in undesirable consequences. Divine command theory says that God is the source of morality. It states that moral laws are divine commands and that to act morally
7200-489: Is to obey and follow God's will . While all divine command theorists agree that morality depends on God, there are disagreements about the precise content of the divine commands, and theorists belonging to different religions tend to propose different moral laws. For example, Christian and Jewish divine command theorists may argue that the Ten Commandments express God's will while Muslims may reserve this role for
7350-411: Is usually divided into normative ethics , applied ethics , and metaethics . Morality is about what people ought to do rather than what they actually do, what they want to do, or what social conventions require. As a rational and systematic field of inquiry, ethics studies practical reasons why people should act one way rather than another. Most ethical theories seek universal principles that express
7500-421: Is wrong to break a promise even if no harm comes from it. Deontologists are interested in which actions are right and often allow that there is a gap between what is right and what is good. Many focus on prohibitions and describe which acts are forbidden under any circumstances. Agent-centered deontological theories focus on the person who acts and the duties they have. Agent-centered theories often focus on
7650-461: Is wrong. The sentence was rendered by professional judges. A host of new reforms followed in diverse areas. The tsar appointed Dmitry Milyutin to carry out significant reforms in the Russian armed forces. Further important changes were made concerning industry and commerce, and the new freedom thus afforded produced a large number of limited liability companies . Plans were formed for building
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#17327868015297800-399: Is wrong. This observation is sometimes taken as an argument against moral realism since moral disagreement is widespread in most fields. Moral relativists reject the idea that morality is an objective feature of reality. They argue instead that moral principles are human inventions. This means that a behavior is not objectively right or wrong but only subjectively right or wrong relative to
7950-667: The Ancient Greek word êthos ( ἦθος ), meaning ' character ' and ' personal disposition ' . This word gave rise to the Ancient Greek word ēthikós ( ἠθικός ), which was translated into Latin as ethica and entered the English language in the 15th century through the Old French term éthique . The term morality originates in the Latin word moralis , meaning ' manners ' and ' character ' . It
8100-676: The South Place Ethical Society , founded in 1793 as the South Place Chapel on Finsbury Square , on the edge of the City of London . In the early nineteenth century, the chapel became known as "a radical gathering-place." At that point, it was a Unitarian chapel; like Quakers , the Unitarian movement supported female equality . Under the leadership of Reverend William Johnson Fox (who became minister of
8250-613: The abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire, and Poor Law reform . Peel was a Conservative , whose Ministry took an important step in the direction of tariff reform with the abolition of the Corn Laws . William Ewart Gladstone was a reformer. Among the reforms he helped Parliament pass was a system of public education in the Elementary Education Act 1870 . In 1872, he saw the institution of
8400-409: 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
8550-402: The medieval period , ethical thought was strongly influenced by religious teachings. In the modern period , this focus shifted to a more secular approach concerned with moral experience, reasons for acting , and the consequences of actions. An influential development in the 20th century was the emergence of metaethics. Ethics, also called moral philosophy, is the study of moral phenomena. It
8700-407: The "aims and principles" of their American counterparts. In 1886, the first British ethical society was founded. Coit took over the leadership of South Place for a few years. Ethical societies flourished in Britain. By 1896, the four London societies formed the Union of Ethical Societies, and between 1905 and 1910, there were over fifty societies in Great Britain, seventeen of which were affiliated with
8850-736: The 1920s and early 30s until only ten societies were left in 1934. By 1954, there were only four. The situation became such that, in 1971, sociologist Colin Campbell even suggested that one could say "that when the South Place Ethical Society discussed changing its name to the South Place Humanist Society in 1969, the English Ethical movement ceased to exist." The organizations spawned by the 19th-century Ethical movement would later live on as
9000-532: The 20th century, virtue ethics experienced a resurgence thanks to philosophers such as Elizabeth Anscombe , Philippa Foot , Alasdair MacIntyre , and Martha Nussbaum . There are many other schools of normative ethics in addition to the three main traditions. Pragmatist ethics focuses on the role of practice and holds that one of the key tasks of ethics is to solve practical problems in concrete situations. It has certain similarities to utilitarianism and its focus on consequences but concentrates more on how morality
9150-404: The 20th century, when the term was coined by G. E. M. Anscombe . Consequentialists usually understand the consequences of an action in a very wide sense that includes the totality of its effects. This is based on the idea that actions make a difference in the world by bringing about a causal chain of events that would not have existed otherwise. A core intuition behind consequentialism is that
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#17327868015299300-750: 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. The Ethical movement was an outgrowth of the general loss of faith among the intellectuals of the Victorian era . A precursor to the doctrines of the Ethical movement can be found in
9450-732: The British humanist movement. The South Place Ethical Society eventually changed its name to Conway Hall Ethical Society, after Moncure D. Conway , and is typically known as simply "Conway Hall." In 2017, the British Humanist Association changed its name to Humanists UK . Both organizations are part of Humanists International , founded by Harold Blackham in 1952 as the International Humanist and Ethical Union. While Ethical Culturists generally share common beliefs about what constitutes ethical behavior and
9600-475: The Empire's population of 74 million. They belonged to the state, to monasteries and to 104,000 rich gentry landowners. ` The emancipation reform of 1861 that freed the 23 million serfs was the single most important event in 19th-century Russia and the beginning of the end for the landed aristocracy's monopoly of power. Emancipation brought a supply of free labour to the cities, stimulating industry, and allowed
9750-426: The Empire. Peasants often opposed the reforms because they upset traditional relationships. The Russian Empire in the 19th century was characterized by very conservative and reactionary policies issued by the autocratic tsars. The great exception came during the reign of Alexander II (1855–1881), especially the 1860s. By far the greatest and most unexpected was the abolition of serfdom, which affected 23 million of
9900-653: The Ethical Society, a member of the society or by guests. Sunday school for minors is also held at most ethical societies concurrent with the Platform. The American Ethical Union holds an annual AEU Assembly bringing together Ethical societies from across the US. The tax status of Ethical Societies as religious organizations has been upheld in court cases in Washington, D.C. (1957), and in Austin, Texas (2003). In challenge to
10050-464: The Ethical movement uses upper case to distinguish certified professional Leaders from other leaders.) A board of executives handles day-to-day affairs, and committees of members focus on specific activities and involvements of the society. Ethical societies usually hold weekly meetings on Sundays, with the main event of each meeting being the "Platform", which involves a half-hour speech by the Leader of
10200-521: The Ethical movement. 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. One of Felix Adler's colleagues, Stanton Coit , visited them in London to discuss
10350-670: The Fellowship was short-lived, it spawned the Fabian Society , which split in 1884 from the Fellowship of the New Life. In his youth, Felix Adler was being trained to be a rabbi like his father, Samuel Adler , the rabbi of the Reform Jewish Temple Emanu-El in New York. As part of his education, he enrolled at the University of Heidelberg , where he was influenced by neo-Kantian philosophy. He
10500-701: The Next Step (1954) by Lloyd and Mary Morain, saying simply that it was "A significant book." Ethical Ethics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy , it investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches include normative ethics , applied ethics , and metaethics . Normative ethics aims to find general principles that govern how people should act. Applied ethics examines concrete ethical problems in real-life situations, such as abortion , treatment of animals , and business practices . Metaethics explores
10650-655: The Nonconformist churches, especially the Methodists. Reformers also used the scientific methodology of Jeremy Bentham and the utilitarians to design specific reforms, and especially to provide for government inspection to guarantee their successful operation. The greatest success of the Reformers was the Reform Act 1832 . It gave the rising urban middle classes more political power, while sharply reducing
10800-476: The U.S.: Conway Hall in London is home to the South Place Ethical Society , which was founded in 1787. Ethical societies are typically led by "Leaders". Leaders are trained and certified (the equivalent of ordination) by the American Ethical Union. Societies engage Leaders, in much the same way that Protestant congregations "call" a minister. Not all Ethical societies have a professional Leader. (In typical usage,
10950-593: The Union of Ethical Societies changed its name to the Ethical Union. Harold Blackham , who had taken over leadership of the London Ethical Church, consciously sought to remove the church-like trappings of the Ethical movement and advocated a simple creed of humanism that was not akin to a religion. He promoted the merger of the Ethical Union with the Rationalist Press Association and the South Place Ethical Society, and, in 1957,
11100-568: The Union. This rapid growth was partly due to Coit, who left his role as leader of South Place in 1892 after being denied the power and authority he was vying for. Because he was firmly entrenched in British ethicism, Coit remained in London and formed the West London Ethical Society, which was almost entirely under his control. Coit worked quickly to shape the West London society not only around Ethical Culture but also
11250-430: The actual consequences but the expected consequences. This view takes into account that when deciding what to do, people have to rely on their limited knowledge of the total consequences of their actions. According to this view, a course of action has positive moral value despite leading to an overall negative outcome if it had the highest expected value , for example, because the negative outcome could not be anticipated or
11400-839: The advancement of education (e.g., the American Humanist Association and the American Ethical Union ). However, in the UK, the Ethical organisations become 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 , the Humanists UK respectively. Internationally, Ethical Culture and secular humanist organizations have always organized jointly;
11550-477: The age of 30 who were householders, the wives of householders, occupiers of the property with an annual rent of £5, and graduates of British universities. There was also Warner's suffrage movement. Earl Grey , Lord Melbourne and Robert Peel were leaders of Parliament during the earlier years of the British reform movement. Grey and Melbourne were of the Whig party, and their governments saw parliamentary reform ,
11700-529: The agent. It is controversial whether agent-relative moral theories, like ethical egoism , should be considered as types of consequentialism. There are many different types of consequentialism. They differ based on what type of entity they evaluate, what consequences they take into consideration, and how they determine the value of consequences. Most theories assess the moral value of acts. However, consequentialism can also be used to evaluate motives , character traits , rules, and policies . Many types assess
11850-570: The basic assumptions underlying moral claims are misguided. Some moral nihilists conclude from this that anything is allowed. A slightly different view emphasizes that moral nihilism is not itself a moral position about what is allowed and prohibited but the rejection of any moral position. Moral nihilism, like moral relativism, recognizes that people judge actions as right or wrong from different perspectives. However, it disagrees that this practice involves morality and sees it as just one type of human behavior. A central disagreement among moral realists
12000-417: The best action for someone with a good salary would be to donate 70% of their income to charity, it would be morally wrong for them to only donate 65%. Satisficing consequentialism, by contrast, only requires that an act is "good enough" even if it is not the best possible alternative. According to this view, it is possible to do more than one is morally required to do. Mohism in ancient Chinese philosophy
12150-477: The best in others, we encourage the growing edge of their ethical development, their perhaps as-yet untapped but inexhaustible worth. Since around 1950, the Ethical Culture movement has been increasingly identified as part of the modern Humanist movement. Specifically, in 1952, the American Ethical Union , the national umbrella organization for Ethical Culture societies in the United States , became one of
12300-563: The congregation in 1817), it lent its pulpit to activists such as Anna Wheeler , one of the first women to campaign for feminism at public meetings in England, who spoke in 1829 on the "Rights of Women." In later decades, the chapel moved away from Unitarianism and changed its name first to the South Place Religious Society. It again changed its name to the South Place Ethical Society (a name it held formally, but it
12450-421: The consequences. A related approach is to characterize consequentialism not in terms of consequences but in terms of outcome, with the outcome being defined as the act together with its consequences. Most forms of consequentialism are agent-neutral. This means that the value of consequences is assessed from a neutral perspective, that is, acts should have consequences that are good in general and not just good for
12600-423: The deficient state of cowardice and the excessive state of recklessness . Aristotle held that virtuous action leads to happiness and makes people flourish in life. Stoicism emerged about 300 BCE and taught that, through virtue alone, people can achieve happiness characterized by a peaceful state of mind free from emotional disturbances. The Stoics advocated rationality and self-mastery to achieve this state. In
12750-538: The developed moral traditions and moral philosophy of 19th century secular societies in Europe and the United States. In practice, 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
12900-413: The form of universal or domain-independent principles that determine whether an act is right or wrong. For example, given the particular impression that it is wrong to set a child on fire for fun, normative ethics aims to find more general principles that explain why this is the case, like the principle that one should not cause extreme suffering to the innocent , which may itself be explained in terms of
13050-519: The formation of character . Descriptive ethics describes the dominant moral codes and beliefs in different societies and considers their historical dimension. The history of ethics started in the ancient period with the development of ethical principles and theories in ancient Egypt , India , China , and Greece . This period saw the emergence of ethical teachings associated with Hinduism , Buddhism , Confucianism , Daoism , and contributions of philosophers like Socrates and Aristotle . During
13200-656: The founding member organizations of the International Humanist and Ethical Union . In the United Kingdom, the ethical societies consciously rejected the "church model" in the mid-20th century, while still providing services like weddings, funerals, and namings on a secular basis. While Ethical Culture does not regard its founder's views as necessarily the final word, Adler identified focal ideas that remain important within Ethical Culture. These ideas include: Many Ethical Societies prominently display
13350-567: The four existing societies unified under the umbrella organization, the American Ethical Union ( AEU ). After some initial success, the movement stagnated until after World War II . In 1946, efforts were made to revitalize, and societies were created in New Jersey and Washington D.C., along with the inauguration of the Encampment for Citizenship . By 1968, there were thirty societies with a total national membership of over 5,500. However,
13500-405: The future should be shaped to achieve the best possible outcome. The act itself is usually not seen as part of the consequences. This means that if an act has intrinsic value or disvalue, it is not included as a factor. Some consequentialists see this as a flaw, saying that all value-relevant factors need to be considered. They try to avoid this complication by including the act itself as part of
13650-707: The government of the Great National Assembly, of which he was president, Mustafa Kemal fought the Forces of the Entente and the Sultan's army which had remained there in collaboration with the occupying forces. Finally, on 9 September 1922 he succeeded in driving the Allied Forces back to Izmir, along with the other forces which had managed to penetrate the heartland of Anatolia. By this action he saved
13800-429: The greatest number" by increasing happiness and reducing suffering. Utilitarians do not deny that other things also have value, like health, friendship, and knowledge. However, they deny that these things have intrinsic value. Instead, they say that they have extrinsic value because they affect happiness and suffering. In this regard, they are desirable as a means but, unlike happiness, not as an end. The view that pleasure
13950-421: The human mind and culture rather than as subjective constructs or expressions of personal preferences and cultural norms . Moral realists accept the claim that there are objective moral facts. This view implies that moral values are mind-independent aspects of reality and that there is an absolute fact about whether a given action is right or wrong. A consequence of this view is that moral requirements have
14100-426: The ideas are often grounded in liberalism , although they may be rooted in socialist (specifically, social democratic ) or religious concepts. Some rely on personal transformation; others rely on small collectives, such as Mahatma Gandhi 's spinning wheel and the self-sustaining village economy, as a mode of social change . Reactionary movements , which can arise against any of these, attempt to put things back
14250-415: The importance of interpersonal relationships and say that benevolence by caring for the well-being of others is one of the key virtues. Influential schools of virtue ethics in ancient philosophy were Aristotelianism and Stoicism . According to Aristotle (384–322 BCE), each virtue is a golden mean between two types of vices: excess and deficiency. For example, courage is a virtue that lies between
14400-411: The intellectual satisfaction of reading a book, are more valuable than lower pleasures, like the sensory enjoyment of food and drink, even if their intensity and duration are the same. Since its original formulation, many variations of utilitarianism have developed, including the difference between act and rule utilitarianism and between maximizing and satisficing utilitarianism. Deontology assesses
14550-476: The introduction of public hearings , the jury trial , and a professional advocate that had never existed in Russia. However, there were also problems, as certain obsolete institutions were not covered by the reform. Also, the reform was hindered by extrajudicial punishment , introduced on a widespread scale during the reigns of his successors – Alexander III and Nicholas II . One of the most important results of
14700-440: The judiciary occurred to include trial in open court, with judges appointed for life, a jury system and the creation of justices of the peace to deal with minor offences at local level. Legal historian Sir Henry Maine credited Alexander II with the first great attempt since the time of Grotius to codify and humanise the usages of war. Alexander's bureaucracy instituted an elaborate scheme of local self-government ( zemstvo ) for
14850-478: The leadership of Thomas Attwood . The Chartist movement demanded basic economic reforms, higher wages and better conditions of work, and a repeal of the obnoxious Poor Law Act. The idea of universal male suffrage, an initial goal of the Chartist movement, was to include all males as voters regardless of their social standing. This later evolved into a campaign for universal suffrage. This movement sought to redraw
15000-463: The leading humanists and Ethical Culturists of her day. She collaborated with Al Black, Ethical Society leader, in the creation of her nationwide Encampment of Citizenship. She 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 . She provided a cover endorsement for the first edition of Humanism as
15150-609: The level of ontology , it examines whether there are objective moral facts. Concerning semantics , it asks what the meaning of moral terms are and whether moral statements have a truth value . The epistemological side of metaethics discusses whether and how people can acquire moral knowledge. Metaethics overlaps with psychology because of its interest in how moral judgments motivate people to act. It also overlaps with anthropology since it aims to explain how cross-cultural differences affect moral assessments. Metaethics examines basic ethical concepts and their relations. Ethics
15300-470: The message that the idea and the ideals of outdated imperialism ought be dropped so that people within the national boundaries could make decisions in accordance with the principles and general guidelines of an effective national policy. After the occupation of Istanbul by the Forces of the Entente he laid the foundations for the new Turkish State when in 1920 he united the Great National Assembly in Ankara. With
15450-405: The middle class to increase in number and influence. The freed peasants did not receive any free land. They had to pay a special tax for what amounted to their lifetime to the government, which in turn paid the landlords a generous price for the land that they had lost. All the property turned over to the peasants was owned collectively by the mir , the village community, which divided the land among
15600-569: The moral rightness of actions based on a set of norms or principles. These norms describe the requirements that all actions need to follow. They may include principles like telling the truth, keeping promises , and not intentionally harming others. Unlike consequentialists, deontologists hold that the validity of general moral principles does not directly depend on their consequences. They state that these principles should be followed in every case since they express how actions are inherently right or wrong. According to moral philosopher David Ross , it
15750-477: The moral value of acts only depends on the pleasure and suffering they cause. An alternative approach says that there are many different sources of value, which all contribute to one overall value. Before the 20th century, consequentialists were only concerned with the total of value or the aggregate good. In the 20th century, alternative views were developed that additionally consider the distribution of value. One of them states that an equal distribution of goods
15900-406: The most successful and consistent of all his reforms. A completely new court system and order of legal proceedings were established. The main results were the introduction of a unified judicial system instead of a cumbersome set of estates of the realm courts, and fundamental changes in criminal trials. The latter included the establishment of the principle of equality of the parties involved ,
16050-431: The motives and intentions behind people's actions, highlighting the importance of acting for the right reasons. They tend to be agent-relative, meaning that the reasons for which people should act depend on personal circumstances. For example, a parent has a special obligation to their child, while a stranger does not have this kind of obligation toward a child they do not know. Patient-centered theories, by contrast, focus on
16200-476: The natural flow of the universe . Indigenous belief systems, like Native American philosophy and the African Ubuntu philosophy , often emphasize the interconnectedness of all living beings and the environment while stressing the importance of living in harmony with nature. Metaethics is the branch of ethics that examines the nature, foundations, and scope of moral judgments , concepts, and values. It
16350-531: The parliamentary districts within Great Britain and create a salary system for elected officials so that workers could afford to represent their constituents without a burden on their families. Many consider Mary Wollstonecraft 's Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) to be the source of the reformers' long-running campaign for feminist inclusion and the origin of the Women's Suffrage movement. Harriet Taylor
16500-465: The peasants and supervised the various holdings. Although serfdom was abolished, since its abolition was achieved on terms unfavourable to the peasants, revolutionary tensions were not abated, despite Alexander II's intentions. Revolutionaries believed that the newly freed serfs were merely being sold into wage slavery in the onset of the industrial revolution, and that the bourgeoisie had effectively replaced landowners. The judicial reforms were among
16650-430: The people affected by actions and the rights they have. An example is the requirement to treat other people as ends and not merely as a means to an end. This requirement can be used to argue, for example, that it is wrong to kill a person against their will even if this act would save the lives of several others. Patient-centered deontological theories are usually agent-neutral, meaning that they apply equally to everyone in
16800-440: The person possesses and exercises certain capacities or some form of control . If a person is morally responsible then it is appropriate to respond to them in certain ways, for example, by praising or blaming them. A major debate in metaethics is about the ontological status of morality, questioning whether ethical values and principles are real. It examines whether moral properties exist as objective features independent of
16950-411: The person would want everyone to follow the same maxim as a universal law applicable to everyone. Another formulation states that one should treat other people always as ends in themselves and never as mere means to an end. This formulation focuses on respecting and valuing other people for their own sake rather than using them in the pursuit of personal goals. In either case, Kant says that what matters
17100-621: The power of the low-population districts controlled by rich families. Despite determined resistance from the House of Lords to the Bill, this Act gave more parliamentary power to the liberals, while reducing the political force of the working class, leaving them detached from the main body of middle class support on which they had relied. Having achieved the Reform Act of 1832, the Radical alliance
17250-479: The practice of selfless love , such as the Great Commandment to "Love your neighbor as yourself". The Five Pillars of Islam constitute a basic framework of Muslim ethics and focus on the practice of faith , prayer , charity , fasting during Ramadan , and pilgrimage to Mecca . Buddhists emphasize the importance of compassion and loving-kindness towards all sentient entities. A similar outlook
17400-516: The priests returned home. Others stayed to minister to their native parishioners, who remain members of the Russian Orthodox Church into the 21st century. Atatürk's Reforms were a series of significant political, legal, cultural, social and economic changes that were implemented under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in the 1920s and 1930s in the new Republic of Turkey In the years between 1919 and 1923 Mustafa Kemal
17550-414: The reform was wide introduction of jury trials . The jury trial included three professional judges and twelve jurors. A juror had to possess real estate of a certain value. Unlike in modern jury trials, jurors not only could decide whether the defendant was guilty or not guilty but also could decide that the defendant was guilty but not to be punished, as Alexander II believed that justice without morality
17700-445: The renewed movement differed from its predecessor in a few ways. The newer groups were being created in suburban locales and often to provide alternative Sunday schools for children, with adult activities as an afterthought. There was also a greater focus on organization and bureaucracy, along with an inward turn emphasizing the needs of the group members over the more general social issues that had initially concerned Adler. The result
17850-468: The right to receive that benefit. Obligation and permission are contrasting terms that can be defined through each other: to be obligated to do something means that one is not permitted not to do it and to be permitted to do something means that one is not obligated not to do it. Some theorists define obligations in terms of values or what is good . When used in a general sense, good contrasts with bad . When describing people and their intentions,
18000-614: The rural districts (1864) and the large towns (1870), with elective assemblies possessing a restricted right of taxation, and a new rural and municipal police under the direction of the Minister of the Interior . The Alaska colony was losing money, and would be impossible to defend and wartime against Britain, so in 1867 Russia sold Alaska to the United States for $ 7.2 million (equivalent to roughly $ 200 million in current dollars). The Russian administrators, soldiers, settlers, and some of
18150-417: The same course of action but provide different justifications for why it is right. Consequentialism, also called teleological ethics, says that morality depends on consequences. According to the most common view, an act is right if it brings the best future. This means that there is no alternative course of action that has better consequences. A key aspect of consequentialist theories is that they provide
18300-401: The same ontological status as non-moral facts: it is an objective fact whether there is an obligation to keep a promise just as it is an objective fact whether a thing is rectangular. Moral realism is often associated with the claim that there are universal ethical principles that apply equally to everyone. It implies that if two people disagree about a moral evaluation then at least one of them
18450-439: The same statement of principles: In effect, the movement responded to the religious crisis of the time by replacing theology with unadulterated morality. It aimed to "disentangle moral ideas from religious doctrines , metaphysical systems, and ethical theories, and to make them an independent force in personal life and social relations." Adler was also particularly critical of the religious emphasis on creed , believing it to be
18600-423: The same time required to justify them using rational argumentation. The main concern of virtue ethics is how virtues are expressed in actions. As such, it is neither directly interested in the consequences of actions nor in universal moral duties. Virtues are positive character traits like honesty , courage , kindness , and compassion . They are usually understood as dispositions to feel, decide, and act in
18750-447: The source of sectarian bigotry . He, therefore, attempted to provide a universal fellowship devoid of ritual and ceremony for those who would otherwise be divided by creeds. For the same reasons, the movement also adopted a neutral position on religious beliefs, advocating neither atheism nor theism , agnosticism nor deism . The Adlerian emphasis on "deed not creed" translated into several public service projects. The year after it
18900-409: The structure of practical reason and are true for all rational agents. According to Kant, to act morally is to act in agreement with reason as expressed by these principles while violating them is both immoral and irrational. Kant provided several formulations of the categorical imperative. One formulation says that a person should only follow maxims that can be universalized . This means that
19050-595: The teachings of the Quran . Contractualists reject the reference to God as the source of morality and argue instead that morality is based on an explicit or implicit social contract between humans. They state that actual or hypothetical consent to this contract is the source of moral norms and duties. To determine which duties people have, contractualists often rely on a thought experiment about what rational people under ideal circumstances would agree on. For example, if they would agree that people should not lie then there
19200-455: The term evil rather than bad is often employed. Obligations are used to assess the moral status of actions, motives , and character traits . An action is morally right if it is in tune with a person's obligations and morally wrong if it violates them. Supererogation is a special moral status that applies to cases in which the agent does more than is morally required of them. To be morally responsible for an action usually means that
19350-410: The time, the Ethical societies did not attempt to proselytize those they helped. They rarely tried to convert anyone. New members had to be sponsored by existing members, and women were not allowed to join until 1893. They also resisted formalization, though they slowly adopted certain traditional practices, like Sunday meetings and life cycle ceremonies, yet did so in a modern humanistic context. In 1893,
19500-428: The trappings of religious practice, renaming the society in 1914 to the Ethical Church; he did this because he subscribed to a personal theory of using "theological terms in a humanistic sense" to make the Ethical movement appealing to irreligious people with otherwise strong cultural attachments to religion, such as cultural Christians . Coit transformed his meetings into "services," and their space into something akin to
19650-450: The truth and keeping promises. Virtue ethics sees the manifestation of virtues , like courage and compassion , as the fundamental principle of morality. Ethics is closely connected to value theory , which studies the nature and types of value , like the contrast between intrinsic and instrumental value . Moral psychology is a related empirical field and investigates psychological processes involved in morality, such as reasoning and
19800-444: The underlying assumptions and concepts of ethics. It asks whether there are objective moral facts, how moral knowledge is possible, and how moral judgments motivate people. Influential normative theories are consequentialism , deontology , and virtue ethics . According to consequentialists, an act is right if it leads to the best consequences. Deontologists focus on acts themselves, saying that they must adhere to duties , like telling
19950-520: 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
20100-724: The unsuccessful Women's Franchise League , and in October 1903 she founded the better-known Women's Social and Political Union (later dubbed 'suffragettes' by the Daily Mail ), an organization famous for its militancy. Led by Pankhurst and her daughters, Christabel and Sylvia, the campaign culminated in 1918, when the British Parliament the Representation of the People Act 1918 granting the vote to women over
20250-399: The value of consequences based on whether they promote happiness or suffering. But there are also alternative evaluative principles, such as desire satisfaction, autonomy , freedom , knowledge , friendship , beauty , and self-perfection. Some forms of consequentialism hold that there is only a single source of value . The most prominent among them is utilitarianism , which states that
20400-425: The way they were before any successes the new reform movement(s) enjoyed, or to prevent any such successes. After two decades of intensely conservative rule, the logjam broke in the late 1820s with the repeal of obsolete restrictions on Nonconformists, followed by the dramatic removal of severe limitations on Catholics in Britain. The Radical movement campaigned for electoral reform , against child labour , for
20550-459: Was "The cultivation of a perfect character in each and all." They wanted to transform society by setting an example of clean, simplified living for others to follow. Davidson was a major proponent of a structured philosophy about religion , ethics , and social reform . At a meeting on 16 November 1883, a summary of the society's goals was drawn up by Maurice Adams: We, recognizing the evils and wrongs that must beset men so long as our social life
20700-421: Was a prominent supporter of Ethical Culture in the UK, serving multiple terms as President of the West London Ethical Society, and was involved in the creation of the Union of Ethical Societies. Albert Einstein was a supporter of Ethical Culture. On the seventy-fifth anniversary of the New York Society for Ethical Culture, in 1951, he noted that the idea of Ethical Culture embodied his personal conception of what
20850-584: Was a significant influence on John Stuart Mill 's work and ideas, reinforcing Mill's advocacy of women's rights . Her essay, "Enfranchisement of Women," appeared in the Westminster Review in 1851 in response to a speech by Lucy Stone given at the first National Women's Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1850, and it was reprinted in the United States. Mill cites Taylor's influence in his final revision of On Liberty, (1859) which
21000-547: Was a strong supporter of the British Ethical movement, having been a Christian earlier in his life. He was a member of the Ethical Church and the Union of Ethical Societies (now Humanists UK ), a regular attender at South Place Ethical Society . During his time involved with the Ethical movement, he chaired the annual meeting of the Ethical Union on multiple occasions and wrote for Stanton Coit 's Ethical World journal. The British critic and mountaineer Leslie Stephen
21150-410: Was a transformation of American ethical societies into something much more akin to small Christian congregations in which the minister 's most pressing concern is to tend to their flock. In the 21st century, the movement attempted to revitalize itself through social media and involvement with other Humanist organizations, with mixed success. As of 2014, there were fewer than 10,000 official members of
21300-642: Was at the forefront of the Turkish War of Independence and involved with the eradication of the antiquated institutions of the Osmanic Empire and in laying the foundations of the new Turkish State. He approached the National Congresses of Erzurum and Sivas to organise and lift the morale of the people in its determined opposition to the Forces of the Entente who were occupying Anatolia. By the end of these conventions he had managed to convey
21450-521: Was better known as Conway Hall from 1929); its current name is Conway Hall Ethical Society . The Fellowship of the New Life was established in 1883 by the Scottish intellectual Thomas Davidson . Fellowship members included poets Edward Carpenter and John Davidson , animal rights activist Henry Stephens Salt , sexologist Havelock Ellis , feminist Edith Lees (who later married Ellis), novelist Olive Schreiner and Edward R. Pease . Its objective
21600-532: Was broken until the Liberal-Labour alliance of the Edwardian period. The Chartist movement in nineteenth-century Britain sought universal suffrage . A historian of the Chartist movement observed that "The Chartist movement was essentially an economic movement with a purely political programme." A period of bad trade and high food prices set in, and the drastic restrictions on Poor Law relief were
21750-561: Was characterized by various attempts to modernize the Ottoman Empire , to secure its territorial integrity against nationalist movements and aggressive powers. The reforms encouraged Ottomanism among the diverse ethnic groups of the Empire, attempting to stem the tide of nationalist movements within the Ottoman Empire . The reforms attempted to integrate non-Muslims and non-Turks more thoroughly into Ottoman society by enhancing their civil liberties and granting them equality throughout
21900-540: 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. During this time, he was also exposed to the moral problems caused by the exploitation of women and labor. These experiences laid the intellectual groundwork for the Ethical movement. Upon his return from Germany in 1873, he shared his ethical vision with his father's congregation through
22050-478: Was founded, the New York Society started a kindergarten, a district nursing service, and a tenement-house building company. Later, they opened the Ethical Culture School , then called the "Workingman's School," a Sunday school and a summer home for children. Other ethical societies soon followed suit with similar projects. Unlike the philanthropic efforts of the established religious institutions of
22200-555: Was introduced into the English language during the Middle English period through the Old French term moralité . The terms ethics and morality are usually used interchangeably but some philosophers distinguish between the two. According to one view, morality focuses on what moral obligations people have while ethics is broader and includes ideas about what is good and how to lead a meaningful life. Another difference
22350-584: Was published shortly after her death, and she appears to be obliquely referenced in Mill's The Subjection of Women. A militant campaign to include women in the electorate originated in Victorian times. Emmeline Pankhurst 's husband, Richard Pankhurst, was a supporter of the women's suffrage movement and had been the author of the Married Women's Property Acts of 1870 and 1882. In 1889, Pankhurst founded
22500-475: Was unlikely. A further difference is between maximizing and satisficing consequentialism. According to maximizing consequentialism, only the best possible act is morally permitted. This means that acts with positive consequences are wrong if there are alternatives with even better consequences. One criticism of maximizing consequentialism is that it demands too much by requiring that people do significantly more than they are socially expected to. For example, if
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