Every person has worth, and it is not conditional.
Not because they were made by anyone or are going anywhere afterwards. The claim is asserted as the starting point rather than derived, which is the movement's most criticised move.
Ethical Culture asserts the worth of the person rather than deriving it, and is candid that this is where the weight sits. Adler's later philosophical work tried to ground it in a Kantian direction — each person as an irreplaceable member of an ethical whole — but the societies have never required members to accept that or any other derivation. The practical upshot is a movement with a very strong ethic and a very weak metaphysics, which is precisely the trade it set out to make. Where it bites is in the social programme: if worth is unconditional, then it applies to the immigrant tenement, the prisoner and the child of a household that cannot pay, which is where the movement put its money from the first decade.
Believe or disbelieve as ye list — we shall at all times respect every honest conviction. But be one with us where there is nothing to divide — in action.
Felix Adler, Founding Address, 15 May 1876, published by the American Ethical UnionFrom the same address; the sentence immediately establishes that the society will not adjudicate belief.
The same ground, other faiths
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