The first step is simply to show up on a Sunday

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Come get to know us by attending a Sunday "Platform" talk that features a different guest speaker every week. Sign up for our weekly bulletin to hear about upcoming events. Speak with members who have been around for years. Make new friends at coffee hour.  Learn about our history and focus on social action. Attend a monthly "Introduction to Ethical Culture" discussion listed on our calendar. 

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Purpose

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The purposes of the Society are to cultivate character; promote the study, application and teaching of ethical principles; and to engage in such community works as are inspired by these principles.

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The main community work of the Philadelphia Ethical Society is Camp Linden, a summer camp that introduces children to the wonders of nature. Each person is unique and can foster uniqueness in others. We can all be change agents.

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Humankind is a part of nature. By paying respect to all that surrounds us, we cultivate the feelings that some call religious, spiritual, sacred, or holy. We understand that the wellbeing of our natural environment greatly depends upon responsible human effort.​ We have faith in the transformation of the human condition through personal and community efforts. 

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More about us

 

The Ethical Culture movement was founded in 1876 by Felix Adler in New York City as an alternative to traditional religions. ​Felix Adler opposed prescriptive belief systems—the idea that a sacred text, scroll, or form of revealed wisdom should dictate how we ought to live. He argued that fixing ethical truth in writing was impossible: such systems inevitably become outdated over time. 

Adler was more interested in a generative approach—a set of ethical practices from which new moral insights could emerge organically, rather than trying to indoctrinate people into a fixed set of beliefs. This was part of his critique of some of his own intellectual influences. Emerson chose Nature (or at least his understanding of it); Kant chose Reason. Adler, however, chose action—believing that it is through ethical action that we learn what it means to live well and treat others with dignity.

For Adler, the practice of affirming the worth and dignity of others wasn’t just a moral directive—it was a path to transformation. Through such action of affirming the worth of being, we gain deeper insight into both life and ourselves. That’s why we often summarize the philosophy of ethical culture with two key phrases:

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“Act so as to elicit the best in others, and thereby in oneself.”

 

“Deed before creed.”​

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