An ethical culture is a community of interdependent beings who relate to each other so as to elicit the best from each and every person. We create an ethical culture by treating people as intrinsically worthy and uniquely evolving beings and by encouraging their full capacity for greatness and spiritual harmony. We believe that by having faith in human worth, acting as if every person has the capacity for goodness as part of their human nature, we cultivate an ethical society. For an Ethical Culturist, ethics are more than social conventions. They arthe conditions necessary to elicit the best from the human spirit.
Ethical culture exists in the realm of ideal possibilities.
This ideal is not a state of being that will someday reign, but an alternative that we strive to create during particular passing situations or moments. The determination to overcome injustice and cruelty and the yearning for ideal moments of relatedness generate strong energies from the human spirit. When relationships are failing, we suffer negative consequences and disappointments. Brief experiences of ideal relatedness inspire us because they generate a sense of spiritual well-being that makes life worth living. At the heart of the major world religions are ethical principles.