Ethical Culture Society

The Ethical movement, also referred to as the Ethical Culture movement or simply Ethical Culture, is an ethical, educational, and religious movement that is usually traced back to Felix Adler (1851–1933). Individual chapter organizations are generically referred to as "Ethical Societies", though their names may include "Ethical Society," "Ethical Culture Society," "Society for Ethical Culture," "Ethical Humanist Society," or other variations on the theme of "Ethical."

Ethical Culture is premised on the idea that honoring and living in accordance with ethical principles is central to what it takes to live meaningful and fulfilling lives, and to creating a world that is good for all. Practitioners of Ethical Culture focus on supporting one another in becoming better people, and on doing good in the world.

The American Ethical Union is a federation of about 25 Ethical Societies in the United States, representing the Ethical Culture movement. It is one of the founding member organizations of the International Humanist and Ethical Union.

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 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, and that movement, like Quakers, supported female equality. Under the leadership of Reverend William Johnson Fox, 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 "Rights of Women." In later decades, the chapel moved away from Unitarianism, changing its name first to the South Place Religious Society, then the South Place Ethical Society (a name it held formally, though it was better known as Conway Hall from 1929) and is now Conway Hall Ethical Society.

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