Ethical Addresses - Tenth Series

 

Series Ten:  Contents

The Tenth Series of Ethical Addresses, published in 1903, presents 10 lectures and writings from Felix Adler, William M. Salter, Walter L. Sheldon, David Saville Muzzey, and Percival Chubb.  Their contributions continue to focus on religious concepts and the Ethical and moral reflections in literature,  social issues, and the care and education of children.

My attention was drawn to Adler's first contribution to the volume:  "Ethics and Culture" (pp. 1-16).  The "Culture" in Ethical Culture is a puzzling term in this century.  My interest was caught by this title along with the hope that clarification would be forthcoming, and, to some extent, it was.

The address was originally given at the Harvard Philosophical Club fifteen years prior (January 9, 1888) to this (re)publication.  Adler begins by noting that Ethics, as a concept is well defined in the literature, but Culture is less so.  He offers the common notion of Culture as a baseline:  "The marks of culture as commonly understood are three: literary taste, aesthetic sensibility, and fine manners" (p. 1). Then he dismisses that notion and several others before asserting that the notion of culture is an ethical notion, that is ". . . the laws by which we fashion this human world are called the ethical laws" (p. 8), and, a bit later, ". . . we must be strong enough to judge for ourselves what is right and live according to the leadings of our own reason" (p. 10).  Seeking to be cultured, Adler says we must work on our inner moral life without expecting perfection or indeed that we have all the information needed to guide us.  Instead, we are to act and, in the process, learn what the practical actions we pursue have to teach us--both when we are successful and when we fail.  Without Adler explicitly saying so, the implied meaning of culture does include the work of developing our inner selves with the aim of improving our own moral character, doing so, however, in community and through action.

"Ethics and Culture" was first published April 1888, according to M. G. Singer ("The History of Ethics," Ethics, 98, no. 3 [April 1988]), who determined that the lecture was the first article in the first issue of the Ethical Record, which was the predecessor of the International Journal of Ethics, which was the predecessor of Ethics.  I would need better access to an academic library to be able to retrace that path, but I hope to see relevant archives for the Ethical Record when next I am in New  York.  

Also of interest regarding this address is that it was given at the Harvard Philosophical Club at a time when W. E. B. Du Bois was a student at Harvard and a member of the Club (Du Bois, W. E. B. “A Negro Student at Harvard at the End of the 19th Century.” The Massachusetts Review 1, no. 3 (1960): 439–58. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25086526).  Whether Du Bois attended this particular address or whether this address provided an initial link between the two men is an open question, but it does suggest potential pathways for their connection.  It also makes a later lecture in this same volume more troublesome even than it first seemed.

I always cringe when I see something written in earlier years that refers to "the Negro Problem."  Whatever I find always seems to imply that the "problem" is more the fault of Black folks for choosing to wear the wrong skin than it is the fault of non-Black folks for constructing a false division among humans because of skin color.  Perhaps I oversimplify, but I did cringe to see Salter's lecture--"The Negro Problem:  Is the Nation Going Backward?" (pp. 163-180) in the table of contents.  The question of the title would lead one to think that there will be less patronizing and, well, racist perspective here than the initial words suggest.  Salter does make an effort to assert the brotherhood of all humans, but he also immediately lapses into hierarchical thinking:  "Yes, there are advanced races, and there are backward races; there are civilized races and there are savage races ; there are white races and yellow races and brown races and black races ; but all alike are men — all alike belong to the greater brotherhood of the human race" (p. 164).  The lecture is in line with Ethical thinking regarding intrinsic human worth and includes some soaring passages expressing our shared commitment to that worth in every human being.  Even so, it is set very firmly in its time of writing and is freely larded with bias and stereotype and diminution of the very people it seeks to uphold as equal.  Again, it is not my purpose here to judge the values of the past by the values (and knowledge) of the present, so I must leave it others to place this lecture in its proper context for Ethical Culture. 

On a more bibliographic note, the promotional pages included in this volume led me to two more volumes of Ethical resources:

• Walter L. Sheldon, The Old Testament Bible Stories, as a Basis for the Ethical Instruction of the Young (1902).  Available online for free download from Archive.org.
• Stanton Coit (ed), The Message of Man:  A Book of Ethical Scriptures (1902).  Also available for free download from Archive. org.  

There were also promotions for Ethical Record and the International Journal of Ethics, both of which deserve more and separate attention.