The Ethical movement (also the Ethical Culture movement, Ethical Humanism, and Ethical Culture) is an ethical and educational movement established in 1877 by the academic Felix Adler (1851–1933). The premise of Ethical Culture is that honoring and living in accordance with a code of ethics is required to live a meaningful life and for making the world a better place for all people.
The movement originated from an effort among ethical non-religious people to develop and promote humanist codes of behavior, drawing on the developed moral traditions and moral philosophy of 19th century secular societies in Europe and the United States. In practice, members of the Ethical movement organized themselves as two types of organization: the secular humanist movement, which is avowedly non-religious, and a predominantly moral movement that saw itself as religious but not theistic.
