Theoretically, Felix Adler declared that "the ideal of perfection which my mind inevitably conceives has its counterpart in the ultimate reality of things, is the truest reading of that reality whereof man is capable" (Ethical Philosophy, pp. 359f.). This was his version of what in modern philosophy is known as "the anthropic principle," the notion that the human observer is a clue of some kind to the nature of the reality of the universe. Today the Ethical Movement needs to adventurously explore a philosophy of meaning, without losing its basic resistance to any particular philosophy becoming a creedal orthodoxy. We need to explore what ethics as a clue to philosophical significance might mean. What kind of universe follows from there being ethical actors in it? We need to develop a philosophy of human nature and human society that would underpin our ethical focus. This would take us beyond theistic and atheistic groundings of ethics and ground a philosophical ethics in its own frame of reference. Looking to the future, we need a usable metaphysics of ethics. What is the larger reality of which we humans as social beings in relation to ourselves, other life, and the world are expressions? What valid reality can we perceive in Felix Adler's God-substitute: "The universe of spiritual beings interacting in infinite harmony?" is this an ideal diagram for action in an empirically based world, or is this a pointer to a Platonic or Kantian reality of ideals transcendent to empirically based experience?

There is also a social critique involved in this challenge. The issue is not one of simply substituting present-day democracy for the kings and patriarchs of the past as symbols of an ultimate overview of reality. Present day democracy itself has to be examined for the lingering effects of the oppression and subjugation that obtained under the kings and patriarchs. The equality of all persons, premised in the Declaration of independence as the basis for our democracy, took a notoriously long time to be extended to freedom for blacks and political enfranchisement for women. An ethical philosophy needs to become a social critique, a reassessment of which values are important, and an impulsion towards social change.