The Principles of Union and their exposition are worth looking at to indicate the international flavor of the Ethical Movement and the common currency of concepts that gave life to it. It is interesting to note that they considered The Positivist Society that was the brainchild of Auguste Comte as the closest kindred movement to the Ethical Society (though they noted the differences), and that they felt the democratic spirit of the Ethical Movement reflected the trend of the time, including the scientific inspiration of the age, and also the example of trade unionism and the agitation for the emancipation of women.

The nine Principles and a summary of their commentary on them read as follows:

1. In all the relations of life the moral factor should be the supreme consideration. No other movement of thought has ever made ethics central to its philosophy. This is the focal point of vision and stands opposed to biological determinism, individualistic hedonism, and any art or ritual for its own sake.
2. Love of goodness and of one's fellows are the true motives for right conduct; self-reliance and cooperation the true sources of help. Supernatural sanctions are unnecessary and supernatural help is explicable in terms of access to psychological energies, not an outside source. "A movement does not become ,distinctively ethical, and therefore does not deserve to be so designated, unless the sanctions to character which are appealed to are purely humanistic and naturalistic" (p. 3).
3. Knowledge of the right has been evolving. We start with the moral obligations already reached and advocate a progressive ideal. No other religious group acknowledges that righteousness is earthborn and subject to development as the human will strives for self-fulfillment. This is basic to the Ethical Movement. We build on the past (unlike the anarchist innovator) but move beyond the past (upheld by the traditionalist).
4. The individual considers the convictions of others but finds final authority on any opinion or action in his or her own conscientious and reasoned judgment. Authority has its place only in service to freedom and may be opposed in the name of freedom, but freedom of conscience can only be counted on to advance ethical behavior when ethical ignorance has been overcome by ethical education to secure a "reasoned judgment."
5. The well-being of society requires economic and other conditions that afford the largest scope for moral development of all its members. Social conditions may thwart moral growth. Ethical religion is concerned with the whole life of the person and needs to address the social order. We have had "enough of a religion which operates only on Sundays, and has no guidance for the six days of constructive toil by which the world is kept going." And, further, "ethical religion is on the side of the outcast poor in their claim for conditions in which the moral life can breathe and live."
6. The scientific method should be applied in studying the facts of the moral life. Though still rudimentary, a science of ethics is urged that we may understand moral ideals as "actualities," as "facts," that have a universal validity. We cannot yet give a "fully filled-in map of life," but we are active investigators.
7. The moral life involves neither acceptance nor rejection of belief in any deity, personal or impersonal, or in a life after death. The concept of the good life finds its origin in the nature of humans as social and rational beings. The primal, survival instincts and the powers of the human mind, still largely not opened up, are the "resources to which humanistic religion may appeal." We need neither supernaturalism, spiritualism, or an afterlife to empower us.
8. The acceptance of any one ultimate criterion of right should not be made a condition of ethical fellowship. This is the principle of Ethical Catholicity. It recognizes that there are principles of right action, for we are not relativistic, but that no one ethical theory can command our allegiance or require our submission.
9. Ethical Fellowships are the powerful means of encouraging the knowledge and love of right principles of conduct and of giving the strength of character necessary to realize them in action. We do not believe that moral sensibility can grow in isolation. Reading books cannot do it. "Ethical fellowship is essential to the full development of moral personality." Such fellowship introduces us to a wider variety of persons; in it each person deserves respect; the weak are helped by the strong; the spoken word vivifies the soul, and the group-spirit enlarges individual selfhood. "It is the duty of an ethical fellowship to be a powerhouse, generating currents of energy which stimulate the intelligence, the idealism, and the will-to-service of all who belong to it."