BSEC: Eliciting the Best

This phrase is as close to a commandment as you will find in Ethical Culture. An extension of the Golden Rules found in most World Religions, filtered by the ethical philosophy of Immanuel Kant, the phrase embodies Felix Adler's belief that spiritual perfection was possible (if it was possible at all) only through direct moral engagement with other human beings.

We are never isolated from human society, and the effects of our actions always has an impact, great or small, positive or negative, on the lives of others, and theirs on us in return. And so by helping to lift others to a higher level of moral awareness, we also lift ourselves.

Merely doing unto others as we would have them do to us ignores the unique situation of every human being. What we would have done unto ourselves is probably the wrong thing to do unto someone else. By acting so as to elicit the best, we allow others the freedom to make their own ethical choices.


	Eliciting the Best
	"Always act so as to Elicit the best in others, and thereby yourself." This phrase is as close to a commandment as you will find in Ethical Culture. An extension of the Golden Rules found in most World Religions, filtered by the ethical philosophy of Immanuel Kant, the phrase embodies Felix Adler's belief that spiritual perfection was possible (if it was possible at all) only through direct moral engagement with other human beings. We are never isolated from human society, and the effects of our actions always has an impact, great or small, positive or negative, on the lives of others, and theirs on us in return. And so by helping to lift others to a higher level of moral awareness, we also lift ourselves. Merely doing unto others as we would have them do to us ignores the unique situation of every human being. What we would have done unto ourselves is probably the wrong thing to do unto someone else. By acting so as to elicit the best, we allow others the freedom to make their own ethical choices.
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