Felix Adler’s Beliefs

Background

Felix Adler was born in Alzey, Germany in 1851. His father, Samuel Adler, was a rabbi and an early leader of Reform Judaism. In 1856, the family immigrated to the United States when his father was called to Temple Emanu-El in New York.

Adler attended Columbia College, graduating with honors in 1870. He went on to attend Heidelberg University in Germany, as part of training to become a rabbi, where he received a doctorate in philosophy in 1873. 

He was expected to succeed his father as the rabbi at Temple Emanu-El, but his first sermon, “Judaism of the Future,” in which he argued that moral action, rather than doctrine, should be the center of religion, was not well-received. Following the sermon, he left the rabbinate and began a series of Sunday lectures at Standard Hall. Those speeches, starting with his 1876 founding address, began his humanist movement, which he called Ethical Culture. He formally created the New York Society of Ethical Culture that year.

A “Secular” Religion 

Adler conceived the Ethical Culture movement as a non-theistic religion that emphasized the inherent worth and dignity of every person and called for unity around moral principles rather than religious doctrines or traditions.

Influenced by Immanuel Kant, Adler was a firm believer in the Kantian idea that humanity must be treated as an end and not as a means. Adler applied that philosophical idea into the critique of the exploitation of workers, children, women and African-Americans. However, he saw Kant’s truth as incomplete, believing it only focused on lack of exploitation without adequately explaining how people could positively benefit others. This focus on preventing exploitation while also taking a step farther to help others thrive served as the basis of the movement’s successful advocacy for social reforms. 

Adler shared Kant’s belief that humans have a universal moral duty independent of religious doctrine or personal benefit, an idea that undergirds the secular Ethical Culture movement. However, he criticized Kant’s categorical imperative–“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”–for being too abstract and individualistic. He saw Kant’s moral system as reducing humans to separate, but interchangeable, individuals independently examining personal maxims, which neglected individual human needs and development and the relational influence on individual moral judgment.

In 1875, Adler met Ralph Waldo Emerson and repeatedly read his essays, drawing on his theory of self-reliance as an encouragement of the value of individuality and resisting religious or social conformity. However, while sharing his emphasis on individuality, Adler eventually concluded that Emerson emphasized self-affirmation at the expense of service. 

Adler’s ultimate ethical principles were, therefore, that every person has inherent and equal worth; self-assertion should be valued, but not at the expense of service; no individual becomes fully ethical in isolation; and each person realizes their unique potential by helping others realize theirs. In his words: “Act so as to elicit the best in others and thereby in thyself.”

This moral philosophy combined the influences of Kant and Emerson with more collectivist ideas. However, Adler was not a collectivist himself, believing that socialism leads to the subordination of the individual to the collective. He was, however, deeply progressive in that he was a pioneering proponent of social reform.

Deed Over Creed 

The Ethical Culture movement was never just ideological: Adler’s central maxim, which he stated in his founding address, was “Diversity in the creed, unanimity in the deed.” This principle applied to his rejection of traditional organized religion, but also to his approach regarding his own philosophy. He believed in intellectual debate and freedom of thought, united under the shared principle of working toward a more moral future.

Adler was a key advocate for social reform, particularly for the rights of the working class and children. In the late 1870s, Adler established the Workingman’s Lyceum, which provided free lectures and education for working-class adults. The Ethical Culture society also established the District Nursing Service in 1877, a pioneering healthcare justice program that brought skilled nursing care to low income communities and the first of its kind to not include proselytizing.

Adler opened one of the first free kindergartens in New York City in 1878, and two years later, he expanded the kindergarten into the Workingman’s School, a progressive elementary school that would eventually, through expanding into the Riverdale campus, become the Ethical Culture Fieldston School we attend today. 

Adler publicly advocated for a highly progressive income tax that included a 100% marginal rate above a certain income, one of the earliest public proposals for a maximum income. A key leader in the tenement house reform movement, he served on the New York State Tenement House Commission, which investigated overcrowding, contagious diseases, and fire hazards in the city’s buildings. The work of the Commission ultimately led to reforms in the city’s housing conditions. Adler also helped create the Tenement House Building Company, which constructed clean, safe and affordable housing for low-income families.

He was an early and influential leader in the campaign against child labor, describing it as a new kind of slavery, and co-founded and served as the first chairman of the National Child Labor Committee in 1904. The committee went on to hire the photojournalist Lewis Hine, whose photos of child labor practices were influential to the passage of the first child labor laws in the United States.  

Adler was a critic of American imperialism, arguing that imperial conquest was incompatible with core American democratic ideals. In 1899, he became vice-president of the American Anti-Imperialist League, which campaigned against the United States annexation of the Philippines following the Spanish American War.   

A proponent of racial equality, he called for an international conference to challenge racial prejudice, which became the First Universal Race Congress of 1911. Adler, alongside W.E.B. Dubois, represented the American section. According to a 1912 New York Times Article, Adler was an original member of the Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, which merged with other reform groups to form the organization later known as the National Urban League. As a member, he joined calls for improvements in social and economic conditions for Black Americans in urban areas, and for more training for Black social workers.  

Furthermore, in 1917, Adler served in the Civil Liberties Bureau, an organization which later became the ACLU.

Today

As attendees of the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, we gather each year for our Founder’s Day celebration, take at least two Adler requirement classes between our junior and senior years, and learn ethics starting from pre-kindergarten up to graduation. Embedded even in the name of our school is the movement founded by Felix Adler, yet the specifics of Adler’s beliefs are not often discussed in our classes, save for basic allusions toward ethical living. But if we are to state our ethical values in Adler’s name, it is worth taking the time to know, at least in part, what exactly he believed in and advocated for.