Commitments of Ethical Culture

The Eight Commitments of Ethical Culture

Ethics is central.
The most central human issue in our lives involves creating a more humane environment. Ethics begins with choice.
Creating a more humane environment begins by affirming the need to make significant choices in our lives. We choose to treat each other as ends, not merely means.
To enable us to be whole, in a fragmented world, we choose to treat each other as unique individuals having intrinsic worth. We seek to act with integrity.
Treating one another

as ends requires that we learn to act with integrity. This includes

keeping commitments, and being more open, honest, caring, and

responsive. We are committed to educating ourselves.
Personal

progress is possible, both in wisdom and in social life. Learning how to

build ethical relationships and cultivate a humane community is a

life-long endeavor. Self-reflection and our social nature require us to shape a more humane world.
Spiritual

life is rooted in self-reflection, but can only come to full flower in

community. This is because people are social, needing both primary

relationships and larger supportive groups to become fully human. Our

social nature requires that we reach beyond ourselves to decrease

suffering and increase creativity in the world. Democratic process is essential to our task.
The

democratic process is essential to a humane social order because it

respects the worth of persons and elicits and allows a greater

expression of human capacities. Democratic process also implies a

commitment to shared responsibility and authority. Life itself inspires religious [ethical]response (editorial note: my edit in strikethrough and brackets).
Although

awareness of impending death intensifies the human quest for meaning,

and lends perspective to all our achievements, the mystery of life

itself, the need to belong, to feel connected to the universe, and the

desire for celebration and joy, are primary factors motivating human

“religious” response.