An Ethical Philosophy of Life Presented in Its Main Outlines — Felix Adler
You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : An ethical philosophy of life presented in its main outlines Author : Felix Adler Release date : August 6, 2019 [eBook #60068] Most recently updated: October 17, 2024 Language : English Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60068 Credits : Produced by Turgut Dincer, Les Galloway and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) *** START OF Variations in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged. The cover was prepared by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain. AN ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE PRESENTED IN ITS MAIN OUTLINES BY FELIX ADLER D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON 1920 Copyright, 1918, by D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Printed in the United States of America PREFACE This book records a philosophy of life growing out of the experience of a lifetime. The convictions put in it are not dogmatic, for dogma is the conviction of one man imposed authoritatively upon others. The convictions herein expounded are submitted to those who search, as the writer has searched, for light on the problems of life, in order that they may compare their experience with his, and their interpretations of their experience with his interpretation. 1 It is a great hope that some of the readers of this book may find the general world-view expounded congenial, and for them also real and true. It is believed that others may find the practical suggestions as to the conduct of life in which the theory issues helpful in part, if not in whole, as many of us accept from the teachings of the Stoics, or of other thinkers, practical precepts, without on that account adopting the philosophy from which these precepts are derived. The book is divided into four parts: the first an autobiographical introduction describing the various stations on the road by which the author arrived at his present position, and offering incidental appreciations and appraisements of the Hebrew religion, of Emerson, of the ethics of the Gospels, of Socialism and of other social reform movements. The second part expounds the philosophical theory. The third part contains the applications of the theory to the more strictly personal life, under the captions of the Three Shadows of Sickness, Sorrow and Sin, and also to the principal so-called Rights to Life, Property, Reputation. The fourth part applies the theory to the social institutions, to the Family, the Vocation, the State, the International Society, and the Church, these institutions being considered as an expanding series through which the individual is to pass on his pilgrimage in the direction of the supreme spiritual end. The principal problems considered are: 1. How to establish the fundamental ethical dictum that every human being ought to count, and is intrinsically worth while. This dictum has been denied by many of the greatest thinkers, who assert the intrinsic inferiority of some men, the intrinsic superiority of others. The practice of the world also runs most distinctly contrary to it. How then is it to be validated? 2. The problem of how to attach a precise meaning to the term “spiritual,” thereby divesting it of the flavor of sentimentality and vagueness that attaches to it. 3. How to link up the world’s activities in science, art, politics, business, to the supreme ethical end. 4. How to lay foundations whereon to erect the conviction that there verily is a supersensible reality. For the repetitions that occur throughout the volume indulgence is requested. In presenting an unfamiliar system of thought they may sometimes assist the reader in retaining the thread. The work is conceived as a whole, and should be read through before any part of it is more minutely examined. The theory of Part II especially should be read in the light of the applications submitted in Parts III and IV. CONTENTS BOOK I AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION CHAPTER PAGE I. Prelude 3 II. The Hebrew Religion 14 III. Emerson 27 IV. The Teachings of Jesus 30 V. Social Reform 43 VI. The Influence of My Vocation on Inner Development 58 BOOK II PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY I. Introductory Remarks: Critique of Kant 73 II. Critique of Kant ( Continued ) 82 III. Preliminary Remarks on Worth, and on the Reasons Why the Method Employed by Ethics Must Be the Opposite of That Employed by the Physical Sciences 91 IV. The Ideal of the Whole 100 V. The Ideal of the Whole and the Ethical Manifold 114 VI. The Ideal of the Spiritual Universe and the God-Ideal 125 BOOK III APPLICATIONS: THE THREE SHADOWS, SICKNESS, SORROW AND SIN, AND THE RIGHT TO LIFE, PROPERTY AND REPUTATION I. Introduction 147 II. The Three Shadows: Sickness, Sorrow, Sin 154 III. Bereavement 162 IV. The Shadow of Sin 171 V. The Spiritual Attitude to be Observed towards Fellow-Men in General, Irrespective of the Special Relations Which Connect Us More Closely with Some than Others 179 VI. The Meaning of Forgiveness 202 VII. The Supreme Ethical Rule: Act so as to Elicit the Best in Others and Thereby in Thyself 208 VIII. The Supreme Ethical Rule ( Continued ) 220 IX. How to Learn to See the Spiritual Numen in Others 223 BOOK IV APPLICATIONS: THE ETHICS OF THE FAMILY, THE STATE, THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, ETC. I. The Collective Task of Mankind and the Three-fold Reverence 241 II. The Family 249 III. The Vocations 260 IV. The Practical Vocations 270 V. The Vocation of the Artist: Outline of a Theory of the Relation of Art to Ethics 277 VI. Educational Vocations, or Vocations Connected with the State 289 VII. The State 305 VIII. The National Character Spiritually Transformed: the Intern