This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in History of Philosophy Quarterly 35 (2018), 371–387.

Ethical Culture. Felix Adler and the Emergence of Applied from the

Spirit of American

Bert Heinrichs

Abstract

In this article, I seek to show that—contrary to the two prevailing views—applied ethics has neither existed “all along,” nor should it be regarded as an unforeseen philosophical response to new kinds of social challenges in the 1960s. In contrast, applied ethics is a genuine philosophical innovation whose origins can be traced back to the late nineteenth century. It is my central thesis that the key step in its development occurred in the intellectual environment around American Pragmatism.

To be precise, I will claim that Felix Adler can be regarded as the founder of applied ethics in the modern sense. Consideration of the historical context allows for an understanding of applied ethics as an approach deeply rooted in the philosophical tradition and, at the same time, facilitates comprehension of important methodological characteristics that are still relevant for contemporary practice.

Keywords

Applied ethics, Felix Adler, pragmatism, Kantianism

1. The Notion of Applied Ethics

In this article, I seek to show that—contrary to the two prevailing views—applied ethics has neither existed “all along,” nor should it be regarded as an unforeseen

– 1 – philosophical response to new kinds of social challenges in the 1960s.1 In contrast, applied ethics is a genuine philosophical innovation whose origins can be traced back to the late nineteenth century. It is my central thesis that the key step in its development occurred in the intellectual environment around American Pragmatism.

To be precise, I will claim that Felix Adler can be regarded as the founder of applied ethics in the modern sense. Consideration of the historical context allows for an understanding of applied ethics as an approach deeply rooted in the philosophical tradition and, at the same time, facilitates comprehension of important methodological characteristics that are still relevant for contemporary practice. (cf.

Jamieson, “Constructing Practical Ethics,” 843-65)

In a broad sense, the notion of applied ethics “refers to any use of philosophical methods to treat moral problems, practices, and policies in the professions, technology, government, and the like.” (Beauchamp, “The Nature of Applied Ethics,”

3) This broad understanding of applied ethics is prevailing in contemporary debates.

In this view, the notion of applied ethics is synonymous to practical ethics—a notion that can be traced back at least to the seventeenth-century writer Charles Davenant

(Beauchamp, “History and Theory in ‘Applied Ethics,’” 58-59)—and closely related to professional ethics. (Beauchamp, “The Nature of Applied Ethics,” 1-3) However, in a narrow sense applied ethics designates the application of abstract ethical principles to concrete moral problems. A clear case of this narrow understanding of applied ethics can, for example, be found in the influential Belmont Report that was published by the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and

Behavioral Research in reaction to the Tuskegee Syphilis Study in 1979. Part B of this report starts with the following clarification:

The expression “basic ethical principles” refers to those general judgements that

serve as a basic justification for the many particular ethical prescriptions and

– 2 – evaluations of human action. (National Commission for the Protection of Human

Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, The Belmont Report, Part B)

Subsequently, three principles are stated (respect for persons, beneficence, and justice). Under the title “Applications”, Part C of the report is, then, dedicated to the application of these principles to the the conduct of research. According to the

Commission, the three principles mentioned earlier lead to the requirements of informed consent, risk/benefit assessment, and the (fair) selection of subjects of research.2

It is important to note that, according to this second understanding, the notion of applied ethics implies a subdivision of normative ethics in (at least) two subbranches, namely pure or theoretical ethics on the one side and applied ethics on the other side.

While applied ethics is concerned with the application of principles, pure or theoretical ethics deals with providing such principles. Applied ethics so conceived is, therefore, different from practical ethics which does not necessarily entail any systematic division. Critics of the narrow understanding claim that its commitment to abstract principles or—more generally speaking—to a certain form of ethical theory is too strong and excludes many other accepted methods and approaches. Such critics prefer a notion of applied ethics in the sense of practical ethics that allows for a wide variety of theories and methods. However, as the term “applied” suggests, applied ethics was originally committed to the idea of abstract principles and their applicability to concrete cases. Among others, Kantian ethics provided a basis for this concept of applied ethics. In fact, the division noticeable in Kant’s ethical writings between a

Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and a subsequent Metaphysics of Morals presages the division of pure and applied ethics. (cf. Heinrichs, “Kants Angewandte

Ethik,” 260-82) However, Kant himself was skeptical regarding the possibility of applied ethics as part of the system of ethics. The nineteeth century Neokantian

– 3 – philosopher Hermann Cohen acknowledged in principle that pure ethics needs to be supplemented by applied ethics (see below). Yet, his specific interest was in the pure branch of ethics rather than in the application of principles to concrete moral problems. Moreover, his adherence to the idea of a philosophical system prevented him from elaborating an applied ethics. Nevertheless there is evidence that he presented the idea of a two-tier ethics—pure and applied (in the narrow sense)—to his students. In the early 1870s one of them was the German born American Felix Adler.

2. Felix Adler and his Intellectual Background

The leading figure in the emergence of applied ethics has largely been forgotten today:

Felix Adler.3 Among other places Adler worked at , where for a time he was a contemporary of in the Department of Philosophy.4 In 1924 he was even elected president of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical

Association. (Friess, Felix Adler, 220) Compared to his limited academic impact, Adler was more influential in his role as the founder of the Ethical Culture Society, (cf.

Radest, Toward Common Ground, 14 ff.; Friess, Felix Adler, 47 ff.; MacKillop, The

British Ethical Societies, 38-40) a humanistic movement that originated in New York in 1876 before spreading to several other US cities and later to Europe. (cf. Radest,

Toward Common Grund) Lectures on ethical topics given by Adler made up a substantial part of the society’s weekly gatherings. Among the questions he addressed were family relationships, the role of women, child rearing, and social questions that had become increasingly explosive as a result of industrialization. (Friess, Felix Adler,

54) Prior to his work with the Ethical Culture Society, Adler had been influenced in important ways during a stay in . From 1870 to 1873 he studied in Berlin, where among others he heard the Neokantian Hermann Cohen speak and participated

– 4 – in a Kant reading group led by him. (Holzhey and Röd, Neukantianismus, Idealismus,

Realismus, Phänomenonologie, 42) In the introduction to his book An Ethical

Philosophy of Life Adler explicitly refers to Cohen as “my teacher in philosophy.”

(Adler, An Ethical Philosophy of Life, 11) One can thus presume that Cohen influenced his thinking, specifically with respect to the idea of an applied ethics.

In his 1877 book Kants Begründung der Ethik (Kant’s foundations of ethics) Cohen explicitly took up the systematic division of the field into pure and applied branches that had been inherent in Kant’s work. (Heinrichs, “Kants Angewandte Ethik,” 260-6)

While committed to elaborating the foundations of ethics on the basis of reason alone, he also emphasized the “shaping of the human world” and specifically the “ethicization of culture” as “a principal task of ethics.” (Cohen, Kants Begründung der Ethik, 8

[translation by the author]) In this context Cohen speaks expressly of applied ethics:

The problem of ethicizing the human world is a task for applied ethics […] And

applied ethics will arise out of pure ethics and assert itself. (Ibid., 10 [translation

by the author])

Not only in substance, then, but in explicit terms does Cohen’s work contain the idea of an independent branch of ethics that, under the heading of applied ethics, concerns itself with the moral shaping of society. Admittedly he goes no further than these few references, which he in fact significantly modifies in the second edition of Kants

Begründung der Ethik from 1910.5 He himself sees his task as lying in the “description and discussion of Kant’s foundations of pure ethics.” (Ibid. [translation by the author])

It is said that on the whole Adler found Cohen’s philosophy “too intellectualist.”

(Friess, Felix Adler, 32 and 209) Apparently he did not find any pertinent points of connection between the systems thinking of Neokantianism and his own theoretical reflections and practical initiatives. This would explain why he does not explicitly engage with Cohen anywhere in his work.6 Notwithstanding this reservation, Adler

– 5 – may very well have been inspired by Cohen in relation to the notion of applied ethics.

Meanwhile, the development of Pragmatism in the at this time offered more fertile intellectual ground for this new appraoch.

3. Some Elements of American Pragmatism

The term “Pragmatism” has long been well established as a label for a particular current of philosophical thought,7 though it is used to subsume thinkers and theories that are thoroughly different from one another, and in some cases even contradictory.

(cf. Rescher, Realistic Pragmatism, 64-71) Regardless of such differences, it is possible to discern some elements that are characteristic of classical American

Pragmatism—as represented above all by Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and

John Dewey—and that are especially important in view of the emergence of applied ethics. Among these elements are a focus on human deeds, a new attitude toward contingency, and an original understanding of procedural justification and democratic participation. Robert Brandom highlights the innovative character of American

Pragmatism when he speaks of a second, “pragmatic enlightenment,” which he contrasts with the “first” Enlightenment:

For the original Enlightenment, explaining a phenomenon (occurrence, state of

affairs, process) is showing why what actually happened had to happen that way,

why what is actual is (at least conditionally) necessary. By contrast, for the new

pragmatist enlightenment, it is possible to explain what remains, and is

acknowledged as, contingent. Understanding whose paradigm is Newton’s

physics consists of universal, necessary, eternal principles, expressed in the

abstract, impersonal language of pure mathematics. Understanding whose

paradigm is Darwin’s biology is a concrete, situated narrative of local, contingent,

– 6 – mutable practical reciprocal accommodations of particular creatures and

habitats. (Brandom, “The Pragmatist Enlightenment,” 2)

Louis Menand demonstrates that the emergence of American Pragmatism must be understood as a reaction to a destabilization of traditional intellectual approaches that had given rise to a fundamental skepticism toward absolute and unchanging principles. The American Civil War of 1861-65 was one dramatic destabilizing factor.

According to Menand this profound experience inspired in many intellectuals an aspiration “to bring ideas and principles down to a human level because they wished to avoid the violence they saw hidden in abstraction.” (Menand, The Metaphysical

Club, 440) Darwin’s theory of evolution, which had a swift reception in America, was another important element. (Ibid., 120-28, 276-80) Darwin identified coincidental mutation, rather than rationally fathomable divine providence, as the driving force behind evolution. In a “universe shot through with contingency” (Ibid., 360 and 349)

Pragmatism no longer sought eternal truths but rather “instruments for coping.”

(Ibid., 361) This new attitude to contingency was accompanied by the assumption of an irreducible pluralism, for “in a pluralistic universe, there is no one vocabulary, no one discourse that covers every case.” (Ibid., 378) Moreover, Pragmatism was fueled by the social upheaval of the Gilded Age. (Ibid., 289-316) The Pullman Strike of 1894, which was bloodily put down after two months, revealed—in spite of the temporary victory of the employers—the social limits of unbounded laissez-faire capitalism.

Pragmatism reacted to this by elevating democratic participation to a fundamental element of modern societies.8 From a legitimatory perspective, the concept of procedural justice thus took on increasing significance. (cf. Ibid., 432.)

– 7 – Despite its partial disengagement from classical positions, Pragmatism is still a philosophical movement, but one that no longer sees its main task in addressing problems internal to philosophy. As Dewey puts it in a nutshell:

Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the

problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for

dealing with the problems of men. (Dewey, Pragmatism, 68)

The movement does not, therefore, represent a renunciation of classical philosophy, but an attempt “to help philosophy become more practical and effective.” (Menand,

The Metaphysical Club, 374) One of its fundamental philosophical innovations was the repudiation of supposed “eternal truths” and acknowledgement of the world in all its contingency. In moral philosophy, this meant turning away from abstract, generalized problems of legitimation in order to carve out solutions to the—theoretical as well as practical—“problems of the human world.” In sum, American Pragmatism provided the intellectual background for the emergence of applied ethics.

4. The Emergence of Applied Ethics from the Spirit of Pragmatism

Felix Adler cannot be considered a representative of Pragmatism in too narrow a sense. His biographer Horace Friess notes that in “his philosophical outlook at large

Felix Adler retained the Kantian view.” (Friess, Felix Adler, 111.)9 Adler’s moderate

Kantian orientation presumably met with criticism from his colleagues at Columbia

University. Nonetheless, he and above all Dewey agreed on a number of important points, in particular the importance of social reform. (cf. Rockefeller, “John Dewey,”

276) At any rate, the intellectual environment around Pragmatism provided fertile ground for his reflections and initiatives, which were cleraly inspired by it. (cf.

Jamieson, “Practical Ethics,” 856 ff.) This became especially clear in a series of

– 8 – events—Summer Schools of Applied Ethics—Adler organized between 1891 and 1895.

This series of events arguably represented the first institutional effort to organize a scientific exchange aimed at deploying philosophical means in the moral shaping of society under the title “applied ethics.”10

The first event was advertised in the April 1891 edition of the International Journal of Ethics (later renamed Ethics11):

School of Applied Ethics—Summer Session. Beginning early in July, and

continuing six weeks, there will be held at some convenient summer resort in

New England or New York, a School for the discussion of Ethics and other

subjects of a kindred nature. The matter to be presented has been selected with

regard to the wants of clergymen, teachers, journalists, philanthropists, and

others, who are seeking careful information upon the great themes of Ethical

Sociology. It is believed that many collegiate and general students will also be

attracted by the program. (“School of Applied Ethics Summer Session”, 385)12

The notice was followed by a detailed program indicating that the school was to be divided into three areas (“Department of Economics, in charge of Professor H. C.

Adams, University of Michigan; Department of the History of , in charge of

Professor C. H. Toy, Harvard University; Department of Ethics, in charge of Professor

Felix Adler, New York”; cf. 385-6)13 Adler himself was offering “a general course of eighteen lectures, extending through the six weeks, on the System of Applied Ethics.”

It was also mentioned that

the Scheme of Duties treated will embrace Personal Ethics, Social Ethics in

general, the Ethics of the Family, the Ethics of the Professions, the Ethics of

Politics, the Ethics of Friendship, the Ethics of Religious Association. The

Scheme of Duties will be treated with special reference to the moral instruction

of children. (Ibid., 385-87)14

– 9 – The final program appeared in the July issue of the same journal with few changes;

Plymouth, Massachusetts was named as the venue at that time, and the event was indeed held there that year and subsequently. (“Program of School of Applied Ethics,”

483-94) The October edition contained a retrospective report on the school that explicitly emphasized the novelty of the program:

It set out a strictly new purpose, and was to that extent a departure from other

models. The distinctive feature was in the word “applied” as relating to ethics. It

was not to be speculative but practical, not to deal so much with abstract

problems as with concrete affairs. (W. L. S., “The School of Applied Ethics,” 114)

This new applied ethics was said to be targeted at people “who feel the need of an application of the science of ethics to the practical affairs with which they have to deal.”

(Ibid.) A second summer school was in turn advertised in the International Journal of Ethics the following year. (W. L. S., “School of Applied Ethics,” 408) In 1889 Adler suggested establishing a permanent School of Philosophy and Applied Ethics, though this never materialized. (cf. Adler, “A School of Philosophy and Applied Ethics,” 2-8; cf. Radest, Toward Common Ground, 99-100)

His writings likewise make clear that Adler not only—like his teacher Cohen— identified applied ethics as an important task for moral philosophy but actively pursued it himself.15 He elaborates a concept of an applied ethics that is concerned with exploring specific duties based on the various human relations that exist within modern societies. Moreover, he characterizes an ethical expert as someone responsible for providing relevant analyses. More specifically, Adler conceptualized his efforts as a kind of “ethical ,” contrasting them with traditional (denominational) “non- ethical religions.” (Adler, Life and Destiny, 125-26) At the heart of this “ethical religion” was a form of moral perfectionism according to which every person had a duty to promote goodness. (Ibid., 125, 129, and 134) Adler believed that this would not

– 10 – come about “by merely speculating upon it,” (Ibid., 130) but rather through active participation in social life, though he nonetheless considered a philosophical exploration of the substance of specific duties essential:

We need also a clearer understanding of applied ethics, a better insight into the

specific duties of life, a finer and surer moral tact. (Ibid., 131)

He saw this as the task of the (ethical) preacher, for

the human race is not yet so far advanced that it can dispense with the impulses

that come from men of more than average intensity of moral energy. (Ibid., 132)

Similarly to Cohen, Adler speaks of an “ethical culture,” (Ibid., 135-36) one of the prerequisites for which is the promotion of ethics as a science:

In order to improve ethics as a science it is necessary to fix attention on the moral

facts, to collect them, to bring them into view, especially the more recondite facts.

(Ibid., 138)

Looking past the religious terminology for a moment, Adler can be seen to outline a scientifically driven applied ethics whose task lies in exploring the normative relations within modern society in order to shape it morally. In his view, this demands a comprehensive scientific and cultural education. (Adler, Ethical Philosophy, 65-66)

Elsewhere, however, it becomes clear that Adler—similarly to Kant—believed ethics to be founded on nonempirical principles and considered it the task of applied ethics to constructively implement these general principles with regard to the conditions actually prevailing in society. He expresses his view most clearly in a passage from his

1918 book An Ethical Philosophy of Life:

And here let me take the opportunity to express my positive appreciation of

empirical science in connection with ethical theory. The chief object of this

volume is to work out the general plan of the ethical relations, or the regulative

principle in ethics, and this I am deeply convinced is supersensible and non-

– 11 – empirical. Applied ethics, however, is dependent not only on the regulative

principle but on empirical science, that is, on an extended and ever-increasing

knowledge of physiology, psychology, and of the environmental conditions that

influence human beings, and I am keenly desirous to ward off the possible

misunderstanding that the ethical theory here proposed is intended to replace

the empirical science of man, individual or social. (Adler, An Ethical Philosophy,

257-8)

Adler, then, echoes the idea of a division of ethics into pure and applied branches.

Unlike Kant, he does not regard the contingency of mankind and human society as an obstacle to a scientifically driven applied ethics, which reveals the influence of

Pragmatism on him.16 And unlike Cohen, he is not primarily interested in systematic questions of legitimation but considers the principal task of the (applied) ethicist to lie in the analysis of society’s moral problems in the interest of social progress. Ultimately, concrete moral questions no longer constitute mere corollaries to a general ethical theory—as in the work of Hume or Mill, for instance.17 Problems of applied ethics take center stage in moral philosophy.

At around the same time, there was another important movement in America that promoted ideas somewhat similar to those of Felix Adler: social ethics. In his profound study, Gary Dorrien has shown that “‘social ethics’ named a specific academic field and a way of thinking about Christian ethics that transcended the academy.” (Dorrien,

Social Ethics in the Making, 1) Early protagonists of social ethics such as Francis

Greenwood Peabody, William Jewett Tucker, and Graham Taylor had a deep concern for the moral shaping of society just as Adler had. There were even some direct connections: Jane Addams, another prominent proponent of social ethics, lectured at the School of Applied Ethics in Plymouth in 1892.18 However, there are also significant

– 12 – differences between social ethics and applied ethics. While social ethics was an attempt to “making a home for Christian ethics as a self-standing discipline of ethically grounded social science,” (Addams, Twenty Years at Hull-House, 6) applied ethics was clearly inspired by secular ethical thinking. Remarkably enough, neither the notion of applied ethics nor Felix Adler is mentioned in Dorrien’s comprehensive study on social ethics. This suggests that social ethics and applied ethics developed more or less independently.19 In particular, it was Adler who promoted the idea that a subdivision of philosophical ethics should be concerned with applying abstract principles to concrete moral problems. His intermediate position between Kantianism and Pragmatism enabled him to develop the new and distinct notion of applied ethics.

5. Moral Pluralism and Democratic Decision-Making Processes

Adler does not suppose that ethics can provide definitive solutions to moral problems, it can only develop well-founded analyses. He was, as Friess writes, convinced that

“ethical light requires intellectual integrity, but a variety of intellectual conclusions can be, not only compatible with, but even favorable to ethical forwarding of purpose.”

(Friess, Felix Adler, 88) The positive relationship to pluralism evident here was—as mentioned above—also characteristic of Pragmatism. Acknowledging contingency no longer entailed the rejection of a scientific applied ethics as impossible, because understanding of what it meant to be scientific had dramatically changed. Ethical concepts, like all (scientific) concepts, were seen as mere tools whose worth had to be proven and that were subject to constant revision. Their validity had to be demonstrated in a process of transparent legitimation and democratic consensus. In the second half of the twentieth century John Rawls, among others, took up the idea of procedural justice with significant influence on the shape of contemporary ethics

– 13 – and, in particular, applied ethics. Rawls too assumes an irreducible pluralism of ethical perspectives. He sees a “reasonable pluralism,” which with all its controversies leads to an “overlapping consensus,” as key to social stability. (Rawls, Political Liberalism,

133 ff.) This line of thought is recognizably indebted to Pragmatism. As has been observed by Piers Norris Turner, it establishes also a connection between Rawls and

Adler. (Turner, “On the Felix Adler’s ‘The Fellowship of Ethical Fellowship,’” 208-10)

From the beginning, pluralism has been a central theme of applied ethics. The absolutization of individual principles is foreign to the discipline as a Pragmatic project. The methodological dispute that occasionally flares up between a deductive

“top-down” model and an inductive “bottom-up” model fails to recognize this. Robert

Baker and Laurence McCullough have, for example, proposed the solution of an

“appropriation model,” (Baker and McCullough, “Medical Ethics,” passim) but Tom

Beauchamp counters that the rejected deductive model is a straw man:

General norms are understood today in bioethics less as norms that are applied

and more as general guidelines that are explicated and made suitable for specific

tasks, as often occurs in formulating policies and altering practices. (Beauchamp,

“History and Theory in ‘Applied Ethics’”, 58)

This description expresses an understanding of applied ethics that comes close to that of Felix Adler. It is based on a conception of philosophy rooted in the spirit of American

Pragmatism.20 Applied ethics is thus by no means—as is sometimes suggested—an unanticipated philosophical response to new social challenges with no basis in philosophical tradition. On the contrary: it is part of the continuous development of

Western moral philosophy while being distinguished by specific innovations. Only in light of these continuities and innovations can one understand it as a philosophical project and an attempt to contribute scientifically to the moral shaping of society.

– 14 –

6. The Fall and Rise of Applied Ethics

The claim of continuities immediately calls for an explanation why applied ethics has been laregely absent from academic debates during the first half of the 20th century and why it flourished (again) in the second half.21 One reason is particularly easy to recognize and is also regularly mentioned by those who think of applied ethics as a development of the late 1960s and early 1970s: the predominance of metaethics in the decades before. (LaFollette, “Introduction”, 1-2) It is certainly true that in the aftermath of Moore’s 1903 masterpiece Principia Ethica and, more generally, with the rise of analytic philosophy (first in Cambridge, then in Oxford and only shortly afterwards also in many philosophy departments in the USA) the study of moral language suppressed other activities in ethics. Many young philosophers were fascinated by the new philosophical approach and occupied themselves with philosophical analysis. Quickly, analytic philosophy became the dominant perspective with direct consequences for publication and career opportunities. Applied ethics— and normative ethics in general—came off second best.

Given that the thesis of this paper about Adler as the founder of applied ethics is correct, this can only be part of an explanation why applied ethics disappeared temporarily and reappeared again later. Two other factors are also important.

(i) As set out above, the Neokantian school had some effect on the development of applied ethics. Cohen considered, if only en passant, the idea of a division of ethics into a pure and an applied branch and, arguably, passed this idea on to Adler. Applied ethics might have been more successful from the beginning on, if other philosophers out of the Neokantian orbit had picked up this idea, too. However, the whole school of

Neokantianism (both the so-called “Marburg School”, the leader of which was Cohen,

– 15 – as well as the “Southwest School” with Heinrich Rickert as its most prominent member) came to an end soon after the turn to the twentieth century. Therefore, this stimulating factor faded away.

(ii) As has been shown, pragmatism provided the intellectual background against which Adler could develop the notion of applied ethics. However, also from this side applied ethics did not get further support. This is understandable since the idea of fixed principles which are ready for application to concrete moral problems is not fully in line with fundamental assuptions of pragmatist philosophy. It has been already mentioned, that Adler and Dewey agreed on the importance of social reform, but disagreed in view of Adler’s Kantianism. After Adler’s death in 1933, the influence of

Dewey’s thinking on the Ethical Culture Society increased so that “Adler's Society came to function as a kind of religious humanist fellowship founded upon Dewey’s philosophy” (Rockefeller, John Dewey, 458) —and not, as one may add, as a breeding ground for applied ethics.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s the situation changed considerably: There was a renewed interest in issues of normative ethics—John Rawls’s work is often regarded as the essential turning point. Moreover (and partly linked to this), there was a fresh attention to Kant’s practical philosophy. In her 1963 treatise Laws of Freedom, Mary

Gregor even used the phrase “Kant’s applied moral philosophy” (Gregor, Laws of

Freedom, 19 et passim). Finally, social challenges—in particular due to innovations in the area of medicine—called for ethical guidance. Taken together, this new constellation facilitated the revitalization of applied ethics and its final breakthrough.

Apparently, Felix Adler’s work did not have a strong direct impact on this process. It is a matter of further investigation to elucidate subtle influences of his work on mid and late twentieth century applied ethics.

– 16 – To be sure, since the 1970s applied ethics has undergone significant changes. In particular, a broader understanding of applied ethics is now in place that is no longer exclusively committed to the modell of abstract principles and their application to concrete moral problems. Today applied ethics covers a great variety of theories and methods to address concrete moral issues. Still, the origin of applied ethics stretches back to the late nineteenth century.

7. Insights for Contemporary Applied Ethics

Adler’s understanding of applied ethics is clearly embedded in his efforts to establish an ethical religion within the institutional framework of the Ethical Culture Society.

Just as important as his involvement in the emergence of applied ethics, however, are a number of philosophical innovations associated with American Pragmatism:

Pragmatism does away with the notion of rationally fathomable eternal truths.

Instead, it acknowledges the contingency of the world and attempts to find constructive ways to deal with it. These include a pluralistic outlook and reliance on argumentative exchange and democratic decision-making processes as means of legitimation. Using these tools, Pragmatism created a philosophical environment in which applied ethics could develop. Yet, Adler himself was not a Pragmatist in the strict sense of the word. Unlike his Pragmatist contemporaries, he cleaved to fundamental ethical principles, and especially to the Kantian notion “that every human being is an end per se.” (Adler, An Ethical Philosophy of Life, 7) Thus, from the very beginning applied ethics is characterized by a certain tension between reliance on principles—whether Kantian, utilitarian, or otherwise—on the one hand and the acknowledgement of contingency on the other. One important lesson to be learned from the historical origins of applied ethics is that this tension can be a productive one.

– 17 – Applied ethics is, as Adler says, dependent on both regulative principles and

(contingent) empirical facts. This insight can be translated into a methodological maxim: applied ethics should always strike a balance between general principles and concrete cases.

In recent years, various methods have been suggested for dealing with moral conflicts which are typical for applied ethics, in particular balancing and specifying (cf.

Beauchamp and Childress, Princples in Biomedical Ethics, 15-25). While the concept of balancing is closely connected to the Rossian notion of prima facie duties, specifying comes close to Adler’s conception of “specific duties of life.” When Henry

Richardson formally elaborated the concept of specifying he himself pointed to the pragmatist aspects of the approach. (Richardson, “Specifying Norms as a Way to

Resolve Concrete Ethical Problems,” 279-310, 290-91) Moreover, he showed that, from a methodological point of view, specifying is superior to the model of balancing.

(Richardson, “Specifying, Balancing, and Interpreting Bioethical Principles,” 285-

307) In addition, the historical perspective reveals that—in a somewhat broader sense—specification is intimately connected to the philosophical roots of applied ethics.

While Kant thought that the contengencies of human life were insuperable obstacles to applied ethics as an integral part of moral philosophy, Adler resolved this view by incorporating into his thinking pragmatist elements that make the contingencies of human life methodologically controllable. His explorations of the various normative relations existing within modern societies sought to establish a detailed “Scheme of

Duties” that, in turn, provides the conceptual basis for promoting an ethical culture.

Although Adler remained influenced by Kantian ethics, he took a pluralist stance.

Moreover, like the Pragmatists, he seems to have thought that any scheme of duties reached via philosophical investigation is, in principal, subject to revision. With these

– 18 – philosophical innovations, Adler laid the foundation for applied ethics as we know it now.

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14.

1 The first view is prominently represented, for instance, by Peter Singer; cf. Singer,

“Introduction,” 1. The second view is represented, among others, by Hugh LaFollette; cf.

LaFollette, “Introduction,” 1-2.

2 An early and influential proponent of this narrow type of applied ethics from the academic field is Gert, cf. his “Moral Theory and Applied Ethics,” 532-48. Cf. also Caplan, “Ethical

Engineers Need not Apply: The State of Applied Ethics Today,” 24-32.

3 The fact that there is no mention of Adler in Bruce Kuklick’s 2001 account of the history of philosophy in America is evidence of this.

4 Friess, Felix Adler and Ethical Culture: Memories and Studies , 123. Rockefeller, John

Dewey: Religious Faith and Democratic Humanism , 275-76. Prior to this, from 1874 to

1876, Adler held a part-time position as a “non-residential professor” at , where he taught Hebrew as well as Oriental literature. Cf. Friess, Felix Adler, 39-46.

5 The relevant passage in the second edition of 1910 reads: “It is not enough to say that the problem of ethicalizing the human world is a task for applied ethics, for pure ethics must by definition be applicable, holding the norms of application within it.” (Cohen, Kants

Begründung der Ethik [translation by the author]). The notion of an applied ethics is nowhere to be found in Holzhey’s informative and knowledgeable account of Cohen’s thought, likewise indicating that it plays no larger role in his work.

6 Adler’s works are available in electronic form via the website.

7 The term was introduced to philosophy by William James in 1898, although James identifies Charles Sanders Peirce as the movement’s founder, cf. William James, The

Writings of William James, 347-48. For his part, Peirce later distanced himself from the term, speaking instead of “pragmaticism”, cf. Charles S. Peirce, The Essential Peirce:

Selected Philosophical Writings, 334-35. On the relationship between Peirce and James see

John Dewey, Pragmatism, Education, Democracy, 3-6.

– 23 –

8 Ibid., 440-42. This trait of Pragmatist thought is especially clear in the writing of John

Dewey; cf. e.g. Dewey, Pragmatism, Education, Democracy, 341-42.

9 Cf. also 209 ff. Nevertheless, Adler was fairly critical regarding Kant’s ethics as beomes obvious from his “A Critique of Kant’s Ethics,” 162-195.

10 “Applied ethics” had apparently been included in university curricula before this. The first issue of the journal The Monist contains an overview of philosophy courses offered at eight

American universities (Michigan, Harvard, California, Pennsylvania, Clark, Winsconsin,

Boston, and Johns Hopkins). According to that account, the program at Harvard was divided into four areas: “I. Introductory Courses, II. Systematic Courses, III. Historical Courses, IV.

Courses of Original Research.” The third area is described in greater detail as follows:

“Including lectures on Comparative Religion, Greek Philosophy, Descartes-Spinoza-Leibniz,

English Philosophy from Hobbes to Hume, The Movement of German Thought from 1770-

1830, Contemporary Systems and Applied Ethics” (B. P. Bowne, “Philosophy in American

Colleges and Universities,” 152). What precisely is meant by “applied ethics” here and why it is categorized under historical courses is in need of futher elucidation.

11 Cf. M. G. Singer, “The History of Ethics [editorial],” 441-44. In his editorial Singer points out that before the International Journal of Ethics—which later became Ethics—there existed, from 1888 onwards, a journal called The Ethical Record. The Ethical Record was published by the Ethical Culture Society. In issue 4 of its second year (1890), under the heading “General Notes,” there is a notice about the ongoing development of the journal.

Notably, “applied ethics” is listed as a particular focus: “Since the issue of the first number of

The Ethical Record, in April, 1888, it has grown from forty pages to its present size, and there has been a corresponding growth in variety of contents. We shall endeavor to continue developing the Record in the direction of making it a valuable quarterly journal of ethics.

Special attention will be given to the subject of applied ethics” (Anonymous, “General

Notes,” 241).

12. The same announcement appeared in Science 17 (1891): 213-14.

13 Anonymous, “School of Applied Ethics—Summer Session,” 385-86.

– 24 –

14 Adler’s lecture was published in 1908 under the title The Moral Instruction of Children.

15 A list of Adler’s publications can be found in Friess, Felix Adler, 264-66.

16 For Kant, in contrast, this is very much a problem. He remarks that while there may not be

“so many different kinds of ethical obligation”, there are certainly “ways of applying it”— specifically “in accordance with […] differences in rank, age, sex, health, prosperity or poverty, and so forth”. But according to Kant these “ways of applying it” do not represent

“sections of ethics and members of the division of a system”, but can “only be appended” to the system, which must proceed “a priori from a rational concept” (, The

Metaphysics of Morals, 214).

17 On this point cf. the assessment of Rosenthal and Shehadi: “Traditional ethical theories, in pursuing their primary goal of establishing general moral theories and principles, also dealt with specific moral questions. But these questions were addressed as examples or test cases for the theories under consideration” (Rosenthal and Shehadi, “Introduction,” ix).

18 Addams, Twenty Years at Hull-House with Autobiographical Notes, 113. Interestingly,

Addams was also heavily influenced by Dewey, cf. Dorrien, Social Ethics in the Making, 183-

4.

19 In a paper published in 1975, Albert Jonsen and Lewis Butler suggest a new field of “ethics applied to public policy” for which they propose the title “public ethics”. They identify three tasks for public ethics, namely: “(1) articulation of relevant moral principles in the policy problem; (2) elucidation of proposed policy options in light of relevant moral principles; and

(3) displaying ranked order of moral options for policy choice.” (Jonsen and Butler, “Public

Ethics and Policy Making,” 19-31, 22) Interestingly, Jonsen and Butler observe that “Social ethics may be a more familiar term for such considerations.” (Ibid.) But: “The vagueness and incopletness of the concept of social ethics allows us to advance the notion of pulic ethics.”

20 As early as 1983 Andrew Altman wrote an essay recommending a pragmatic understanding of applied ethics distinct from (what he took to be) the traditional conception of abstract theorizing with a subsequent application of principles. His proposal, which was heavily informed by Dewey, was apparently intended as a corrective to what he regarded as

– 25 – the failed practice of applied ethics. Altmann does not seem to have been familiar with the intellectual influences of Pragmatism on the field; cf. Altman, “Pragmatism and Applied

Ethics,” 227-35.

21 The fact that applied ethics was largely absent from academic debates in the frist half of the twentieth century and gained importance in the second half is easy to demonstrate: A search in the full-text archive JSTOR reveals that during 1900 and 1930 only thirty-seven articles were published that included the notion “applied ethics”. For the period from 1930 to

1960 numbers increase only slightly to fifty-six . Then, however, the situation changes markedly. From 1960 to 1990, already 318 articles including “applied ethics” can be identified which is nearly an increase by factor 6. For the period from 1990 to 2018 the total number of articles including “applied ethics” increases to 1.839. These numbers must not hide that even in the 1940s some books on applied ethics were published. One example is

Robinson, The Principles of Conduct. An Introduction to Theoretical and Applied Ethics.

Notably, Robinson is clearly commited to the narrow understanding of “applied ethics” mentioned in sec. 2 above (cf. e.g. 166, 199).

– 26 –