Israel Salanter thought people need to learn Ethics. That is you should not expect them to be born with ethics, or to just pick it up from some religious context, but to learn it actively. He was focusing on a certain set of Mediaeval books, but the principle applies across the board.
That is even if ethics is mentioned in religious books, that does not automatically help. Ethics has to be learned as subject in itself.
Judgybitch: "Do men and women learn the same ethics, or different ones?"
Avraham: "It would be the same ones. There are the classical ones and later works built on the classics. But the principles are the same. This is a long story. In any case the books of Ethics that I like the most were the Obligations of the Heart and also two more recent books of disciples of Israel Salanter. One emphasizes trust in God [Level of Man Medragat HaAdam]. But the general gist was more along the lines of fear of God and good character traits. The general idea was to put emphasis on one's obligations, not one's rights."
BG
"Why would God be a component in treating fellow humans equally? What is wrong with old fashion "mutual respect"?
Or, the old adage,
do on to others,
as u would want others to do onto you.
What I find most hypocritical, is women preach this to their children, and yet,..."
Avraham rosenblum to BG
All true critiques. Like I said this is a long story. I wish I could make it short. There is a connection between fear of God and character. But not fear of God in the way the religious fanatics think of it.
[I should mention that my parents sought to instill ethics in my brothers and me as their parents before them.]
This is an argument: Hegel holds that we can come to true morality by logic and reason. So also Michael Huemer [based on the Intuitionists: Prichard, GE Moore, etc.]
Fries holds that morality is in the realm of Dinge An Sich [things in themselves] that we know, but we do not know that we know, and it needs to be dug out like Socrates by careful questioning brought forth knowledge of Geometry of a slave boy.
