From Socrates to Rotary: a shared ethic of word and deed

Transcript :

Comparing Socrates’ three filters and Rotary International’s Four-Way Test reveals a surprising ethical continuity between antiquity and the contemporary world.

Socrates already proposed a discipline of speech based on three simple requirements: “Is it true? Is it good? Is it useful?”

Rotary adopts this same logic, extending it to the field of action: “Is it true? Is it fair? Is it a source of goodwill and friendship? Is it equitable and beneficial to everyone?”

The correspondence is striking.

Truth forms the common foundation.

Socratic kindness finds its extension in loyalty and the promotion of goodwill.

As for utility, it becomes the pursuit of a shared benefit.

In both approaches, speech is never neutral: it engages the responsibility of the one who utters it.

Despite a separation of more than twenty-four centuries, Greek philosophy and Rotary ethics converge towards the same ambition: to sustainably improve the quality of human relations.