Basics of my Ethical Views

Some commenters in the past have made it a point to remind me that I do not ‘follow’ Plato or Aristotle, or that I haven’t read them. The implication was that I am a hypocrite. However, that is an amazing claim, given that I have not even mentioned Aristotle on this blog! Now I feel the need to clarify where I stand on ethics, in an entirely informal way (stream-of-consciousness, actually).

I do not follow Aristotle or Plato, nor have I ever purported to. I have never had an interest in Ancient Greek philosophy; rather, my interest is in continental philosophy (Nietzsche and Scheler), evolutionary spirituality (Sri Aurobindo), and Christian theology. Do not assume that because I use the word ‘virtue’ now and again, I must have some relationship with Aristotle. This is an unjustified, Western-centric, and Greek-centric view.

I also do not follow Plato. He was intelligent and interesting compared to Aristotle, but not any kind of role-model or anything for me. So no, I am not an Ancient-Greek-virtue-ethics type of ethicist.

And I am not a deontologist or consequentialist of any kind.

That being said, let me state what I do believe:

I follow a Christianized version of the Integral Yoga, from which I get my ethics. ‘Ethical’ is just another word for progress on that path, as well as for the value of the insights gained therein.

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