What Kind of Ethical Individualist Are You?
Practicing Ethical Individualist: Someone who consciously develops and exercises the cognitive powers through which freedom can be realized in life.
Non-Practicing Ethical Individualist: Someone who studies, discusses, and aspires to ethical individualism but remains primarily concerned with theoretical knowledge rather than putting its principles into practice.
Can there be such a thing as a Non-Practicing Ethical Individualist?
Strictly speaking, no. Ethical individualism requires both knowledge and practice. Without knowledge of freedom, individuals cannot consciously recognize what makes their thinking and actions free. Without practice, that knowledge remains theoretical rather than becoming a living capacity.
The Armchair Ethical Individualist may know a great deal about freedom without consciously exercising the cognitive powers necessary to realize it.
Knowledge reveals the possibility of freedom; practice develops the capacities through which freedom is consciously exercised and realized.
The Steps to Freedom are for the practicing ethical individualist.
According to Rudolf Steiner, through sustained practice of the attitudes and cognitive powers described here, the individual can expect:
“That which you now seek, you will truly achieve—and much else besides.” GA 240
The Ethical Individualist
Wise ones throughout history have given humanity a picture of the human ideal for us to strive toward. We are given examples of the perfect human such as religious saints, or Jesus in the Gospels or Ayn Rand's heroic individualist.
Rudolf Steiner presents to the world a new Human Ideal, the Ethical Individualist. The Ethical Individualist stands at the highest point of human evolution as one who acts according to one's own highest ethical ideals.
“Ethical individualism, then, is the crown of the edifice that Darwin and Haeckel have erected for Natural Science. It is the theory of evolution applied to the moral life.” TPOF Chapter 12.8
The Ethical Individualist is reality-based and acts out of knowledge as a free thinker. He freely selects the ethical principle to apply to each life situation without regard for what others would do.
The 192 Steps to Freedom describe the complete developmental path through which conscious, self-determined freedom becomes possible.
The 24 Attitudes of Individuality prepare the individual for freedom by establishing the inner orientation required for independent knowing and acting.
The 168 Cognitive Powers of Freedom are the developable capacities of free knowing and free action that enable freedom to be consciously exercised and realized.
84 Powers of Free Knowing — Chapters 1–7
Developable cognitive capacities through which the individual learns to know reality independently.
84 Powers of Free Action — Chapters 8–14
Developable cognitive capacities through which the individual learns to act from consciously known, self-determined grounds.
Together, these form a developmental path. Each attitude and cognitive power can be practiced individually, while the complete path provides a systematic development from individuality and free knowing to free action and Ethical Individualism.
According to Rudolf Steiner, through sustained practice of the attitudes and cognitive powers described here, the individual can expect:
“That which you now seek, you will truly achieve—and much else besides.” GA 240
Go To COGNITIVE POWER DEFINITIONS
The Cognitive Powers of Ethical Individualism
Freedom Quest Game
A game for learning the Cognitive Powers.
Freedom Quest Cards
Each card presents a question that reveals a specific disposition or cognitive power involved in free knowing or free action.
more coming soon......
