?Is Ethical Religion Possible

Four thinkers—Kierkegaard, Gandhi, Ranade, and Ambedkar—each linked ethics and religion in distinct ways. Kierkegaard saw faith as a realm beyond rational commitment, reached after passing through aesthetic and ethical stages. Gandhi held that truth and morality are inseparable from religion, which underlay his political and social work. Ranade emphasized that mystical experience includes universality, intellect, emotion, intuitive spiritual realization, and morality. Ambedkar, rejecting Christianity and Islam, adopted Buddhism because it aligns with reason and science, critiquing Brahmanism; his conversion was a political movement, resulting in Neo-Buddhism. The article compares these views toward an ethical religion that appeals to the author's conscience.

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Abstract

The paper concentrates on the philosophical discourses of four thinkers – Soren Kierkegaard, M. K. Gandhi, R. D. Ranade and B. R. Ambedkar on Ethics and Religion. Soren Kierkegaard, whose journey in philosophy made him pass through the aesthetic stage to ethical stage and ultimately religious stage landing in the realm of “faith”; where an individual arrives at without any rational commitment. M. K. Gandhi, whose journey in life encompassed politics, economics, and social realms where the underlying paradigm has always been religion. He did not consider ‘truth’ and therefore ‘morality’ as segregated from religion. R. D. Ranade, while mentioning the criteria of mystical experience, very empathetically mentions that a mystic (a saint) has the element of universality, is intellectual, emotional, has the intuitive experience of ‘spiritual realization’ and cannot be devoid of morality. B. R. Ambedkar, instead of accepting Christianity or Islam, consecrated into Buddhism; that befitted Indian contextual situation critiquing the popular Brahmanism, believed that religion must be in amalgamation and consonance with reason and scientific temperament. And this criterion was fulfilled by Buddhism (indeed with other criteria). His adopting Buddhism was more of a political movement rather than spiritual; therefore, his Buddhism in the transformed format, is called Neo-Buddhism. The research article concludes by comparing these masters’ views and ideologies in the context of ‘a possibility of ethical religion’ that has appealed my conscience.