Hermes, thanks for the kind words.Regarding the rationality-prosociality commentary, I’m completely with you for your first paragraph and a half. We begin to diverge here:

> However, neuroscience has shown that pure rationality does not exist in humans. All decisions are intrinsically linked to emotions. And emotions are driven by society (shame, pride, indignation, etc), so we are stuck. <

Nobody is arguing about pure rationality, I’m not even sure what that would mean. Rationality is always instrumental. In this case, instrumental to a good life (eudaimonia). And as a social primate you can’t have a good life unless you act prosocially.Emotions are not separate from cognition, that was the great insight of the Stoics, confirmed by modern cognitive behavioral therapy. Both emotions and cognition have to deal with societal preferences, but that doesn’t mean we are obliged to follow the prevalent norms in everything.

> Virtue is difficult to define away from social conventions. <

Not really. Most ancient Greco-Roman philosophers, as well as a number of modern ones, subscribe to the view that ethics is a natural phenomenon, that there are empirically discoverable facts about what leads (or does nt lead) to human flourishing. That’s what virtue is: a set of behavioral propensities that are meant to maximize our own and other people’s ability to flourish.

> empowerment, or personal power. It entails a deep knowledge or ourselves and choosing our values, even when they challenge social convention <

As the Delphi Oracle put it: know thyself. I doubt Socrates would disagree with you.

> freeing ourselves of the stranglehold that social emotions, especially shame, have on us <

Yup, the Stoics are not much into shame either. It’s an unhealthy emotion.

> The problem with pursuing virtue is that it leads us too easily to the trap of the ego <

I’m not sure what you mean by “the trap of the ego.” Could you elaborate?

> a model of the mind in which one part of the mind (the rational part or the prefrontal cortex) controls the others leads to internal conflict, division and loss of power. We need to struggle for internal unity. <

Which is exactly what the Stoics counseled, unlike, say, Plato, who did see the issue in terms of internal struggle. Stoicism led to the empirically successful CBT; Platonism to the pseudoscience of Freud…

> All this leads me to a philosophy of life that is quite distinct for Stoicism and other forms of Virtue Ethics <

I really don’t think it does.

> also different from the Buddhism that I practiced for part of my life, which is intrinsically linked to religious beliefs like rebirth <

I’m also uncomfortable with Buddhist metaphysical beliefs. But Buddhist ethics isn’t that different from its Stoic counterpart, or from what you have been describing above. With some caveats, of course.