At my previous post (about After Virtue) I have concluded with the unnerving sensation of being lost - morality has been thoroughly undermined by MacIntyre's analysis and yet while I did find myself sympathetic or willing to give some credibility to the idea of Virtue Ethics I was still broadly left unconvinced by its totality, only conceding it could be useful in specific contexts. Thankfully, the very next book I've now finished, Gravity and Grace, brought to my attention an alternative path.
Considering the modest length of this book, it has taken me quite a while to finish since its ideas are compiled rather densely. Also, additionally, the amount of ideas present is overwhelming and therefore I'll only mention here a couple I found of most interest.
In regards to the ethical question raised prior, Weil has compiled a wholly different way of thinking about goodness compared with more secular philosophy - goodness as a manifestation of divine grace. While MacIntyre successfully explained why any existing law-based ethical system is simply dysfunctional in its core, and opted for a system that's more predicated on internal goods, on virtues present in the person, Weil goes a step further and dismisses even the systematic attempts that characterize that attempt - and instead does something similar to what Kierkegaard formulated in Fear and Trembling - seeing a differentiation between religious and ethical circles of being, concluding the religious to be the superior, and that a direct relationship with God can even allow a teleological suspension of The Ethical. Essentially in Weil's description, goodness is to be understood as but a natural disposition that stems from grace - that the acceptance of divine grace would make one attracted to goodness like a bee to a flower. This represents an idea of goodness which is truly real, although at the same time could be radically personal (a la Kierkegaard) since it is a supernatural force compelling one into certain behavior, rather than a proper system that's communicable.
Additionally to this, I must note that this book has altered my own metaphysical/cosmic beliefs as well. Previously the most major influence on my own beliefs was Alan Watts, that advocated for a sort of radically non-dualist Pantheism in the mold of the Advaita Vedanta - and yet I've always taken some issue, and had questions about this perception, as it failed to really account for even the nature of multiplicity, even if conceived as false and Maya. Weil's quasi-Panentheistic conception on the other hand, describes the nature of the universe, of God, and of Creation, similarly to the Kabbalistic Tzimtzum (an idea I was already warming up to prior to reading Gravity and Grace) - seeing the demonstration of this conception of reality in this book has convinced me this is a more likely conception of our reality.
Lastly I want to also note an interesting, mystical, approach to politics - supporting an Anarchism one knows is unachievable, or alternatively resigning oneself entirely to the present. Weil seems hostile to the sort of practical, Weberian politics, and likewise to any idea of an imaginary collective which she terms "The Great Beast".
I did however have some issues occasionally with her ideas - her occasional antisemitism left a bitter taste in my mouth, and similarly several homophobic remarks she made. In some portions of her writing there's also an approach I'd describe as philosophically anorexic (incidentally, she might've been literally anorexic and maybe that's a reflection of that, but that's a matter of speculation) and as radically attempting to disappear, in a sense, which I really can't find myself on board with as someone that still nevertheless, in spite of its faults, consider myself as moderately life-affirming.
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