Daily Ethics Collection
Books published under the « Éthique au quotidien » series are based on public lectures that are delivered on the occasion of seminars organized by the « Ostad Elahi – éthique et solidarité humaine » Foundation. The lecturers, who come from diverse backgrounds, teachers, physicians, engineers, lawyers, journalists, public servants, executives, etc, have done some research in the field of ethics, and founded a group named GREIA (Groupe de Recherche en Ethique Individuelle Appliquée) or « Applied Individual Ethics Research Group », the purpose of which is to highlight what are the stakes and possibilities of a daily practice of ethics.
It should be noted that their endeavor is not a moralistic one. Rather, they consider that the practice of ethics is a rational and experimental endeavor that can enhance one’s self-knowledge, improve the development of one’s human potential, and ultimately, lead to greater social progress. Members of the GREIA share a common outlook: they consider that the ethical drive and ethical rationality are a sign of Man’s capacity to relate to some form transcendence. The name of this transcendence is unimportant, (the Absolute, God, Other, etc…). This transcendent dimension of ethics cannot be fully understood by using a purely naturalistic or social framework. Whenever the authors use the word « God », it refers to this transcendent dimension, not to the « God » of a specific religion, without negating in anyway the wealth of wisdom and experience that spiritual traditions have to offer.
The purpose of the GREIA, therefore, is to study how we can approach ethics through a spiritual prism, but one that can be produce universal results, and to highlight both the ethical and spiritual invariants of human experience. Ostad Elahi has laid the foundations for such an approach, that combines the requirements of an « ethics of conviction » and an « ethics of responsibility ». Authors that are published under the « Ethics in Daily Life » series base their works on original research, while maintaining a constant dialogue with disciplines that are related to ethics, whether directly or indirectly: philosophy, psychology, cognitive sciences, neurosciences, sociology, law, etc…
