The book “Twenty Years of European SPES“ edited by Laszlo Zsolnai was published in 2024. The book documents the history of European SPES from 2004 to 2024. It presents all the conferences that European SPES organized and the main publications it produced.
Based on the twenty years of work of the European SPES the following propositions are derived.
(1) Religion and spirituality are not the same. Religion is an institutionalized approach to relate humanity to the supernatural or transcendental, and to find fulfillment.
(2) Spirituality involves the multiform search for meaning that interconnects people with all living beings and God or Ultimate Reality outside of, or in addition to traditional institutions.
(3) Although spirituality is personal and subjective, it is not a private matter. Spirituality can be considered as a public good because the spiritual capital of society influences how the economic and social affairs are organized and conducted.
(4) The opportunistic use of ethics is often counterproductive because it is perceived as lying and cheating by the stakeholders who will react accordingly.
(5) Spirituality can reduce the temptation to activate moral disengagement mechanisms for rationalizing personal and organizational wrongdoing.
(6) Only genuine ethics works. Ethics brings material benefits for people and organizations if and only if it is practiced for its own sake and not for producing material gains.
(7) Personalism should be redefined to embrace ecology and ecological values.
(8) The concept of the Common Good should be extended to include the good of nature and the good of future generations. Hence we can arrive to the notion of the Commonwealth of Life.
(9) Sustainability requires acknowledging the intrinsic value of nature and introducing frugal production and consumption patters.
(10) Spiritual-based, transformational leadership creates the greatest possible autonomy for groups and communities, and cultivates the intrinsic motivation of people to act.
(11) Actors who are intrinsically motivated to serve the greater good and define success in multi-dimensional, holistic terms can survive and prosper in competitive environment.
(12) Material value orientation destroys human and ecological wellbeing. Only spiritual value orientation can produce real wellbeing for people and for the rest of creation.
(13) Spiritual-based humanism provides a solid, non-negotiable foundation for human dignity, equality, and respect realizing that we are all Children of God or connected to the Ultimate Consciousness.
The most important future directions of European SPES summarized by Laszlo Zsolnai and Luk Bouckaert as follows.
1 Life-Affirmative Ethics
European SPES is committed to develop ideas and models of life-affirmative ethics that acknowledge the intrinsic value of flourishing life on Earth (human and non-human, present and future). In doing so we build on the inspirations of various traditions of ethics, most notably Henri Thoreau’s ethics of nature, Albert Schweitzer’s philosophy of life, Henri Bergson’s theory of creative evolution, Gandhi’s conception of the unity of humanity and nature, Aldo Leopold’s land ethics, Arne Naess’ deep ecology, Hans Jonas’s principle of responsibility, the panpsychism of indigenous worldviews.
2 Ethics Needs Spirituality
Spirituality is the inner and inspirational factor of ethics. European SPES defines spirituality as “people’s multiform search for a transcendent meaning in life that (re)connects all living beings”. Three aspect are crucial for SPES. Spirituality is experience-based; it has a common good character (should not be reduced to private practices); and it is embedded in a plurality of religious and moral traditions. In line of this, it is the mission of SPES to function as an interreligious platform (or to co-operate within existing interreligious networks) in order to find common ground for a new socio-economic agenda.
3 Spiritual-based Business and Leadership
European SPES is interested in studying, developing, and promoting radically new, spiritually inspired business and leadership models. These models break with the currently dominating materialistic and reductionist management paradigm which presupposes that people have only materialistic desires and motivations, and are interested only in their own material welfare. Spiritual-based business and leadership models give priority to intrinsic motivation over extrinsic one, are orientated toward the common good, and measure success in multi-dimensional, holistic terms.
4 From Personalism to Eco-Personalism
SPES started its project in 2000 within the personalist stream of Jewish and Christian social philosophy and ethics (Henri Bergson, Jacques Maritain, Emmanuel Mounier, Paul Ricoeur’, Emmanuel Levinas, Dorothee Sölle, Simone Weil etc.). However, the focus on the uniqueness and relational character of each person, underestimates the role of nature. It is a challenge for SPES to introduce an experience of nature and person that is not anthropocentric but “discloses Nature itself as a Thou”. Pope Francis’ integral ecology and The Economy of Francesco can be considered as stepstones towards an ecopersonalist philosophy and ethic.
5 Buddhist Economics and Bhutan
European SPES is committed to study and to develop further Buddhist economics for today’s world. The main principles of Buddhist ethics, namely non-self, compassion, non-violence, and generosity can be successfully applied in various economic and social settings. Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness policy framework has a special importance because Bhutan successfully increases the wellbeing of its people while preserving the enormous natural wealth of the country.
6 Hindu Spirituality in Management
European SPES has a strong interest in exploring the rich traditions of Hindu spirituality, especially the Advaita Vedanta position, in renewing contemporary management practice in India and beyond. The non-duality approach can enable managers to develop an unitary consciousness to serve others and nature in a selfless way. The modern interpretation of Hindu spirituality by Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, and S.K. Chakraborty provide a good point of departure in this line of inquire.
7 Critiquing Transhumanism
European SPES is interested in critiquing transhumanism on the basis of spiritual-based humanism. Transhumanist technologies want to transform human beings into cyborgs that are devoid from free will and consciousness. Transhumanist business represents a new form of corporate transgression where humans are considered as servants of corporate interest, who should maximize not their own wellbeing but the profit of the corporations. In contrast to transhumanism, we need humanizing technologies that are consistent with our spiritual nature and liberate us for valuable functioning and being.
8 Spirituality in Higher Education
European SPES has a strong interest in integrating spirituality in higher education, especially in business and management education. Today’s higher education is based on and promotes the Western materialist mindset which gives virtually no rooms for spirituality. Integrating spirituality in higher education involves helping the formation of spiritual awareness of students, faculty and university leaders through support of spirituality in the campus culture, mission, shared relational values, residential programs, and range of pedagogy. Also, it requires changing the curricula, teaching methods, and extracurricular programs of the professional schools to help transformational learning of both students and faculty.
9 Arts and Aesthetics for Human Flourishing
European SPES is interested in promoting the arts and aesthetics for human flourishing. Enjoying the arts and appreciating the beauty of the human and non-human world is a major vehicle of whole person development. The arts represent the antidote of market metaphysics and calculative thinking of today’s economics and business. Poetic dwelling models inspired by the arts can inspire organizations and people to transform themselves into responsive and caring agents. The arts and aesthetics reveal the great paradox of values, namely that if utility considerations precede beauty, then utility itself will be destroyed.
10 Peace Economics
European SPES is committed to peace economics. Today’s mainstream business which – with its exclusive focus on profit-making and competitiveness – violates the integrity and diversity of natural ecosystems, the autonomy and culture of local communities and the chance that future generations will lead a decent life. Despite recurrent war scenarios, peace is a realistic aim that can be realized through enlightened and sustained human commitment. However, peace economics requires the courage to face and unveil the hidden motivations of war embedded in our present way of life. Building peace economics demands an ethic of responsibility for the whole of humanity and all of creation, and taking an overlapping and intrinsic common good perspective.
By following the above directions in research and action European SPES cultivates a hope in a better future and aims to contribute to the flourishing of humans and nature on Earth.
The book is freely available here: European SPES book