Keshav Singh Public Lecture

UPDATE: A recording of this lecture is now available, please share!

Keshav Singh (University of Alabama at Birmingham) will deliver a public lecture, details below:

Title: Truthful living

Time: 4pm, 23rd October 2025

Location: Room MMAT-GC13, Metallurgy and Materials building, Pritchatts Road, University of Birmingham.

Please register your attendance by following the link.

Abstract:

“Truth is higher than everything; higher still is truthful living.” So it is written in a well-known passage from Sri Guru Granth Sahib, the primary Sikh scripture. I contend that this statement identifies the core of Sikh ethics. The Sikh ethical theory is an ethic of truthful living. In Sikh philosophy, the fundamental truth is the Oneness of all being, ik oaʼnkār. Truthful living is living in a way that is true to this Oneness. The Sikh ethic of truthful living, I argue, contains a unified theory of virtue and right conduct. As I show, the significance of the particular virtues discussed in Sri Guru Granth Sahib can be understood as aspects of a fundamental virtue of truthfulness. Moreover, right conduct can be understood as the practice of truthful living in action, thought, and feeling. Finally, understanding virtue and right conduct in this way illuminates how and why Sikh ethics enjoins living as both householder and renunciate. On the basis of the interpretation defended, I conclude that the Sikh ethical theory is just as comprehensive and systematic as the ethical theories developed by Western philosophers.

All are welcome!