GS-PAPER-IV Lecture-1-Ethics


LECTURE-1

 

ETHICS

·         Ethical is a philosophical concept

·        It is a difference between right and wrong

·        Ethics seek to resolve questions dealing with the human morality

·        Ethics focuses on satisfying life 

·        Ethics terms has been derived from Greek word “Ethos” which means character, habit, customs and ways of behavior

·         Ethics tries to attain ultimate happiness by making differentiation between good and bad human conduct

·         Ethics provide the study of values and guidelines to live a meaningful life

·         It is a body of reasoned truths and rational science

·         It regulates human behavior. In this context it is normative science

·         Theoretically it provides principals to make judgments

·         Practically it helps in attaining final goal of human life

·         Thus it helps one to find what is good and now to get it

·         The concept of right and wrong are subjective in nature that means they vary with time, place and situation

·        However, ethical codes are objective in nature in concept of its significance to the society   

·        In Mahabharta, there is a definition of Sadh Vayavhaar i.e. do not do into others as you would not be done by

·        Intrinsic humanness of Indian philosophy is called Swabhav and the same philosophy prohibits deviation from our inner core

·        Many a times ethical codes are derived from religious observation. In modern times, there is decline of religion that has lead to erosion of values

·        There is an intrinsic relationship between ethics and values

·        It has following contents :-

 

Ø  Universal values are absolute and immutable

Ø  It is when we apply these values to our attitudes, decisions and  actions

Ø  The play of values in this world is ethics. Thus ethics are practical dimension of values

·        The effectiveness of a person is dependent upon his values along with his skills. The contribution of the person to the society depends upon both of them

Note : Value/ Skill Diagram is at the top. 

Therefore in modern world along with skills values should also be acquired.

·         In 21st century there are very fast changes technology will advance exponentially. This has empowered the people but degenerated the values.

·          The mindset of the people has moved towards achieving materialistic goals and prosperity irrespective of the mean to adopted to gain them.

·         The ethical dilemma has led to a chaotic situation at micro and macro level of our heart and mind.

·         The formation of values is a continuous process of interaction of individuals with environment on form of parents, teachers and colleagues.

·         Ethics are dividing line b/w civilized and primitive societies.

·         They have inclusion of legacy of the past, moral codes of conduct and various religious doctrines.

·         Corrosion of ethical and social values have given way to materialism and technological determinism.

·         We need strong doses of morality to permote national interests.

·         Ethical concerns are the very basis of human rights in the society.

·         Observance of ethical standards in necessary for public relations and professions as well.

·         The head of the organization must be conscience keeper to run the organization effectively.

·         Ethics are voluntary actions, they are the difference b/w human actions and actions of human.

·         Human actions are those actions that are done by human consciously, deliberately and in the view of an end.

·         The grave events of corruption and misconduct have raised the questions of ethical and moral conduct in policy making.

·         Values motivate you to do something while morals and ethics constrains you from doing something.

·         Collectively, all of them are a mirror which tell what is or is not considered appropriate behavior.

·         Value is a relative quality- It is based on our subjective judgments. It is complex attitude set that influence our behavior.

·         It helps in making personal choices and building perception about others.

·         Ethics on other hand are the standards by which behaviours are evaluated for their morality i.e. their rightness and wrongness.

 

Example:-  Values- Goal orientation, gaining of skill etc.

Ethics- Honest performance of work, honesty, truthfulness, fairness and humanness 

    Thus:-

 

Value

 

·         They are our measure of importance

·         They are principal centric in approach

·         They are methods to gain information and avoid information overload

 

Ethics

 

·         They represent our judgment

·         They helps in making behavioural choices

·         They are the axis of truth around which the gained information must be utilised

 

Importance of ethics

·         The society has moral vacuum those days. There is growing demoralisation in society.

·         Traditional religious instructions have not been able to check this degeneration.

·         Therefore we should study ethics for various reasons:-

Ø  Ethics improve our logical ability and reasoning

Ø  Ethics makes thinking process stable

Ø  Ethics make leading of life simple and better

Ø  Ethics make decision making sound

Ø  Ethics make moral position absolutely clear

Ø  Ethics help in deciding the rightness of a decision or choice

Ø  Ethics help in solving real questions of life

Ø  Through ethics one can critically examine his own actions

·         Therefore ethics must be followed to achieve:-

Ø   Deeper human levels

Ø  To find the answers of the questions that lie beyond our field of inquiry

Ø  To understand meaningfulness of an unchanging and universally valid morality

Ø  To understand 'good' in a good life

Ø  To draw up rules of conduct

Ø  To fix objective norms for practical conduct

Ø  To understand empirical and metaimperical perspective of behaviour

Ø   To build fundamental principal logic and reasoning in self

Ø  To run the institutions of human welfare smoothly

Ø  To find perfect himself and herself as a moral being and to satisfy the desire of being good

Methods :

          Ethics can be inductive or deductive

·         Deduction is the experience based on pure logical reasoning and universal truth

Ø  Here circumstances and situations are compared with the ground situation and conclusion is drawn.

 

·         Induction is the process of arriving at knowledge through experience

Ø  Induction is moving from particularism to universalism as compared to deductions that bring particularism to universalism

 

·         There are different approaches to study ethics:-

 

1.   Under POSITIVE APPROACH morality is examined without concern for making judgments.

Under this approach, there can be DESCRIPTIVE ETHICS and METAETHICS.

Ø  Descriptive ethics try to explain moral and ethical practices and beliefs of certain societies and culture

Ø  Meta ethics focus on the analysis of meanings of certain terms used in ethical reasoning and decision making

Thus Meta ethics is theoretical reasoning

 

2.   Under NORMATIVE APPROACH, there general normative ethics and applied ethics

Ø  Under normative ethics, it is studied how one is ought to act

Ø  Under APPLIED ETHICS, it is studied how moral outcomes can be achieved.

 

 

Ethical codes:

Ethical codes are:

Ø  Difference b/w right and wrong

Ø  Principals and expectations

Ø  Minimum requirements for conduct

Ø  Behavioural expectations at generalised level

Ø  Pragmatic necessities for running an organisation

Ø  Distinct from culture, education and religion

 

·         The ethical codes for profession fixes professional responsibility

Ø  This professional responsibility is fixed in context of professional behaviour that is right in particular circumstances

Ø  The violation of such practices leads to expulsion from the professional organisation

Ø  These codes are fixed in a way that

Contributes to the welfare of professionals of that organisation 

Respects the rights of all constituents affected by its operations

 

·         The individual codes of ethics can be

Ø  Tenants of a religion

Ø  Unwritten rules of behaviour

Ø  Deductive adoptions of individuals

Ø  Inductive expansion on individuals experience

 

·         The examples of general ethics of social behaviour are

Ø  Respect for others property

Ø  Refraining from violence against another

Ø  Treating others with civility etc.

 

·         Certain codes of ethics can apply only to the members of selected group note necessarily society as a whole

 

Code of ethics (code of conduct):

          Code of ethics is-

Ø  Fixation of values

Ø  Finalization of obligations

Ø  Restrictions on the behaviour

Ø  Practice of acceptable behaviour and standard

Ø  Promotion of organisational identity through conduct

Ø  Base of the organisation policies

Ø  Standard of review process and appeal procedure

Ø  Ground for penalties and sanctions

 

·         Thus code of ethics require

Ø  Reporting of behaviour thoroughly

Ø  Not to coerce anyone for a particular behaviour

Ø  Not to gain unfair advantage

Ø  Not to accept unethical anticipation from others

Ø  Keeping the behaviour transparent

Ø  Taking the approvals for deviation

Ø  Regular monitoring of organisational behaviour

Ø  Not to do anything indirectly that cannot be done directly

Ø  Savings of organisational interests etc

 

Ethics and Whistle Blowing :

·         Whistle blowers are the persons who reveal unethical activities

·         They generally afraid of fear of retaliation and lack of protection mechanism

·         This situation may cause personal harassment at the cost of public good

·         The exposure of unethical activities must be the parts of ethical codes

·         The standard should clearly reveal that it is the responsibility of every employee to report such unethical activities

·         The rational should be appropriate for the culture and beliefs of the country in which organisation is situated

 

Work Ethics:-

·         The replacement of feudalism by capitalism brought new concepts like improvement in the productivity and efficiency of employees

·           This concept of capitalism and individualism naturally led to emergence of work ethics

·         In Indian culture, Bhagwat Gita enumerates the virtue of work and action

·         Work ethics deal with managerial decision and internal and external activities of an organisation

·         Along with efficiency an d productivity, they also emphasis on behaviour associated with managerial roles

·         Work ethics must be sun in the light of-

Ø  Organisation ethics

Ø  Accountability of various stakeholders of the organisation

Ø  Maintaining transparency in the org.

Ø  Providing competitive to the org.

Bio Ethics:-

·         Bio ethics is the activity of deciding what one should do

·         It shows why one way of dealing with problem is better than another

·         It is an answer to the policy questions of govt. organisation and community

·         It helps people in making decisions about their behaviour

·         It includes relationship b/w ethics, science and freedom

·         It is the intersection of ethical issues and life sciences

·         It is biology combined with human knowledge

·         It helps in setting priorities in various fields like environment and medical

·         It is useful in promoting critical thinking

·         It deals with real life situations (present and future)

·         It gives directions to technological development

·         It has connection with social philosophy and clinical medicine

·         It is normative ethical issues in medical practices

·         It maintain balance b/w healthcare resources and patient care

·         It also deal with the role of non-physicians in ethical choices

·         It tries to curb inhumanities in the field of healthcare and biomedical research

 

Media ethics:-

·         Media is one of the means of mass communication

·         It controls our emotions and attitudes

·         It provides information to the people that becomes basis for their decision making

·         Media ethics is concerned about what is right and wrong, good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable

·         It is both normative and positive in nature but largely it is prescriptive (normative)

·         Indian culture is largely dependent on culture of media, these days

·         Media decides its audience, degree of information and interpretation of the information

·         Public has legitimate right to know the truth and an individuals claim to privacy

·         Media ethics tries to prevent any monopoly over information diffusion and upholds pluralism of media content

·         The ethical codes for media includes

Ø  Responsibility for public welfare

Ø  Freedom of press to discuss ant matter within legal norms

Ø  Freedom from all undue obligations except maintaining the trust of people

Ø  Providing information loaded with sincerity, truthfulness and accuracy

Ø  Impartiality in news reporting and expression of opinion

Ø  Fair play in the question of private rights and public interests

 

Right to privacy:-

·         Public has right no know vices and corruption of the society

·         People in public life are vulnerable when they become the part of media spotlight

·         Maintenance of privacy is essential to liberty and human dignity and it should be balanced with public interest

·         Media needs to maintain balance b/w individual's right to privacy and public's right to know

·         Thus at official level, media should try to maintain transparency to stop miscarriage of justice and corruption but the information at private level should be dispersed in public interest only

 

Social responsibility of media :-

·         Media is unconditionally responsible towards the society to which it serves

·         Sometimes controversies are reported without foreseeing the consequences

·         Many theoretical values are compromised in the name of practical journalism

·         Formulation of media laws should be made effective to fix the accountability of media

·         There must be evidence to support what has been reported

·         The liability is both ethical and legal in nature

·         Thus media has obligation towards custody, care and safekeeping of one's audience

·         A free and responsible press should abide by following guidelines

Ø  A truthful comprehensive and intelligent account of the events that have been reported

Ø  A forum for exchange of comments and criticism

Ø  Projection of a representative picture

Ø  Presentation and clarification of the goals and values of the society

Ø  Full access to media intelligence etc.

·         Thus media should provide the opportunity for diverse voices to be heard in public arena

 

Environmental Ethics :-

·         Materialism has lead to excessive consumption of natural resources

·         There is disruption in plant and animal life

·         Industrial processes and expansion of agriculture are the major reasons of environmental problems

·         The overly increasing human population is adding fuel to the fire

·         The carrying capacity of our planet is already exploited we are endangering our future generations

·         We are depriving life forms of their right to live

·         Therefore we must have to set of duties towards our environment

·         We should base our behaviour on a set of ethical values

·         A sustainable adjustment of the relationship between human an d nature must be achieved

·         Along with economic and judicial methods, ethical methods be promoted to stop the deterioration of ecological systems

·         To establish the ethical relationship b/w human beings and nature, certain features must get our attention

Ø  Environmental ethics are extended beyond traditional ethics. Traditional ethics deal with human being whereas environmental ethics deal with entire biosphere, including plant and animal life and natural resources

Ø  Environmental ethics is interdisciplinary it includes politics, economic, sciences, literature etc.

Ø  Environmental ethics is plural. Here different ideas and perspectives compete with each other with the passage of time, this competition leads to well established cultural traditions

Ø  Environmental ethics are global in character that promotes consensus and cooperation at personal, national, regional, multinational and global levels

Ø  Environmental ethics are revolutionary in character, earth's limits, equitable economic and political order, local global debate in holistic manner

 

Ethics is Religion:-

·         It is sometimes argued that without religion there can be no ethics, but this preposition is unacceptable

·         Like religion, ethics is also a question of perception

·         Ethics is a natural phenomenon, it arises in the course of evolution of society and intelligence in human beings

·         It is continuation of past unacceptable behaviours of human society

·         Thus we can say that for the existence of ethics it is not necessary to relate it religion

 

 

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