Significance of Ethics

Significance of Ethics

1.      Ethics is required to develop a society of humans:

·         Humans carry higher senses of consciousness, wisdom, and the ability to decide right or wrong.

·         Human being different from other living beings has higher level of senses of consciousness.

·          They can reason and have wisdom.

·          Ethics is a science of enquiry and justification.

·         Thereby, ethics induces the individual to be something.

·         Therefore called ethical society is called society of humans.

2.      Ethics is important for evaluation and enrichment.

3.      Ethics in an answer to increasing secularisation:

·         Influence of religion, custom and tradition going down which has resulted into a state of anonymity or a blank condition. Now we don’t follow religion, we do not know what to follow.

4.      Ethics is an answer to increasing disorganisation:

·         Earlier argument, people were in influence of tradition, society and religious norms.

·          Now the influence of tradition, society, religion is declining, which resulted into disorganisation.

·         Ethics will help develop reasonable viewpoints, irrespective of the facts that there will be different and differing viewpoints.

·          Even though different, we will have reasonable opinion, therefore we will develop tolerance and intolerance is the product of unreasonable argument or opinion.

·         Thereby ethics helps in bringing mutuality, peace.

5.      Ethics is an answer to increasing globalization and cosmopolitisization: Co-existence of people of difference races, identities, religion need commonly agreed norms and ethics is answer to that.

Essence of Ethics

Essence of Ethics: Ethics examines and evaluate moral life and human conduct. Broadly following themes constitute essence.

1.      Standard of conduct: It is derived from theories of several moral thinkers and philosophers, various religious books; these help us to set up standards of conduct of human being.

 Some of the standards are:

·         The will of god

·         Divine command in place of rules, regulations enacted by the state. Exp. Islamic state dictates

·         Moral standard

·         Another standard is self interest because self preservation is the 1^st law of the existence. Example- Tsunami

·          Darwin, theory of struggle for existence and survival of the fittest comes from this principle.

·         Another ethical standard is utilitarianism because it recommends those actions which could produce good result for greatest no. of people.

2.      Principle through which ethical problems could be solved: Enactment of law, rules and regulations for ethical action of human beings and their compliance. Conscience has also been found to be a major source of ethical guidance especially in Indian value system.

3.      Ethics that shape the society and the nation: It becomes part of the preamble of the constitution. Constitutional values and ethos of country and with passage of time new values are added to make it relevant.

4.      Moral aspect of relation between human being: In personal relationship people express feelings of heart, loves, neglect, betrayal, happiness etc. Human relations and interaction are very significant, social and family pleasures are rooted in human relations, therefore moral standards of code need to be made to determine these relations.

5.      Ethics of individual character

There are five important virtues:

1.      Prudence: Sensible and careful while making judgements. It is very significant and important for civil servants.

2.      Courage: The ability to face pain or opposition without showing fear.

3.      Temperament: The practice of controlling behaviour.

4.      Justice: Fair treatment specially based on law.

5.      Benevolence: Specially used for people who are in power or authority. They should be kind, generous and helpful.

Ethics and Human Action

Ethics and Human Action

·         The major focus of ethics is on human action. This also happens to be starting point of most of our legal system.

·          Ethics focus only on human deliberative action and not on undeliberative action done out of ignorance.

·         Hence, ethics come into consideration in case of deliberate action made by people.

·         Ethical action can be categorised into two broad categories.

Ethical Action

Human Action

Moral Action

“Actus Humanus” mean deliberate human  action

“Actus Huminis” undeliberate human action,

 

Actus Huminis” like blood circulation breathing etc

·         Any action to be qualified as ethical or not must carry these two –

·         one the action must be human ,

·         Second it must be Moral.

 What qualifies to be human action?

·         Considering this according to theologians point of view, Thomas Aquinas says that a human action carries three basic and two additional characters –

·         three basics are :

1. Knowledge          

2. Voluntariness

3. Free-will

·         If any one of these elements is not present, the action is not human action, therefore not subject to study of ethics.

1.      Knowledge: Any action to be willed, an individual need to have knowledge about that action.

·         Example- If you say that I sat down on chair, you will be attributed to this action, when you have knowledge of chair and sitting. Human activity is something which is willed, for will knowledge is one of the essential characteristic.

2.      Voluntariness: The individual is himself undertaking the action means no one else is doing that.

·         Example- If someone places a gun in my hand and pulls a trigger, it is obvious that my will does not control or cause that action and therefore the shooting is not voluntary and not human action.

3.      Free Will: Referred to an individual undertaking an activity while having choices, if there is no choice then no free will.

·         Example- You are going through a tunnel, suddenly, the path is closed down, you know that there is alternative path but that path leads to a prohibited area, here you have the knowledge about the action, you voluntarily acted upon but you do not have the choice, so there is less free will so this would not fall under ethics.

2. Additional

1.      sufficient knowledge

·         Individual have the knowledge of the purpose or the impact of omission or commission of an act. The actor must have sufficient knowledge of the end or purpose of the action of the human.

·         There could be insufficient knowledge or complete ignorance.

·         In case of insufficient knowledge the action would be spontaneous. (Dog reaction after seeing the bone )

·         Natural act is that act which is based on ignorance.(trees and plants – no knowledge of their growth)

·          If the action is based on ignorance then this would not be a human action.

2.      voluntary/ voluntary in cause

·         The action would be directly voluntary/ voluntary in cause.

·         Directly voluntary refers to all those action, where the consequences are indirectly related to actor or the human being.

·          Example - Fighter pilot dropping a bomb on military, this is directly voluntary and destruction of civilian places by bomb is voluntary in cause. Any action which is direct voluntary and voluntary in cause both are a human action.

Moral Action: Something which is good or right action depends upon moral values but what qualifies for right action we will understand it in the context of religion, law, logic, emotion, intuition.

Impediments to Human Action

·         If any of the three conditions is absent, the action is not human and is not subject to examination in ethics.

1.      Ignorance: Defined as absence of knowledge in a subject for which a person is capable of having knowledge. An animal cannot be ignorant because of its unavailability of knowledge but IAS cannot be said ignorant if he/she lacks knowledge of administration.

2.      Passion: It includes anger, grief, love, hatred, greed etc. But passion destroys voluntariness of action and it influence human action.

3.      Fear: It is defined as a mental or emotional reaction arising from an impending danger. Two categories :

1) Grave fear – this would effects courage of a person

2) Light fear – this would not effects a person courage

·         In case of grave fear, it destroys person’s freedom of choice, and hence will adversely affect voluntariness of action whereas the light fear does not destroy the person’s freedom but only diminishes it.

4.      Violence: It is external physical force exerted physical force exerted on a person. When a person offers all the resistance he can, actions done in these circumstances are less free and therefore not human action.

5.      Habit: It is a quality acquired through frequent repetitions that enables the subject to be acted easily and promptly. Good habits are virtues and bad habits are vices. Voluntariness and choices do not remain in these cases.

6.      Temperament: It is the sum of person’s natural propensity as opposed to character which is the collection of a person’s acquired propensities. Both may sometime lessen the voluntariness of action.

7.      Pathological state: There are many pathological states that may interfere with voluntariness. Generally, in criminal cases lawyer play great attention to the mental status of their client and seek concession from the court.

·         Other conditions that impact voluntariness are alcohol and drugs. This can affect human reasoning and knowledge.

Religion and Ethics

Religion and Ethics:

·         Religion is an old concept and predominantly the action of human being is defined through religion.

·          It is defined through a theory called divine command theory or theological voluntarism. It is believed that whatever the religious scripture says had been said by god and whatever god says is ethical.

·          Thereby according to this view, ethical action is something which god prescribes and unethical which god restricts.

·          Religious scriptures carry do’s and don’ts and become the basis of ethical action but this theologians world consists of not only theist/ atheist and also agnostic.

·          World inhabited not only by individual of single religion but multiple religion with progressive secularisation of society with no. of atheist and agnostic are increasing in post modern era.

·         By this they are trying to ask that if someone does not believe in god. Does that mean all their action is unethical?

·          Theist is going to interact with atheist and agnostic both.

·         If the interaction has to take place both has to believe in mutually agreed norms with increasing secularisation of society, the interaction between the two require mutually agreed norms which cannot be described through religious scriptures.

·          World is populated by people from different beliefs and god cannot prescribed difference ideas for different people while god is one.

Argument

·          If god promotes killing, speaking lie, will all these become ethical, our intuition knows that these are unethical. In this context, we argue that ethics cannot be arbitrarily.

·         Therefore what god say is not ethical always (example. our behaviour towards females is discriminating in some religion).

·         So ethics is autonomous somewhat of religion.

·         Ethics is not arbitrary and have independent identity. This view growing with increasing secularism and cosmopolitanism of society.

·         Therefore religion alone cannot define ethics.

why to be MORAL?

Is it in our self-interest to be ethical or moral or it is advantageous to be moral?

·         Thomas Hobbes, a 17^th century English philosopher described a life where people had not come to co-operate in ethical manner but to avoid solitary, poor, brutish and short life.

·         Hobbes is best known for his book leviathan, in which he argued for the necessary supremacy of a strong monarch, he argued that before being civilized, humanity existed in a state of nature, where all world at war with the other.

·          Their lives were solitary, poor Brutish and short, to escape from this state, people had to join together in a “social contract” under a king and give their natural right to him.

·          This arrangement would be in the self interest of people living in Brutish state of nature.

·         In Hobbes system, the sovereign is protecting the interest of his people, the sovereign is creating the condition necessary for ethical behaviour, by laying down the law and judging disputes, the sovereign creates difference between what is right and what is wrong.

·         Moreover Hobbes point also implies that even if individual life does not flux well by following ethical rule, some level of ethical behaviour is necessary for a cohesive society.

·         By being ethical we contribute to that cohesiveness, living in a cohesive society is much more favourable than living in culture of back stabbers and thief.

·          Similarly kautlyas maintains that if there is not state, then there will be complete anarchy, there will be “Mats nyay” i.e. justice of fish world will take over where a stronger exploits weaker.

·         (Kantalya’s “Arthshastra” a 300 b.c. is a text book on state craft.)

·         He writes about Raj Dharma i.e. duty of king is to maintain peace and order in the state, he tries to establish great empire, for that he propounds principle, following which a ruler may become Chakravarty.

Indian Philosophy:

·         In Indian Philosophy, human existence and very purpose of life is explained with reference to theory of purushartha i.e. human values.

·         The four purushartha -

·         1. Dharma (right conduct/ duty)

·         2. Arth (economic well being)

·         3. Kam (sensual pleasure)

·         4. Moksh (liberation or salvation).

Plato (Disciple of Socrate)

·         Plato lives in Athens and is a prominent Greek philosopher he immortalized his teacher Socrates in a series of dialogues.

·          In one of his dialogues in republic, he has dealt with the concept of justice or moral rightness.

·         Plato through Socrates argued that there will be justice only when there is a “rule of reason” and the people obey its command.

·         In other words, Plato claims that ruler must be a philosopher.

·         In the republic, the interlocutors of Socrates argued that everyone would like to be immoral if there were not the threat of punishment and unpopularity.

·         Further “glaucon” (older brother of Plato) asks Socrates whether justice is good in it or is necessary evil.

·         Playing devil’s advocate glaucon hypothesis that ideal state of existence would be one where we have absolute power and complete freedom to indulge ourselves, but then others would also seek same power and this would interfere in our freedom.

·         Consequently there would be state of chaos where none would succeed in fulfilling their desire, therefore we compromise and result of that compromise is justice.

·         It is better than chaos but worse than undisturbed power.

·         To illustrate his point glaucon tells a story of a shepherd named Gyges who finds a Ring that at his commands makes him invisible

·         He used to escape the sanctions of society in order to fulfil his greed.

·         glaucon asked whether it is not plausible to suppose that we all will not likewise, then he offers a thought experiment to compare the life of the seemingly just man(But really unjust) who is incredibly successful as against with the life of seemingly unjust man (but really just) who is incredibly unsuccessful.

·         Now the question is which one we should choose.

·         Socrates answered- we should choose life of the unsuccessful just person because it is our advantage to be moral.

·         Socrates answer depends on the notion of mental well being.

·         Socrates believes that justice is not only means to happiness but essential to it.

·         Justice is intrinsically valuable and brings about a healthy soul.

·          He argues that immorality corrupts the inner person; it weakens the soul and makes it a slave of desire and passion.

·         On the contrary, a moral person is able to tame beast of desire and thereby acquire justice.

·          For Socrates, soul is more honourable than the body, thus one is happy or unhappy in exact proportion to one’s moral integrity.