ETHICS EDEN IAS

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 INDEX
CHAPTER 1 : ETHICS AND HUMAN INTERFACE 01 - 17
CONCEPTS COVERED
• Ethics; Meaning and Definition
• Sources of Ethics
• Essence of Ethics
• Determinants of Ethics
• Human Actions and Acts of Humans
• Consequences of Ethics in Human Actions
• Doctrine of Double Effect
• Dimensions or Branches of Ethics
• Ethical Dilemma/ Moral Issues
• Approaches to Solve Ethical Dilemma or Moral Issues in Ethics
• Ethics – In Private and Public Relationships
• Role of Ethics in Maintaining Social Order
• Morality – Morals, Constitutional Morality, Ethics and Morality, Ethics and Laws
• Human Values – Classification of Human Values.
• Significance of Human Values
• Human Values – Lessons from the lives and teachings of great leaders, reformers and
administrators
• Role of Family Society and Educational Institutions in Inculcating Values
• Virtues – Plato’s Theory of Cardinal virtues, Aristotle’s Golden Mean Principle

CHAPTER 2 : ATTITUDE: CONTENT, STRUCTURE, FUNCTION 18 - 26

Concepts Covered
• Attitude: Meaning and Definition.
• Attitude Content: CAB Model
• Attitude Structure
• Dimensions of Attitude
• Functions of attitude
• Attitude and Formation of Attitude
• Classification of Attitudes
• Types Attitudes
• Moral attitude And Political attitudes
• Bureaucratic attitude
• Democratic attitude
• Attitude and Aptitude – Significance in Public Administration
• Nature of Attitude and Theories of Attitude Change
• Social Influence and Persuasion.
CHAPTER 3 : APTITUDE AND FOUNDATIONAL VALUES FOR CIVIL SERVICES
CONCEPTS COVERED 27 - 36
• Aptitude and Major Manifestations of Aptitude
• Aptitude vs. Attitude
• Foundational Values and Significance Of Foundational Values For Civil Servant: Integrity,
Impartiality And Non-Partisanship, Neutrality, Objectivity, Dedication And Commitment,
Tolerance, Sympathy, Empathy And Compassion, Trustworthiness, Perseverance,
Honesty
• Nolan Principles of Public Life: Selflessness, Accountability, Integrity, Honesty, Objectivity,
Openness, Leadership.
• Insights into Nolan Principles of Public Life.
• Competency of a Civil Servant.

CHAPTER 4 : EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE 37 - 40

CONCEPTS COVERED
• Emotion, Intelligence, and Emotional Intelligence
• Emotional Quotient (EQ) and Intelligence Quotient (IQ)
• Key Elements of Emotional Intelligence
• Mayer and Salovey Model of Emotional Intelligence
• Daniel Goleman Model of Emotional Intelligence
• Role of Emotional Intelligence in Public Services

CHAPTER 5 : PUBLIC SERVICE VALUES AND ETHICS IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

CONCEPTS COVERED 41 - 50

• Public Administration, Characteristics of Public Administration and Administrative

Ethics.
• The Salient Aspects of Ethics in Public Administration
• Code of Ethics For Public Administrators/ Ethics in Public Administration
• Sources of Ethical Guidance: Laws, Rules, Regulations and Conscience
• Law and Ethics: Relation - Limitations of Law as Source of Ethical Guidance.
• Difference between Laws, Rules And Regulations
• Conscience, Voice of conscience and Crisis of Conscience.
• Max Weber’s Bureaucratic Theory
• Accountability, Responsibility and Ethical Governance.
• Ethical Concerns and Dilemmas in Government and Private Institutions – Resolving
Ethical Concerns and Dilemmas.
• Ethical issues in international relations and funding.
• Corporate Governance, Business Ethics; Corporate Social Responsibility.
CHAPTER 6 : PROBITY IN GOVERNANCE 51 - 59

CONCEPTS COVERED

• Probity in Governance: Concept of Public service, Public interest and Spirit of service,
Courage of conviction
• Public administration and Governance: Philosophical basis of governance, good
governance and ethical governance
• Information sharing and transparency in government
• Politicization of bureaucracy
• Right to Information; importance, issues and suggestions
• Sevottam model of service delivery
• Codes of Ethics and Codes of Conduct
• Citizen’s Charters
• Work culture: in private and public institutions
• Corruption - e-governance; Challenges of corruption
• Public Funds and utilization of public funds – Ethical issues associated with utilization
of public funds.
ETHICS EDEN IAS

ETHICS AND HUMAN INTERFACE

CHAPTER - 1
ETHICS
Ethics refers to a set of standards, norms, principles that the society places over itself, against which the actions of
an individual is judged from the view point of rightness or wrongness or goodness or badness. In simple words,
Ethics is a set of standards that a society places on itself, which helps to guide the behavior, choices and actions
of a person.

SOURCES OF ETHICS
Ethics is a moral philosophy or philosophical treatise which studies human behavior and tries to determine
whether an act performed is morally right or wrong. In nutshell, Ethics is a set of moral principles by which
people conduct themselves-personally, socially and professionally. These set of principles i.e. Ethics are derived
from various sources.

Various sources of ethics can be broadly summarized as below:

• Religion: Religion is the most important source of ethics as religious teachings often prescribe what is
right and wrong and society subscribes to such norms.
• Customs and Traditions: Practices that are handed over from generation to generation become part
of societal standards.
• Family and society: Family is the fundamental unit of the society and they establish certain standards
for a functioning society. A child is first educated about ethical norms in family. For instance, recently
experts have urged families to inculcate respect for women among children as a way to reduce gender-
based violence.
• Human conscience: Conscience helps a man to differentiate between good and bad, and certain
standards for society are acceptable for all conscientious men. For example, the social reformers like
Raja Ram Mohan Roy were persons whose values were inculcated not by the then social norms but by
their inner goodness/ voice, i.e. their conscience.
• Government laws, Rules and Regulations: Sometimes, certain standards are imposed on the society
through laws, which over time are accepted by society and forms part of its ethical system.
• Civil society: Ethics also arise from collective conscience of the public. Every society has certain shared
values and opinion. Society mobilizes in the form of social and civic bodies to promote a particular
set of goals and values. Such activity also affects ethics of individuals. For example, people from all
communities came forward and raised their voice against mob lynching in India due to the culture of
tolerance and pluralism.
• Thinkers and Philosophers: They inspire people and help in societies discovering or assimilating
new virtues.

ESSENCE OF ETHICS
• The essence of Ethics is to understand those philosophies which guide us in determining what is right
or wrong. Basically, Ethics is elaborated as the systematic study of human actions from the perspective
of their rightfulness or wrongfulness, as means for the attainment of the definitive happiness.
• Thus, the objective of an ethical system is to achieve “Summum Bonum” (The Highest Good – The
Definitive Happiness).
• The term Summum Bonum is a Latin expression introduced by the Roman philosopher Cicero,
which means the ultimate good. Summum Bonum is the final end to be achieved; however different
philosophers advocate and recommend different pathways to reach the ultimate good.
• Therefore the essence of ethics varies from one approach to another approach, one philosopher to
another philosopher, one person to another person. However, the end objective will be similar from all
the perspectives.
WHAT ETHICS IS NOT?
• In order to understand the essence of ethics it is important for us to understand what ethics is not.

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• Ethics is not morality

• Ethics is not religion
• Ethics is not law
• Ethics is not following any convention or norm
• Ethics is not morality: Morality can be an individual set of commitments even when they are rejected
by others. But one cannot be ethical alone. Ethics brings other people for the realization of the self.
Morality does not demand acquiescence from others the way ethics does. It is possible to be moral
alone, A moralist can say one do not believe in war, so what if everyone else does.
• Ethics is not religion: Though many people are not religious, but ethics applies to everyone. Most
religions do advocate high ethical standards but sometimes do not address all the types of problems we
face.
• Ethics is not following the law: In law, a man is guilty when he violates the rights of another. In ethics,
he is guilty if he thinks of doing so {Immanuel Kant). A good system of law does incorporate many
ethical standards, but law can deviate from what is ethical. Law may have a difficult time designing or
enforcing standards in some important areas, and may be slow to address new problems.
• Ethics is not following culturally accepted norms: Some cultures are quite ethical, but others become
corrupt -or blind to certain ethical concerns {United States was to slavery before the Civil War; caste
system in India). “When in Rome, do as the Romans don is not a satisfactory ethical standard.
DETERMINANTS OF ETHICS
Determinants of Ethics are the sources from which an ethical standard arises. Infact, these are factors in human
behavior that determine whether an act is good or bad. There are multiple determinants of ethics viz. Religion,
Laws, Societal rules, Individual values and preferences, Knowledge and Time etc.
However on broader note, there are three such determinants of ethics, namely the object, the end, and the
circumstances
1. Nature of Action/ the Object: Ethicality depends upon the fundamental nature of action itself. Object
means what the free will chooses to do in thought, word, or deed or chooses not to do.
For instance, a murder is an unethical act in itself and it cannot be justified by any intention or under any
circumstances. On the other hand, acts like polluting the environment are unethical but it can be justified if it’s
within ecological limits and used for good purpose like rural electrification.
2. The End/ Intent/ Motive of Action: Intention behind an action must be ethical and only then; the
action can be possible ethical. If intention is wrong, no action can be ethical even if the action is good in
itself. The end is meant the purpose for which the act is willed, the end is the intent, the motive or the
reason why an action is performed.
For instance, charity done for vested interests by unscrupulous NGOs is unethical even if its charity. On the other
hand, breaking a traffic rule can be ethical if a policeman does it to catch a criminal.
3. The circumstances: Ethics is dynamic and hence, sometimes circumstances decide whether an action
is ethical or not.
For instance, democracy and citizen-centric governance is ethical governance but during times of war, martial
law can be ethically justified and hence, provided under the Indian Constitution. We consider breaking of traffic
rules as highly unethical but if we are getting late for some place, we let ourselves break the rules.
To be ethically good, a human act must agree with the norm of morality on all three counts; in its nature, its
motive, and its circumstances. Departure from any of these makes the action morally wrong.
HUMAN ACTIONS
The major focus of ethics is on Human Actions. In simple terms, those actions which are deliberately and
consciously performed by humans through their intellect and will are known as Human Actions.
Important Prerequisites for Human Actions:
Moral philosophers maintain that three requirements must be concurrently present for any action to be a ‘human
action’. They are Knowledge, Voluntariness and Freedom.
1. Knowledge (One should be aware of what he/she is doing): Knowledge is an essential requirement
for an action to be a human action. Knowledge means familiarity, awareness or understanding of
someone or something.

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2. Voluntariness (The action should flow from the will of a person): Besides knowledge the action
must be voluntary in nature i.e. it must proceed from the will. Actions can proceed directly from the will
like consenting or indirectly through other faculties which are commanded by the will like thinking.
3. Freedom (The action must be freely performed without any coercion/force): Although some
human actions are voluntary i.e. the actor carries out the action all by himself not every voluntary
action is free. Freedom is the blossoming of the volition into sentience.

HUMAN ACTIONS Vs ACTS OF HUMAN

• We know that, the major focus of ethics is on human actions. However, while focusing on human actions
one should know differences between “Human Actions” and “Acts of Human”.
• Those actions which are deliberately and consciously performed by humans through their intellect and
will are known as human actions. In contrast to this ‘Acts of Human’ are instinctive in nature i.e. they are
driven by an impulse or habit.
• “Actus Humanus” – i.e. deliberate human actions- and “Actus Hominis” –undeliberate human actions.
Ethics Judges only Human actions from the point of view of rightness or wrongfulness and not acts of
human.
CONSEQUENCES OF ETHICS IN HUMAN ACTIONS
The consequences are the effects caused by an action and the quality of these consequences depend on how much
good they contain. Motives are the causes and the consequences are the effect.

• The consequence that mattered to every human is pleasure and happiness in the absence of pain and
suffering. The good consequences are defined in terms of happiness and suffering.
• The amount of pleasure and pain created by an action is really good way of showing that some
consequences are better or worse than others.
• The consequences are defined by various theories, one such is utilitarianism. Utilitarianism evaluates
consequences by how much happiness and suffering they contain.
• Jeremy Bentham described the consequences based on the actions as mentioned below:
1. Intensity of pleasure or pain: Consequence of an action can be good or bad. How intense it is,
makes the difference in the effect. For example, eating a chocolate and eating bitter guard shows
the difference in intensity.
2. The duration: The duration of pleasure or pain created by an action differs for stubbing one’s toe
and breaking one’s toe.
3. The certainty or uncertainty: Consequences of an action can be certain or uncertain. For example,
Jumping off from a higher building can cause a lot of pain to an individual than jumping onto a
giant pillow from the same place.
4. The Nearness or remoteness: During the time of pleasure or pain nearness or remoteness effect
follows an action. For example, Pleasure of eating ice-cream is immediate, whereas the pleasure
produced by winning a chess game is little more remote. They take a little longer to show up
results.
5. The fecundity: Consequence of doing the action is either pleasurable or painful, but how likely
the action is to be followed by more pleasure or more pain is an important question. The purity
or impurity of pleasure or pain is the opposite of fecundity. This explains how likely the action is
to be followed by the opposite feeling. For example, eating all the chocolate is very pleasurable at
first, but it leads to a great deal of pain in the long run which creates a high level of impurity or a
low level of purity.
6. The extent of an action: This refers to the wide effect of an action. Some actions can have an
extent numbering in the millions, such as deciding whether to torture a terrorist for life-saving
information.

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DOCTRINE OF DOUBLE EFFECT

Saint Thomas Aquinas is credited with introducing the principle of double effect in his discussion of the
permissibility of self-defense in the book Summa Theologica.

• Acts with double effects: Saint Thomas Aquinas described that usually the acts are of two types viz.
Human Acts & Act of Humans. Among them there are some Human actions which have both good and

Criteria to Define Acts With Double Effects

1. The action must be inherently good.
2. The good should not flow from the bad rather both should flow from the Action itself.
3. Comparatively the proportion of good should be larger than the proportion of bad.

• Utility of Doctrine of Double Effect: The doctrine (or principle) of double effect is often invoked to
explain the permissibility of an action that causes a serious harm, such as the death of a human being,
as a side effect of promoting some good end.
• Examples/ Applications:
1. Terror Bombing Vs Tactical bombing: The terror bomber aims to bring about civilian deaths in
order to weaken the resolve of the enemy: when his bombs kill civilians this is a consequence
that he intends. The tactical bomber aims at military targets while foreseeing that bombing such
targets will cause civilian deaths. When his bombs kill civilians this is a foreseen but unintended
consequence of his actions. Even if it is equally certain that the two bombers will cause the same
number of civilian deaths, terror bombing is impermissible while tactical bombing is permissible.
2. Instance of abortion by a doctor: A doctor who believed that abortion was wrong, even in order
to save the mother’s life, and might nevertheless consistently believe that it would be permissible
to perform a hysterectomy on a pregnant woman with cancer. In carrying out the hysterectomy,
the doctor would aim to save the woman’s life while merely foreseeing the death of the fetus.
Performing an abortion, by contrast, would involve intending to kill the fetus as a means to saving
the mother.
Although there are some criticisms about the doctrine, it serves as a best guide to handle certain diabolical
situations or ethical dilemmas like Euthanasia, Medical termination of pregnancy etc.

DIMENSIONS / BRANCHES OF ETHICS

Ethics is a multi-dimensional branch of moral Philosophy which can be divided into four main branches. They
are:

I. Meta-Ethics: It deals with the concepts beyond ethics, i.e. ethics about Ethics.
II. Prescriptive Ethics (Normative Ethics): Which is again, divided into Deontological Ethics,
Teleological Ethics, and Virtue Ethics.
III. Descriptive Ethics (Comparative Ethics).
IV. Applied Ethics: It is further divided into Bio-ethics, Cyber Ethics, Environmental Ethics, Personal
Ethics, Professional Ethics, Public Ethics, and International Ethics and so on.

META ETHICS:
• Meta ethics is defined as the study of the origin and meaning of ethical concepts, the term “meta” means
after or beyond, and, consequently, the notion of Meta ethics involves a removed, or bird’s eye view of
the entire project of ethics.
• It is a branch of ethics that seeks to understand the nature of ethical properties statements attitudes
and judgments.

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• It is a branch of analytic philosophy that explores the status, foundations, and scope of moral values,
properties, and words. Whereas the fields of applied ethics and normative theory focus on what is
moral, meta-ethics focuses on what morality itself is.
II. PRESCRIPTIVE ETHICS / NORMATIVE ETHICS:
• Normative ethics is also called as prescriptive ethics. It is the study of ethical theories that prescribe
how people ought to act. It examines standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions. Normative
ethics suggests punishment when a person deviates from the path of ideals.
• Aristotle’s virtue ethics, Immanuel Kant’s deontological ethics, J S Mill’s Consequentialism
{Utilitarianism) and the Bhagwat Gita’s Nishkam Karma yoga are some of the theories in Normative
Ethics.
• The Golden Rule is a classic example of a normative principle: “We should do to others what we would
want others to do to us”.
• Normative ethics can be of following types
1. Deontological Ethics
2. Teleological Ethics
3. Virtue ethics
1. Deontological Ethics
• Deontological Ethics is the normative ethical school that judges the morality of an action based on
the action’s adherence to a rule or rules, rather than based on the consequences of the action. It is
sometimes described as duty or obligation or rule based ethics.
• Famous proponents of Deontological ethics are Immanuel Kant, W.D Ross, John Rawls, Thomas Hobbes,
and Jean Jacques Rousseau etc.
• Theory of categorical imperative by Immanuel Kant, W.D.Ross Pluralistic deontology, John Rawls theory
of Justice and theory of original position, Thomas Hobbes Contractarian ethics are some of the theories
in Deontological ethics.
• Deontology is an approach to Ethics that focuses on the rightness or wrongness of actions themselves,
as opposed to the rightness or wrongness of the consequences of those actions (Consequentialism) or
to the character and habits of the actor (Virtue Ethics).
• Therefore it is sometimes described as “duty-based” or “obligation-based” ethics, because Deontologists
believe that ethical rules bind people to their duty.
2. Teleological ethics:
• Teleological ethics is the theory of morality that derives duty or moral obligation from what is good or
desirable as an end to be achieved.
• Consequentialism or teleological ethics is based on the premise that the morality of an action is
contingent with the outcome of that action.
• It is also known as consequentialist ethics, it is opposed to deontological ethics (from the Greek Deon,
“duty”), which holds that the basic standards for an action’s being morally right are independent of the
good or evil generated
• Different types of Consequential ethics/ Teleological ethics include:
a) Utilitarianism (Rule Utilitarianism, Act Utilitarianism)
b) Hedonism
c) Ethical Egoism
d) Ethical Altruism
e) Epicureanism
a) Utili¬tarianism:
• Utili¬tarianism is a normative-consequentialist ethical theory that places the locus of the rightness and
wrongness of an act solely on the outcomes (consequences) of choosing one action/policy.
• Utilitarianism is a universalistic form of Ethi¬cal Hedonism {where Hedonism argues that plea¬sure is
the highest good and the supreme ideal of life) Utilitarianism maintains that the supreme ideal of life is
pleasure - not the individual plea¬sure but universal or general happiness.
• It is an ethical doctrine pioneered by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mills. Utilitarianism is
fundamentally driven by the principle of utility i.e. that action is morally right which produces the best
overall consequences with regard to the utility or welfare of all the affected parties. Thus the underlying
principle of utilitari¬anism is that “an action is right if it produces great¬est good for the greatest
number”.
• It is a theory in normative ethics holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes
utility, usually defined as maximizing happiness and reducing suffering

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b) Hedonism:
• Hedonism is a school of thought that argues that pleasure is the highest good, the supreme ideal of life.
In simple terms, a hedonist strives to maximize net pleasure.
• The philosophy of Hedonism has been propounded by Aristippus of Cyrene.
• Hedonism evaluates human actions on the basis of the consequences of actions i.e. pleasure and pain.
c) Ethical Egoism:
• Ethical Egoism will prescribe that one should act only with respect to one’s own self-interest or in
the self-centeredness, which may include actions that may be beneficial, detrimental, or neutral to the
welfare of others.
• Exemplary Personalities associated with the philosophy of ethical altruism are Ayn Rand (Rational
Egoism), Adam smith (Conditional egoism), Thomas Hobbes etc.
d) Ethical Altruism
• Ethical Altruism is an ethical doctrine that holds that individuals have a moral obligation to help, serve
or benefit others, if necessary at the sacrifice of self-interest. More precisely, an action is morally right
if the consequences of that action are more favorable than unfavorable to everyone except the agent.
• Exemplary and iconic real life personalities associated with the philosophy of ethical altruism are
Mahatma Gandhiji, Swami Vivekananda etc.
• Ethical altruism prescribes that an individual should take action in such a way that it will have the best
possible consequences for everyone except for himself. According to it an action is morally right if the
consequence of that action is more favorable than unfavorable “to everyone except the agent”.
3. Virtue Ethics:
• Virtue ethics is the branch of ethics which Focuses on the Character of the agent rather than on the
formal rules for or the consequences of actions. Virtue ethics is person based ethics rather than action
based.
• Famous proponents of virtue ethics/ virtue ethicists are Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
• According to virtue ethics, the truly moral person is a virtuous person. Virtue ethics portrays moral
persons as those who genuinely take pleasure in doing right things.
• It also propounds the view that while doing right things is important, it is equally or more important to
be a virtuous person.
III. DESCRIPTIVE ETHICS:
• Descriptive ethics deals with what people actually believe (or made to believe) to be right or wrong, and
accordingly holds up the human actions acceptable or not acceptable or punishable under a custom or
law.
• However, customs and laws keep changing from time to time and from society to society. The societies
have structured their moral principles as per changing time and have expected people to behave
accordingly. Due to this, descriptive ethics is also called comparative ethics because it compares the
ethics or past and present; ethics of one society and other.
• It also takes inputs from other disciplines such as anthropology, psychology, sociology and history to
explain the moral right or wrong.
Descriptive ethics Vs Prescriptive ethics:
Descriptive and prescriptive ethics can be distinguished in the following manner
Descriptive ethics Prescriptive ethics
• It is comparative in nature and describes • It is normative in nature which means it
what kind of moral beliefs exits in the society argues that what one ought to do and what
• This ethics focuses on people’s belief about one ought not to do etc.
morality. • It is concerned with the criteria of what is
• It Describes and compares between right or wrong.
objectives of different ethical theories. • It includes the formulation of moral rules
• It deals with ethical questions like what do based on which human actions should be
people think is right. based on.
• Ex: Abortion is treated as unethical in some • It deals with ethical questions like how
societies etc. should people act? What is the correct
action? etc.
• Ex: One should not lie, one should not resort
to corrupt practices in service etc.

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IV. APPLIED ETHICS:

• Applied ethics is the branch of ethics which consists of the analysis of specific, controversial moral
issues such as abortion, animal rights, or euthanasia. It helps to use knowledge of moral principles to
present dilemmas.
• It is the philosophical examination from a moral standpoint, of particular issues in private and public
life that are matters of moral judgment. It attempts to use philosophical methods to identify the morally
correct course of action in various fields of human life.
• Examples: Ethics associated with some moral issues like euthanasia, surrogacy, medical termination
of pregnancy (abortions), Bio Ethics, Environmental ethics, Media ethics etc. will be a part of applied
ethics.
ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS
Environmental ethics is a sub-discipline of philosophy that deals with the ethical problems surrounding
environmental protection. It aims to provide ethical justification and moral motivation for the cause of global
environmental protection.
Environmental ethics is the branch of ethics that studies the relation of human actions and natural environment.
Environmental ethics treat environment as a part of society. It is about environmental values and societal attitudes
related to protecting and sustaining biodiversity and ecological systems.

Significance/ Need for Environmental ethics at present world

Environmental ethics has become necessary in view of the ever-decreasing environment and policy indifference
towards the environment.

• Currently, there are many environmental issues that stress upon to adopt and adhere to environmental
ethics in present times.
• Pandemics like Ebola, Zika, MERS, and SARS etc. had alerted human species about the imbalance
in relation between humans and Environment. Ignorance causing Covid-19 pandemic has almost
stopped the world for human species and has nudged humans to introspect on their relationship with
environment.
• Depletion of Ground water: Ground water is being extracted for agriculture, urbanization and
industrialization. Due to which there is a rapid decline in the ground water level and if it continues for
a long time, then soon desertification of many areas is certain.
• Rampant Land and Water Pollution: Both types of solids and liquids are usually dumped uncontrollably
into the surrounding land and water bodies. Is it moral to throw garbage outside someone’s wall? Can
any industry afford sensitivity to the environment or not?
• Uncontrolled Deforestation: Deforestation due to the need of housing, timber has damaged
biodiversity and environment.
• Miscellaneous factors: In addition, excessive use of vehicles, unplanned urbanization and
industrialization have damaged the environment.
Approaches in Environmental Ethics:
• There are basically three approaches to environmental ethics. They are as follows:
1. Anthropocentric Approach
2. Bio-centered approach
3. Eco Centric approach
Three approaches to environmental ethics are discussed below:
• Anthropocentric Approach: According to one belief, humans are dominating species on the planet
Earth. Human beings have used nature for their own benefit. It is a human centered thought, so it is
called anthropocentric.
• Bio-centered approach: As per this approach Human beings have a moral responsibility to be
responsible to future generations of humans. This approach is the basis of sustainable development.
• Eco Centric approach: People who want goodwill towards all living beings and demand their reverence
and respect towards the entire environment. This type of work which speaks of moral responsibilities
towards other beings. Is indicative of an ecological approach.

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ETHICAL DILEMMA/ MORAL ISSUES

• Ethical dilemmas or moral dilemmas or ethical paradoxes, are situations in which there is a choice
to be made between two options, neither of which resolves the situation in an ethically acceptable
fashion. In such cases, societal and personal ethical guidelines can provide no satisfactory outcome for
the chooser.
• An Ethical Dilemma is a situation in which a person has to make a difficult choice from amongst two
courses of action, each of which means compromising a moral principle.
• An ethical dilemma is a complex situation that often involves an apparent mental conflict between
moral imperatives, in which to obey one would result in transgressing another.
• An ethical dilemma arises from a situation that necessitates a choice between competing sets of
principles.
APPROACHES TO SOLVE MORAL ISSUES / ETHICAL DILEMMAS IN ETHICS
• Every day we come across several ethical and moral dilemmas in our daily life. Dealing with these moral
issues is often perplexing. How, should we think through an ethical issue?
• What questions should we ask? What factors should we consider? Therefore, to solve an ethical dilemma
the first step in analyzing moral issues is to get the facts.
• But having the facts is not enough. Facts by themselves only tell us what is; they do not tell us what
ought to be. In addition to getting the facts, resolving an ethical issue also requires an appeal to values.
• Philosophers have developed five different approaches to deal with moral issues. They are:
1. Utilitarian approach
2. Rights approach
3. Justice approach
4. Common good approach
5. Virtue approach
1. Utilitarian Approach
• Utilitarianism was conceived in the 19th century by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill to help
legislators determine which laws were morally best.
• Both Bentham and Mill suggested that ethical actions are those that provide the greatest balance of
good over evil.
• To analyze an issue using the utilitarian approach,
1. First identify the various courses of action available to us.
2. Second, we ask who will be affected by each action and what benefits or harms will be derived from
each.
3. Third, we choose the action that will produce the greatest benefits to the greatest no of peoples with the
least harm.
• This approach is based on the premise that “The ethical action is the one that provides the greatest
good for the greatest number.”
2. Rights Approach
• Proposed by Immanuel Kant and similar thought of philosophers, who focused on the individual’s right
to choose for herself or himself.
• According to this school of philosophers, what makes “human beings different from mere things is that
people have dignity based on their ability to choose freely what they will do with their lives, and they
have a fundamental moral right to have these choices respected”.
• In deciding whether an action is moral or immoral using this approach:
1. Does the action respect the moral rights of everyone?
2. Actions are wrong to the extent that they violate the rights of individuals
3. The more serious the violation, the more wrongful the action.
• People are not objects to be manipulated. It is a violation of human dignity to use people in ways they
do not freely choose.
• Some of the examples of individual rights are right to privacy, right to truthful, right to not be harm by
anyone.

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3. The Fairness or Justice Approach

• The fairness or justice approach to ethics has its roots in the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher
Aristotle, who said that “equals should be treated equally and unequal unequally.”
• The basic moral question in this approach is:
1. How fair is an action?
2. Does it treat everyone in the same way, or does it show favoritism and discrimination?
• Favoritism gives benefits to some people without a justifiable reason for singling them out; discrimination
imposes burdens on people who are no different from those on whom burdens are not imposed. Both
favoritism and discrimination are unjust and wrong.
4. The Common-Good Approach
• This approach to ethics assumes a society comprising individuals whose own good is linked to the good
of the community. Community members are bound by the pursuit of common values and goals.
• The common good is a notion that originated more than 2,000 years ago in the writings of Plato,
Aristotle, and Cicero.
• More recently, contemporary ethicist John Rawls defined the “common good as certain general
conditions that are equally to everyone’s advantage.”
• In this approach, we focus on ensuring that the social policies, social systems, institutions, and
environments on which we depend are beneficial to all.
• Examples of Goods common to all include affordable health care, effective public safety, peace among
nations, a just legal system, and an unpolluted environment.
5. The Virtue Approach
• There is another kind of approach apart from above four, the virtue approach. In this approach, certain
ideals strive towards full development of our humanity. These ideals are discovered through thoughtful
reflection on what kind of people we have the potential to become.
• Honesty, courage, compassion, generosity, fidelity, integrity, fairness, self-control, and prudence are all
examples of virtues.
• Moreover, a person who has developed virtues will be naturally disposed to act in ways consistent with
moral principles. The virtuous person is the ethical person.
ETHICS IN PUBLIC RELATIONSHIPS
It refers to the ethics that a person may adhere to in respect of their interactions and business dealings in their
professional life. Public relationships are those that exist by the virtue of profession or the position one holds in
professional life.

Main principles of ethics in public relations can be summarized as

1. Selflessness: Holders of public office should act solely in terms of the public interest.
2. Integrity: Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation
to outside individuals or organizations.
3. Objectivity: In carrying out public business, holders of public office should make choices on merit.
4. Accountability: An employee must be accountable and answerable for his/her actions taken in respect
of personal capacity in public service.
5. Openness: Holders of public office should be as open and transparent as possible
6. Honesty: Holders of public office have a duty to declare any private interests relating to their public
duties.
7. Loyalty to the Organization
8. Spirit of Service
9. Fairness & Justice
10. Discipline and Dedication
ETHICS IN PRIVATE/ PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP
It refers to the ethics that a person identifies with respect to people and situations that they deal with in everyday
life. It largely involves relations with family and friends. They are based on emotional bonds rather than any
formal procedure that regulates them and therefore, they are informal in nature. Private relationships are often
given or inherited. They are relatively permanent with more tolerance for imperfections.

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• The Ethical standards and moral values adopted by person during his personal life refer to Ethics in
Private Relationships.
• Freedom of Will forms the basic foundation of Private Ethics. It means freedom to act or not to act.
Example: One should speak Truth but you are at full freedom to speak lie as well.
• Private Relationships are One to One and based on emotions, Informal in nature, internally controlled
instead of external control (law, rules etc).
• Ramayana is a classic example of ethics in personal relationships. Although ethics in private life varies
from person to person but there are some common underlying principles that are accepted by the
society.
• For example –
a) Loyalty – loyalty to one’s partner and to the family members
b) Love – loving all the members of family with their imperfections
c) Affection – caring for needs of all the members as your own
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ETHICS – IN PRIVATE AND PUBLIC LIFE
Personal ethics refer to morality applicable in family and social relationships. Whereas Professional ethics are the
codes which prescribe for professionals like doctors and engineers safe and appropriate methods of working in
the interests of clients and society.

• Making distinction between private and public ethics is a dubious one because in general a person lives
by same ethical values both in public and private lives.
• For Example: The way a civil servant treats women in his family is reflected in how he handles female
co-workers or whether policies implemented by him have a gender bias or not.
• There should be no conflict between personal and professional ethics as it may lead to frustration, guilt,
confusion & dissonance in the mind of some persons.
• Ethics in public life places a greater responsibility & person cannot always follow his personal ethics.
• For example personally you may feel abortion is morally wrong, but if you are a doctor, you need to do
abortion according to your professional ethics. When performing a role in public, we need to separate
our personal lives and follow professional code of conduct strictly.
ROLE OF ETHICS IN ESTABLISHING SOCIAL ORDER
• All societies try to maintain “Social Order”. Social order refers to a stable state of society in which social
structures are accepted; social institutions, social customs, social relations are respected and social
norms that guide good behaviour are enforced. The whole idea of social order is to avoid social chaos
or social breakdown.
• Social order is established and maintained through a device called “social control”. Social control is
achieved by the twin processes of socialization and social sanctions.
• Socialization is the process through which individuals learn to behave in a way that is acceptable to
the society. Through socialization an individual gains knowledge about social structures, customs,
relations, institutions, practices etc.
• Social sanction is a reward or punishment with respect to a behaviour or appearance. It is a reaction
from others to the behaviour or appearance of an individual or group. Such a reaction can be positive
or negative. (Incentive-Punishment model of social sanction is often enforced by law.
• Ethics is a moral tool that protects social order by promoting and encouraging good and right conduct.
MORAL VALUES AND MORALITY
The word Morals originated from the Latin word Mos. The meaning of Mos is custom/Tradition. Morals are
nothing but the principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour. Moral
values are the highest among all natural values. Moral values are the standards of good and evil, which govern an
individual’s behaviour and choices.

Morality refers to a set of standards, norms, principles or directives that an individual places over him/herself.
In other words, Morality means standards of conduct that are accepted as right or proper, it is based on personal
conscience rather than what the law says. Morals are related to issues of right or wrong and to how individuals
should behave.

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Constitutional Morality:
• Constitutional morality means simply firm adherence to the core values and upholding the values
that are enshrined in the constitution of a country, such as fundamental rights, social justice, liberty,
Equality, fraternity etc.
• According to Ambedkar, constitutional morality would mean effective coordination between conflict
groups to resolve them amicably without confrontation. By abiding to the constitutional values, a civil
servant does his/her duty with utmost integrity and honesty with efficiency. Use his/her discretion in
lines with constitution to create an equitable a society.
• Constitutional Values/ Morals: In this regard, one may raise the question of morals relevant to public
servants in performing their official tasks. For this purpose, we refer to values embedded in the
constitution. As we mentioned before, they are found in the Preamble and the Directive Principles of
State policy.
• The constitutional values/ morals included in the preamble and constitution of India can be summarized
as below:
1. Socialism, Secularism and Democracy
2. Social, economic and political Justice
3. Liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship
4. Equality of status and of opportunity
5. Fraternity and Dignity of the individual
6. Unity and Integrity of the Nation.
ETHICS AND MORALITY
Ethics and morals seem to appear similar on the face of it, but if one analyzes deeply, there is a subtle difference.
Ethics define the code that a society or group of people adhere to, while Morality delves into the right and wrong
at a much deeper level, both personal and spiritual. Morals define personal character, while ethics stress a social
system which those morals are applied.

Basic Differences between Ethics and Morality

Generally, Ethics and morals seem very similar and intermixed with each other. In fact, many ethicists consider
that both the terms are interchangeable. However, there are slight and subtle differences between them.

The Major Difference between Ethics and Morality are:

Ethics Morality
The word Ethics originated from the Greek word ethos. The word Morals originated from the Latin word Mos.
The meaning of ethos is a character The meaning of Mos is custom.
Ethics refers to a set of standards, norms, principles Morality refers to a set of standards, norms, principles
or directives that the society places over itself for or directives that an individual places over him/her
regulating its functioning. self.
Ethics means a Set of standards that society places Morality means a personal compass of right and wrong
over itself
Source of ethics is external influences i.e Social Milieu Source of morality id internal resolutions i.e Inherent
Conscience.
Ethics determines which behavior is “right” and Morals are concerned with individuals feeling “good”
“wrong”. or “bad,”
Ethics dictate what practical behaviors are allowed in Morals reflect individual preferences, intentions and
a group/ society. internally set standards for a person.
Moral Absolutism:
• Moral absolutism is an ethical view that certain actions are absolutely right or wrong, regardless of
other circumstances such as their consequences or intentions behind them.
• According to this perspective, certain principles are universal and non-override able and true for all
situations.
• Moral absolutism argues that there are some moral rules that are always true, that these rules can be
discovered and that these rules apply to everyone.

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Moral Relativism
• Moral relativism/ Ethical relativism is a moral theory that holds that morality is relative to the norms
of one’s culture. That is, whether an action is right or wrong depends on the moral norms of the society
in which it is practiced. The same action may be morally right in one society but be morally wrong in
another.
• Moral relativism has been advocated by W. D Ross (Rossian deontological ethics).
• For an ethical relativist, there are no universal moral principles - principles that can be universally
applied to all peoples at all times. Ethical relativism is a moral theory that promotes tolerance as its
value.
Moral Objectivism:
• Moral objectivism / Ethical Objectivism is a view that there are universal and objectively valid moral
principles that are relative neither to the individual nor to the society.
Moral Skepticism
• “Moral Skepticism” names a diverse collection of views that deny or raise doubts about various roles
of reason in morality. Different versions of moral skepticism deny or doubt moral knowledge, justified
moral belief, moral truth, moral facts or properties, and reasons to be moral. Ex: Questioning the Rajya
Dharma
Moral Universalism
• Moral Universalism is a meta-ethical position that some system of ethics, or a universal ethic, applies
universally. That is, for all similarly situated individuals, regardless of culture, race, sex, religion,
nationality, sexuality or any other distinguishing feature. It is opposed to moral nihilism and moral
relativism.
Moral Nihilism
• Moral Nihilism is a meta-ethical view that nothing is intrinsically moral or immoral. For moral nihilists,
morality is without universal or even relative truth in any sense.
ETHICS AND LAWS
The law refers to a systematic body of rules that governs the whole society and the actions of its individual
members. Whereas, Ethics is a branch of moral philosophy that guides people about the basic human conduct.
Law is created with an intent to maintain social order and peace in the society and provide protection to all the
citizens. But Ethics are made to help people to decide what is right or wrong and how to act. Law has a legal
binding but Ethics do not have a binding nature.
“In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others; in ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so”-
Immanuel Kant. This famous dictum of Immanuel Kant tries to make a distinction between ethics and law.
In general, Laws are externally enforced upon a society and deter potential crime. However Ethics, on the other
hand, serve to guide individual conscience by enabling people to separate right from wrong. In law, the legality of
actions is adjudged based on the action. Similar purpose for thoughts is served by ethics.

For example:
a) A person who thinks about killing another person is not guilty in law as he does not deprive the other
person of his right to life. However, simply by harboring thoughts of murder, he is ethically guilty.
b) Similarly, the men who think of violating a woman’s dignity are guilty from an ethical point of view, even
though they may not be considered legally guilty until they actually perform that act.
In fact, Ethics and Laws are complementary to each other. Most laws are derived from ethics, and both of them
reinforce each other to create a stable, harmonious society. The purpose of both is to create a just, equitable, rule-
based environment for humans to thrive in and flourish.

HUMAN VALUES
Values imply individual preferences. They are the long lasting and fundamental beliefs that can guide, motivate
the attitudes or actions of a Person. Human values are the virtues that guide us to take into account the human
element when we interact with other human beings. Honesty, Integrity, Truthfulness, Respect, Love, Empathy,
Sympathy etc are some of the basic values.

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CLASSIFICATION OF HUMAN VALUES
A] Terminal values and Instrumental values
• Terminal values are the core permanent values that often become the traits of one’s character. They
can be good or bad. They are very hard to change. Terminal Values include things like happiness, self
respect, family security, recognition, freedom, inner harmony, comfortable life, professional excellence,
etc. terminal values are desirable states of existence.
• Instrumental values are a part of a values definition created by social psychologist Milton Rokeach. He
defined instrumental values as those which are specific modes of behaviour. They are not an end goal,
but provide a means by which an end goal is accomplished.
B] Intrinsic values and Extrinsic values
• An intrinsic value is one which has worth in its own right. It is an end- in-itself. Intrinsic values are good
irrespective of the consequences they bring. Intrinsic value has traditionally been thought to lie at the
heart of ethics. Honesty, temperance, courage, happiness, peace etc are examples of intrinsic values.
• An Extrinsic value is one which is a means to attain some other intrinsic value. It is of instrumental worth
only as they serve as means to achieve an end. Values such as health, money, fame, status, intelligence,
and so on are the ‘means-values’ or ‘path-values’ which help achieve the end values.

SIGNIFICANCE/ IMPORTANCE OF VALUES - VALUES AS GUIDING PRINCIPLES:

Values make an individual upright and more stable during the times of difficulty situations in the life. Without
values, human life would be drained of significance, degenerating into a bland and texture less existence without
differentiation. The values acts as an anchor to the moral ship of a man and help us in separating the right from
the wrong.

• Honesty & Integrity: For Administrators

o Honesty makes a person more loyal truthful and open in the life. For
an administrator the values (anchors) like honesty & integrity are very
much essential to withstand the cancerous storms of society like bribery,
corruption etc.
o Ex: Lal Bahadur Shastri, the former prime minister anchored his moral
ship with these virtues & stood as exemplary personality for integrity
and probity in public life.
• Compassion & Kindness: For Social workers
o Compassion is akin to sympathy. Compassion makes a person to help
the needy people even at the cost of the self. These values will make the
social workers to stand always for the cause they stood for.
o Ex: Mother Theresa is an epitome of the compassion stood for the needy
people and Baba Amte is another person dedicated his life for the cause
of leprosy people driven out of compassion.
• Fairness & Justice: For Social Activists
o Fairness and justice are two such cardinal values one should always posses. The People have
the courage to fight against injustice. Be it protest against the Nirbhaya incident or instances of
corruption (Hunger strike by Anna Hazare) they stood for the cause despite people had to face the
heed of police, personal losses etc.
• Courage and Fortitude: For soldiers and military personnel
o The highest attribute that the military personnel, soldiers must anchor their moral ships are the
values like courage and fortitude to face the adverse situations like wars, border conflicts etc.
o Ex: Subhash Chandra Bose withstood all the difficulties in his life for the cause of patriotism with
these values of courage and Fortitude.
From all the above examples it is clear that the human values are the foundation of an individual person’s ability
to judge between right and wrong. Hence, Values include a deep-rooted system of beliefs that guide a person’s
decisions and they form a personal, individual foundation that influences a particular person’s behavior

Ethics and Values - Comparison

Ethics and Values together lay the foundation for sustainability. While they are sometimes used synonymously,
they are different, wherein ethics are the set of rules that govern the behaviour of a person, established by a group
or culture. Values refer to the beliefs for which a person has an enduring preference.

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Ethics and values are important in every aspect of life, when we have to make a choice between two things,
wherein ethics determine what is right, values determine what is important.

Key Differences between Ethics and Values

The fundamental differences between ethics and value are described in the given below points:

1. Ethics refers to the guidelines for conduct, that address question about morality. Value is defined as the
principles and ideals, which helps them in making the judgement of what is more important.
2. Ethics is a system of moral principles. In contrast to values, which are the stimuli of our thinking and
thought process.
3. Values strongly influence the emotional state of mind. Therefore it acts as a motivator. On the other
hand, ethics compels to follow a particular course of action.
4. Ethics are consistent, whereas values are different for different persons, i.e. what is important for one
person, may not be important for another person.
5. Values tell us what we want to do or achieve in our life, whereas ethics helps us in deciding what is
morally correct or incorrect, in the given situation.
6. Ethics determines to what extent our options are right or wrong. As opposed to values, which defines
our priorities for life.
FEATRUES ETHICS VALUES
Meaning Ethics refers to the set of standard Values are defined as the principles and ideals
guidelines for good conduct, that address that help them in making judgement of what is
question about morality. more important.
What are they? System of moral principles/ standards. Acts as Stimuli for thinking/ thought process.
Consistency Uniform for whole society, organisation, Differs from person to person based their
religion etc conscience.
Tells What is morally correct or incorrect, in the
What we want to do or achieve.
given situation
Determines Extent of rightness or wrongness of our
Level of importance.
options.
What it does? Constrains the society and regulates the
Motivates a person towards righteous path.
society/ organization.
While ethics are consistently applied over the period, and remain same for all the human beings, Values have an
individualistic approach, i.e. it varies from person to person but remains stable, relatively unchanging, but they
can be changed over time due to a significant emotional event.

LESSONS LEARNT FROM THE LIVES OF GREAT LEADERS, PROMINENT ADMINISTRATORS, SOCIAL
REFORMERS
Values can be defined as qualities that are important to us. Values act as an internal compass which helps a person
to evaluate different choices of conduct and behaviour. These values are developed as a result of substantial time
and emotional investment, so by nature they are relatively stable and difficult to change. Usually we can learn a
myriad of such values in the form of lessons from the lives of great leaders, administrators, social reformers.

Lessons learnt from the lives of great leaders

Lessons that we can learn from the lives of great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Sardar Patel,
Nelson Mandela etc are:

• Justice
• Selflessness
• Love for peace.
• Respect for humanity and dignity
• Love, care and compassion
• Benevolence & Dedication
Lessons learnt from the lives of prominent administrators
The lessons that we can learn from the lives of prominent administrators are based on the ethics in public
administration and probity in governance. Important lessons that we can learn from the lives of great
administrators like A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Varghese Kurien, M.S. Swaminathan, E. Sreedharan, C.D. Deshmukh, V.P.

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Menon, and Sardar Patel include:

• Honesty and Integrity

• Discipline
• Non-discrimination, equality
• Public welfare
• Accountability- ethical & professional
• Responsibility
• Lawfulness
• Loyalty
• Courage
• Solidarity and respect
• Work ethics
• Perseverance
Lessons learnt from the lives of great reformers
The lessons that we can learn from the lives of great reformers like Swami Vivekananda, Raja Rammohan Roy,
Ishwar Chandra Vidya Sagar, Gandhiji, B. R. Ambedkar, Swami Dayanand Saraswati etc are based on compassion,
equality and inclusion. The major lessons include:

• Respect for humanity & dignity

• Benevolence, Love, care & compassion
• Inquiry for seeking the cause-effect relationship
• Passion for Social equality
• Dedication to cause
• Fortitude in efforts
• Sense of Justice while dealing with social groups
ROLE OF FAMILY SOCIETY AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS IN INCULCATING VALUES
Values imply individual preferences. As the man is a social being these preferences are learnt in the life through the
influence of various actors like family, society, educational institutions etc. and the role of these actors becomes
very much instrumental and important for inculcation of the values.
In other words, Human values are the virtues that are inculcated in human beings through the process of
socialization; therefore these values can be effectively ingrained in a child by the family, society and educational
institutions. These actors will also help in socialisation of children by influencing their attitudes and beliefs.

Role of Family and Society in Inculcating Values:

Family being the first and major agency of socialization has great influence and bearing on the development of
the child. It has been shown by various studies that most of the children who are successful/great achievers and
well-adjusted come from the families where sustaining wholesome relationships exist.

• The family and society plays instrumental role in the process of value inculcation. Family is the
foundation on which basic values of a person are being built and the family is in turn a basic unit of
society therefore role of both these actors are closely intertwined.
• For every child mother is the first teacher, father is the first guide, Grandparents are the first philosophers.
Therefore role of family is inseparable.
• There will be very close contact of the child with various family members therefore child will imitate
others and will learn the things what he comes across.
• Moral Values like honesty, truthfulness, respect to elders; responsibility etc can be effectively learnt
from family and society.
• Moral values like truthfulness, happiness, peace, justice are instilled in children’s thoughts, feelings
and actions and they function as ideals and standards that govern their actions in their life. The value
system practiced in the family becomes automatic to the young family members if they are taught moral
values systematically.
• The family, shapes the child’s attitude towards people and society, and helps in mental growth in the
child and supports his ambitions and values.

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• Blissful and cheerful atmosphere in the family will develop the love, affection, tolerance, and generosity.
A child learns his behavior by modeling what he sees around him.

Role of Educational Institutions in Inculcating Values:

Education is a process of initiating the learners into a form of life that is considered as desirable to preserve and
promote. Education necessarily involves transmission of values. However, these changes are to be brought about
employing such procedures as do not violate the freedom and autonomy of the learner.

• School is a building with four walls having future inside. As the child spends nearly 8 hours of a day in
educational institutions (which is nearly 1/3rd of the time spent in a day) they play crucial role in the
value inculcation.
• Schools will teach the basic values like respecting others, and makes them tolerant towards all other
people equally.
• Example: Initiatives like School clothes Uniform system, midday meals schemes strives for inculcation
of values like equality, respect.
• By teaching the lessons from exemplary persons lives schools will ingrain these attributes to the child.
Through wall writings like “Honesty is the best policy“, reward and ward methods they will mould the
child as moral being.

Basic Values Inculcated In Educational Institutions

a. Discipline f. Truthfulness
b. Punctuality g. Responsibility
c. Equality h. Leadership skills
d. Respect i. Team spirit
e. Honesty j. Cleanliness

Therefore, it is the home, which sets the pattern for the child’s attitude towards people and society, aids intellectual
growth in the child and supports his aspirations and good values. It is through education that society seeks to
preserve and promote its cherished values.

VIRTUES
A Virtue can be defined as an excellence of character which leads one to act in a morally praiseworthy manner.
Virtues are the good traits of character and vices are bad traits of character. Kindness, compassion, courage,
honesty, conscientiousness etc are some of the examples of virtues.

Aristotle’s Golden Mean Principle

• According to Aristotle’s golden mean principle a virtue can be defined as the mean between two
extremes. Every virtue lies in between two vices. Aristotle considered that virtue represents a balance
between extremes.
• For Example: Courage is the middle between one extreme of deficiency (cowardice) and the other
extreme of excess (recklessness). A coward would be a warrior who flees from the battlefield and a
reckless warrior would charge at fifty enemy soldiers.

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This doesn’t mean that the golden mean is the exact arithmetical middle between extremes, but that the middle
depends on the situation.

CONCEPT OF CARDINAL VIRTUES

Cardinal Virtues are the fundamental virtues on which the other virtues are based. The term ‘cardinal’ is derived
from the word Cardo. ‘Cardo’ means a hinge or a hook which supports the door, and on which the door turns.

• Cardinal virtues are defined as a group of virtues such that they cannot be derived from one another
and all other virtues can be derived from them or shown to be forms of them. .
• Plato’s theory of cardinal virtues: Ancient Greek philosopher, Plato identifies four “cardinal virtues”
that are necessary for a happy individual and that are necessary for a good society.
• Plato’s Cardinal Virtues: Cardinal virtues propounded by Plato are Wisdom, Courage, Temperance and
Justice.
1. Wisdom: Wisdom is the Virtue of the rational part of the soul. It is an all-embracing virtue. It is
moral insight into the duties in a concrete situation and performing them. It is practical wisdom
which is implied in all moral actions. However, in a wide sense, wisdom should include care,
foresight, prudence and decisiveness of choice.
2. Courage: Courage is the virtue of the emotional part of the soul. Courage is the power of resisting
the fear of pain and the temptation of pleasure. It is not the mere facing of pain that is virtue, but
the doing of what is right in the face of pain. Courage is the special virtue of the fighting class.
In a wider sense courage should include both valor and fortitude. Valor is active courage, which
forges ahead and braves danger and pain. Fortitude is passive courage which endures inevitable
sufferings without wavering. Courage should include perseverance.
3. Temperance: Temperance is the Virtue which offers resistance to the allurements of pleasure.
It is self-restraint or self-control. It denotes the will to choose the higher values and to reject
the lower bodily values. Temperance is not merely a negative virtue engaged in repressing the
appetites. Temperance does not merely restrain passions and desires, but it takes from reason
guidance as to how far these desires should be satisfied. Temperance demands a reasonable
moderation or a happy blending of the domination of reason with the other tendencies of human
nature. Temperance is supremely a virtue which gives beauty to the moral life.
4. Justice: Justice is the harmonious functioning of intellect, emotion and desire under the guidance
of reason. Wisdom, courage, and temperance are primarily virtues of an individual man. Justice
is primarily a virtue of a society. In a good society justice demands that the lame man, however
unworthy he is morally or however little he is able to do physically for the common good, should
be provided with an artificial leg. Justice is impartiality to all in the face of personal prejudice,
preference or self-interest.

• The four virtues are called cardinal because they support moral life of man in society. They are
fundamental virtues. Other virtues depend upon them and are therefore subordinate to them.
• Christianity has seven cardinal virtues, three of these – faith, hope and charity (love) are theological
virtues. Four virtues – prudence, fortitude, temperance and justice – are human virtues.
• Schopenhauer regarded benevolence and justice as cardinal virtues. The commonly recognised virtues
like love, courage, kindness, temperance, honesty and gratitude can all be derived from cardinal virtues.

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ATTITUDE: CONTENT, STRUCTURE, FUNCTION

CHAPTER - 2
ATTITUDE
An attitude is a relatively enduring organization of beliefs, feelings, and behavioral tendencies towards socially
significant objects, groups, events, or symbols. It is a learned tendency or predisposition to respond in a
consistently favorable or unfavorable manner for a given object.
Gordon Allport once described attitudes as “The most distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary
social psychology”. Attitudes can be of various types like explicit and implicit attitudes, positive and negative
attitudes, Moral and Political Attitudes, democratic attitudes, Bureaucratic Attitudes etc.
As the Attitude forms the very basis of one’s behaviour people can feel one’s attitude although they may hear the
words Attitudes are formed primarily based on underlying values and beliefs as shown in the figure below.

ATTITUDE CONTENT
Carl Jung, one of the founders of psychoanalysis, is of the opinion that the contents of the conscious and
unconscious part of the mind are usually different. Accordingly, attitudes are classified as explicit and implicit.

• Explicit Attitude (Conscious) – If a person is aware of his attitudes and how they influence his
behaviour, then those attitudes are explicit. Explicit attitudes are formed consciously.
• Implicit Attitude (Sub-Conscious) – If a person is unaware of his attitudes (beliefs) and how they
influence his behaviour, then those attitudes are implicit. Implicit attitudes are formed subconsciously.

ATTITUDE STRUCTURE
The Structure of Attitude consists of three major components: Cognitive, Affective and Behavioural. This
multi-component model of attitude structure is known as the ABC Model or CAB Model. Let’s see the components
of the CAB model.

1. Cognitive Component: Cognitive part consists of a person’s thoughts and beliefs about the object. This
involves the person’s learning, knowledge, beliefs, and thoughts about the attitude-object (in our case,
Honda cars). For example, if you have learned previously that Honda car give more than 20 km/litre
mileage on petrol – that can create a positive attitude towards the brand.
2. Affective Component: The Affective component consists of the feelings which the object, person, issue
or event evoke. This is also known as emotional component. For example, if owning a Honda car gives
you pleasure and prestige that will create a positive attitude about the brand.

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3. Behavioural Component: The behavioural component consists of the manner in which the attitude
influences a person’s behaviour. This involves the past behaviours or experiences regarding the attitude
object. For example, if you have previously owned or driven Honda cars and felt comfortable driving
the same, that will create a positive attitude towards the brand. People hate cognitive dissonance, and
hence try to align the present behaviour with past behaviour as well.
DIMENSIONS OF ATTITUDE
Attitude is a dynamic concept and it has its own dynamic properties. The structure of attitudes can be examined
by exploring their Strength, Accessibility and Ambivalence.

1. Attitude Strength: Attitudes differ in strength. Some attitudes are strong while some attitudes are
weak. The strength with which an attitude is held is often a good predictor of behaviour. The stronger
the attitude the more likely it should affect behaviour.
2. Attitude Accessibility: Attitude accessibility refers to the ease with which attitudes can be retrieved
from memory, in other words how readily available is an attitude about an object, issue, or situation.
Attitudes that are more accessible from memory are more predictive of behaviour and are more stable
across time.
3. Attitude Ambivalence: Attitude ambivalence refers to the fact that our evaluations of objects, issues,
events, or people are not always uniformly positive or negative; our evaluations are often mixed,
consisting of both positive and negative reactions. In other words when we simultaneously possess
both positive and negative attitudes toward the object in question we exhibit attitude ambivalence.
FUNCTIONS OF ATTITUDE
According to Daniel Katz, a famous psychologist, attitudes can serve instrumental, adjustive or utilitarian, ego-
defensive, value-expressive, or knowledge functions. These functions are discussed in detail below

1. Knowledge function: Knowing ones or other’s attitude imparts knowledge. We all have a need to
attain some degree of meaningful, stable, clear, and organised view of the world. Attitudes satisfy this
knowledge function by providing a frame of reference for organizing our world so that it makes sense.
2. Ego-defensive function: Attitudes can help people protect their self-esteem and avoid depression.
Some attitudes serve to protect us from acknowledging basic truths about ourselves or the harsh
realities of life. These can help a person cope with emotional conflicts and protect self-esteem.
3. Value expressive or Ego-expressive function: Used to express one’s core values or beliefs. Value
expressive attitudes show who we are, and what we stand for. Hence they serve to demonstrate one’s
self-image to others and to express our basic values.
4. Instrumental/ Utilitarian function: Helps to choose what is rewarding (and also avoid punishment).
This function is very close to the concept of instrumental conditioning. Katz says we develop positive
attitudes towards those objects that are associated with rewards and develop negative attitudes toward
those that are associated with punishment
5. Social Acceptance/ Identity function: It helps to adapt to the socially approved attitudes of a larger
group. Social identity function refers to the informativeness of Attitudes for person impressions, or
how much attitudes appear to convey about the people who hold them. For example, the purchase of an
Indian flag on the Republic Day may be driven primarily by social identity goals
All the three aspects of the attitude (content, structure and functions) are inexorably interlinked with each other
as one aspect cannot be manifested without other and in fact attitude functions will strive to form structure and
content of attitude and vice versa.
ATTITUDE AND FORMATION OF ATTITUDE
An attitude is a relatively enduring organization of beliefs, feelings, and behavioral tendencies towards socially
significant objects, groups, events, or symbols. It is a learned tendency or predisposition to respond in a
consistently favorable or unfavorable manner for a given object.

A range of different beliefs and values form an attitude. Generally attitudes are formed through three methods
namely, Exposure, Experience and Education.

1. Exposure: Exposure means when someone is exposed to new ideas, events, persons then certain
attitudes will form on certain objects, events.
2. Experience: Experience refers to the direct participation of a person or direct association with a
person, event, object will lead to formation of some kinds of attitudes.

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3. Education: Education refers to a process of learning, acquiring knowledge about a particular event,
object, person, place etc. and then understanding its finer details. Education also leads to formation of
certain attitudes.

Among all the three methods, direct exposure creates stronger attitudes while Education and learning creates
more stable attitudes.

CLASSIFICATION OF ATTITUDES
Attitudes can be generally Positive and Negative, Implicit and Explicit, instrumental and Value expressive Attitudes.

Positive and Negative Attitudes:

• The attitudes may be positive or negative. The positive attitudes yield favourable behaviour and the
negative attitudes yield unfavourable behaviour.
• Therefore all variables must be identified and analysed which help in the formation of favourable
attitudes. The persons having positive attitudes towards the job and organisation may contribute their
best to the organization.
Explicit Attitude and Implicit Attitudes
• Explicit Attitude (Conscious Attitude): If a person is aware of his attitudes and how they influence his
behaviour, then those attitudes are explicit. Explicit attitudes are formed consciously.
• Implicit Attitude (Sub-Conscious Attitude): If a person is unaware of his attitudes (beliefs) and
how they influence his behaviour, then those attitudes are implicit. Implicit attitudes are formed
subconsciously.

Differences between Explicit Attitude and Implicit Attitudes

Explicit Attitudes Implicit Attitudes

• These are formed consciously and • They will develop subconsciously
deliber¬ately. • They are the result of old experiences.
• They are generally formed due to recent • Implicit attitudes are mainly driven by
experiences. the Af¬fective component.
• Explicit attitudes have a dominant • These exist mostly at a subconscious
cognitive com¬ponent. level and therefore sharing such
• These can be expressed and shared attitudes is difficult.
easily (selfreported)

Explicit Attitudes are attitudes that are at the conscious level, are deliberately formed and are easy to self-report.
On the other hand, Implicit Attitudes are atti¬tudes that are at the unconscious level, are involuntarily formed
and are typically unknown to us.

Instrumental and value expressive attitudes

Differences between instrumental and value expressive attitudes:
Instrumental attitudes Value expressive attitudes
• Instrumental attitudes can be positive or • Value expressive attitudes are those which
negative. will express one’s basic values.
• People develop positive attitude upon • These are usually based on the attributes,
rewards and negative attitude upon values that a person possesses.
punishments. • This attitude can be determined upon the
• These attitudes are usually based on ego expressive function.
attributes of the attitude object • Examples: Mother Theresa is an epitome of
• Instrumental attitude is determined by the compassion. Mahatma Gandhi is known for
beliefs regarding the results of behavior. the Honesty, modesty and simplicity.
• Examples: Fear towards snakes (Negative
Attitude). Like towards a place(Positive
Attitude)

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As famously said by Zig ziglar “It’s the attitude and not the aptitude that determines one’s altitude” one must
accord highest priority to the attitude as the attitude is everything for a person.
TYPES OF ATTITUDE
Attitudes can be of various types like explicit and implicit attitudes, positive and negative attitudes. Though we
are having many types of attitudes but mainly we deal with four types of attitudes. They are:

1. Moral Attitudes
2. Political Attitudes
3. Bureaucratic Attitudes
4. Democratic Attitudes
MORAL ATTITUDES
Morality refers to righteousness. An action is regarded as right by the society is a moral action. Thus moral
attitudes are the attitudes concerned with righteous manners. Therefore Moral Attitudes are attitudes of
individuals towards moral issues. Moral attitudes are often shaped by the moral values an individual possesses.

There are a lot of moral issues currently – Reproductive cloning, surrogate motherhood, abortion, sex selection,
euthanasia, cap¬ital punishment, homosexuality, porn, sexual orientation, abortion, honour killing, consumerism,
owning per¬sonal weapons, gambling, prohibition etc being some of them. Your attitude towards these issues
comes under the broad category of moral attitude.

Moral attitudes are stronger than moral beliefs. Moral attitudes give a basis to the whole of moral life. Human
values such as truthfulness, sincerity, forgiveness and compassion, along with the natural predispositions of a
human being, should be cultivated for leading a moral life.

• Moral Attitudes: Moral Attitudes are attitudes of individuals towards moral issues. ones attitudes
towards the moral issues like Euthanasia, Right to Abortion, surrogacy, eating habits, capital punishment
etc comes under the ambit of Moral attitudes.
• Moral attitudes are grounded in moral beliefs of “Right” and “wrong” action. Moral attitudes are stronger
than moral principles.
• Role of family and society in formation of Moral attitudes: Family, society, religion and education
contribute a lot in shaping those moral convictions.
• Moral Attitude & Emotions: Moral attitudes are tied up with strong emotions. Hence prevents deviant
behaviors among normal folks due to fear of social Ostracisation. For Instance: child molestation,
incest etc. Apart from these, People with good moral attitudes will possess the qualities like goodness,
reverence, faithfulness, tolerance etc.
• The positive impact of Moral attitude is that it will encourage a person towards Altruism, volunteerism,
social service.
• The Negative impact of moral attitude is that person can use such attitude to defend violence
behaviour and insanity and still society will accept it because moral attitude is a strong emotion. It
motivates a person towards riots, massacre and terrorism. Since moral attitude is tied with strong
sentiments, people do not get along with those who do not share their moral attitude.
Moral attitudes are traits that eventually lead to a peaceful world. These are behavioral patterns that strive for a
better society, welfare of every individual and peaceful co-existence. They shape the world which we live in. These
help in sustaining families. These help in building a nation. These are shaped by conviction and one’s religious
beliefs. Therefore moral attitudes encourage a person towards Altruism, volunteerism, social service
POLITICAL ATTITUDES
Political attitude means qualitative evaluation of a political ideology and the ways of implementation of the
same. The process of politics is guided by various political ideologies. These ideologies can be broadly catego-
rised as Leftist ideology, Centrist ideology and Rightist ideology.

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• Political Attitudes: The political attitudes are attitudes of individuals towards the political issues.
Political attitudes fall on a range between extremely liberal and extremely conservative.
• Political attitude tells us which party someone vote for, what kind of political ideology someone prefer
most, which social, economic, cultural, international policy someone prefer etc.
• Manifestations of Political attitudes: some of the manifestations of Political attitudes are as mentioned
below:
1. Voting and Participation in elections from particular party
2. Articles and News published in News papers/ media channels.
3. Expressions on social media.
4. Sloganeering in public in support or against some issues.
• Attitude towards the political issues like Reservations in India, Opinion towards voting and reluctance
to vote in elections, secularism, patriotism, corruption in governance etc. comes under the broad ambit
of Political attitude.
Functions of Political attitude:
• Maintaining Political Culture: Maintaining of political culture is vital function of political attitude.
This function is performed by having communication between political cultures from a generation
to another generation. But in present situation, the political socialization does not always act for
maintaining political culture.
• Alteration of Political Culture: Modification of political culture is an important function of political
attitude formulation.
• Building Political Culture: Creating political culture is performed by means of process of political
attitude formulation. Every society needs to create new political culture with the establishment of new
political system.
• Foundation of Present Pattern of Political System: There is no scope for difference of opinions of
opposition into totalitarian state whereas if we see there are in number of opportunities for difference
of opinions and opposition in open societies
• Continuity and Change: There is continuity and change in attitude formulation and this is an important
factor of the process of attitude formulation
ATTITUDE AND APTITUDE – RELATION
Aptitude refers to the inherent ability to learn and grasp, whereas attitude refers to one’s learned tendency or
predisposition towards an object, person or action. Aptitude is a natural ability or innate potential to learn or
acquire a skill where as attitude tells about a person’s desire to perform or learn. Both the attributes are very
much essential for enhancing the efficiency of bureaucracy in many folds.

Significance of Aptitude and Attitude in Public Administration

• For a civil servant both these qualities, i.e., aptitude and attitude are of equal importance as they go
hand in hand in developing a personality which inculcates a sense of service.
• A civil servant must have an aptitude/ability to do his job as well as an attitude to do his duty, i.e., to
serve the people.
For instance, in a feudal and patriarchal society, in order to promote female literacy, an officer must himself have
a favorable attitude towards women empowerment along with the effective persuasive skills to change people’s
attitude.

• The dynamic field of new public administration with increasing use of technology for efficient delivery
of services requires not only an attitude to adapt oneself to the changing environment and demands of
the job, but also an aptitude to learn quickly to perform one’s job in the most efficient way.
• In the field of public service, a civil servant needs to deal with a variety of stakeholders with different
temperaments like seniors, subordinates, politicians, community leaders as well as common people.
• Here, attitudinal attributes like flexibility, patience, and perseverance are as much important as aptitude
related qualities like focus, team building, and prudence and negotiation ability for efficient discharge
of one’s duty.
• In a diverse country like India, where social and religious tensions and conflicts can be of frequent
occurrence, a civil servant would require not only an attitude of tolerance, but also skills of leadership
and persuasion to establish peace and order.
Thus good attitude and aptitude will foster the efficiency and effective functioning of bureaucrats, apart from this,
the twin attributes will also makes the process of administration more responsive and people centric.

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NATURE OF ATTITUDE AND THEORIES OF ATTITUDE CHANGE

Although it seems to be a predisposition to maintain the attitude but it depends on so many factors and therefore
attitudes are not stagnant but varies and changes from time to time based on the circumstances.
Attitude change occurs anytime an attitude is modified. Thus, change occurs when a person goes from being
positive to negative, from slightly positive to very positive, or from having no attitude to having one.

The Various Theories Of Attitude Change Are:

Learning Theory of Attitude Change: Classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning can
be used to bring about attitude change.

1. Classical conditioning theory: Classical conditioning can be used to create positive emotional
reactions to an object, person, or event by associating positive feelings with the target object. In classical
conditioning, the behaviour is involuntary.
2. Operant conditioning theory: Operant conditioning means changing of behaviour by the use of
reinforcement which is given after the desired response. In this method, learning occurs through
rewards and punishments. In operant conditioning, the learner is active and is rewarded or punished.
3. Observational learning theory: let people observe the behavior of others so that they change their
attitude.
Elaboration Likelihood Theory (The Theory of Persuasion):
This theory of persuasion suggests that people can alter their attitudes in two ways. First, they can be motivated
to listen and think about the message, thus leading to an attitude shift. Or, they might be influenced by the
characteristics of the speaker, leading to a temporary or surface shift in attitude. Messages that are thought-
provoking and that appeal to logic are more likely to lead to permanent changes in attitudes.
Theory of persuasion posits that attitudes of people on any subject can be changed by suitably communicating
appropriate information to them. Many aspects are relevant in trying to persuade people to change their attitude
on any subject. These are:

1. The object of the attitude i.e. thing, person, group or idea towards which an attitude is directed;
2. the message or information;
3. the manner in which it is delivered;
4. the messenger; and
5. the target audience i.e. individuals whose attitudes need change
Cognitive Dissonance Theory of Attitude Change:
As mentioned earlier, people can also change their attitudes when they have conflicting beliefs about a topic
(cognitive dissonance). In order to reduce the tension created by these incompatible beliefs, people often shift
their attitudes. In the earlier example, the dissonance was created by giving an incentive to change the behavior,
and thus attitude was also changed accordingly.
Attitudes are important because they can guide thought, behaviour, and feelings. Attitudes help to mediate
between a person’s internal needs (E.g. self-expression) and the external environment. Thus, Attitude helps
people to achieve their basic goals.
As said by Zig Ziglar “It is your attitude, not your aptitude that determines your altitude”. Therefore one should
always possess an elite attitude.

SOCIAL INFLUENCE
Social influence is described as an attribute that can bring change in person’s behaviour, thoughts, feelings and
attitudes that result from interaction with another individual in society. It can be intentionally or unintentionally,
as a result of the way the changed person perceives themselves in relationship to the influencer.

Types of social influence:

Harvard psychologist Herbert Kelman identified three broad varieties of social influence:
1. Compliance: Compliance is when people appear to agree with others, but actually keep their dissenting
opinion private. In compliance, “The influenced merely agrees to the attitude of the influencer”.
2. Identification: Identification is when people are influenced by someone who is liked and respected,
such as a famous celebrity. In Identification, “The influenced seeks to mimic and replicate the Influencer”.

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3. Internalization: Internalization is when people accept a belief or behaviour and agree both publicly
and privately. In Internalization, “The influenced does not just agree to but also incorporates the attitude
of influencer in his own personality”.
Enablers of Social Influence:
Enablers involve the factors that facilitate the social influence. These enablers are like grease that makes the
wheels of social influence run. Various factors that facilitate the social influence are:

1. Peer Pressure/ Societal Pressure

2. Charisma and Charismatic Individuals
3. Superior – Subordinate Relationship
4. Content of the Influencing Attitude
5. Presentation of the Attitude
Factors Affecting Social Influence
• Peer Pressure/ Societal influence: In this people tend to do things which they might not be personally
interested in, just to maintain positive relationship with other people and even friends.
• Charisma and Charismatic Individuals: Charisma of a person is the ability to influence people as per
one’s own will. People who have beauty, riches, good jobs etc. usually wield greater influence on others
than ordinary people. All these things instill undying confidence in a person which boosts self-esteem.
This is a vital factor in determining the influence one exerts over others.
• Reputation: This involves credibility factor in determining social influence. Credibility comes from
many reasons like experience, attractiveness etc.
• Emotions: Strong emotions have stronger influences over people.
• Social Trends: They are great carriers of social influence especially when they are creative and non-
conforming.

PERSUASION
Persuasion is a form of social influence. It refers to an active attempt to change another person’s attitudes, beliefs,
or feelings, usually via some form of communication. It is more related to conformity and compliance. In simple
words, Persuasion is an attempt to change a person’s attitude. Typically, persuasion is treated as a form distinct
from that of the other three forms of social influence.
CARL HOVLAND et all – CONCEPT OF PERSUASION
The scientific study of persuasion can be traced back to Carl Hovland. He and other co researchers
then studied what can be termed as “who says what to whom” as;

• Who: The source: The “who” component represents the source of the message.
• Says What: The Message: The “says what” is the actual message being conveyed.
• To Whom: The Audience: The “whom” refers to the audience.

Criteria to Determine Effectiveness of Persuasion:

There are two important criteria that can determine the effectiveness of the persuasion. They are source credibility
and source likeability.

• Source Credibility: A source can be viewed as credible if he/she is seen as an expert and can be trusted.
Experts can be influential because people assume they know what they are talking about but at the
same time they also have to be trustworthy.
• Source Likeability: A source is likeable if he/she is seen as similar and attractive. The halo effect refers
to the assumption that because people have desirable traits such as physical attractiveness, they may
also have other desirable effects such as intelligence. This is why a message delivered by an attractive
person is perceived as more powerful than a message delivered by a less attractive person.
Types of Persuasion
• Systematic persuasion is the process through which attitudes or beliefs are leveraged by appeals to
logic and reason.
• Heuristic persuasion, on the other hand, is the process through which attitudes or beliefs are leveraged
by appeals to habit or emotion.

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ETHICS EDEN IAS

The key Elements of persuasion:

Persuasion is symbolic process in which communicators try to convince other people through transmission of a
message to change their attitudes or behaviours. Thus, Persuasion is one form of social influence on attitude; in
fact it represents the intersection of social thinking and social influence of everyday life. The key elements of
persuasion are:

• Persuasion is symbolic, utilizing words, images, sounds, etc

• It involves a deliberate attempt to influence others.
• Words, images, sound, etc. acts as tools of persuasion.
• Methods of transmission like television, Internet, face-to-face communication etc.
• Self-persuasion, i.e. people are not coerced, they are instead free to choose.
Techniques of Persuasion:
Persuasive techniques are the methods or persuasive strategies used by writers to persuade the audience to
agree with certain ideas or thoughts. Writers use logic and emotions to make them more compelling.

Principles of Persuasion
Dr. Robert Cialdini put forwarded six principles of persuasion which act as universal guide to human behaviour.
They are:

1. Reciprocity
2. Scarcity
3. Authority
4. Commitment and Consistency
5. Liking
6. Consensus/ Social Proof
They are discussed in detail below
1. Reciprocity: Reciprocation is considered as a strong tool of persuasion which leads to a sense of
obligation. The rule of reciprocity is highly effective and overpowering.
2. Scarcity: Scarcity is often underestimated by people as a method of persuasion. Anything which is of
limited availability is given more importance by people. People want more of you when they cannot
have.
3. Authority: People always listen to those who are either knowledge or trustworthy. The words of an
expert are always taken seriously by everyone concerned as compared to a beginner.
4. Commitment and Consistency: Both the values are considered highly important as they are a valuable
short-cut through the complicated nature of modern existence. If a person makes any commitment, he
or she will likely take up all steps to honour that. Likewise, consistency is highly valued in society as it
allows a person to make effective decisions and process information accordingly.
5. Liking: This is simple as people usually agree to people whom they like. There are two primary factors
which contribute to overall liking. They are: physical attractiveness and similarity of attitudes.
6. Consensus/Social proof: The behaviour of people surrounding us has a great effect on our thoughts
and actions. The ‘power of crowd’ is considered very important. This becomes utmost effective when
there are uncertainties or similarities in a situation.

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Utility of Persuasion in Attitudinal change:

Attitudes can be changed in many ways among which the method of persuasion plays a crucial role. Persuasion
is an active form of influence and is internal in its focus. Change in people’s beliefs or a feeling is the goal of such
influence.

• There are two primary routes to persuasion. The central route to persuasion uses facts and information
to persuade potential consumers. The peripheral route uses positive association with cues such as
beauty, fame, and positive emotions.
• External forces of persuasion include advertising; the features of advertising that influence our
behaviors include the source, message, and audience.
• Recent Campaigns like Darwaza Bundh karo, Swatch Bharath campaign, Beti Bachao Beti padao etc are
some of the peculiar example for social Persuading methods.
• Persuasion can bring a lasting change in people’s behaviour and is highly effective in implementation of
public policies provided the tools are used in a right way.
Thus, Attitudes are our evaluations or feelings toward a person, idea, or object and typically are positive or
negative. Our attitudes and beliefs are influenced not only by external forces, but also by internal influences that
we control. An internal form of attitude change is cognitive dissonance or the tension we experience when our
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are in conflict. An External method of attitudinal change is Persuasion.

Role of Persuasion and Social Influence in Bringing Behavioral Change

Persuasion is defined as communicative activities that are mediated. It is the process of changing or reinforcing
attitudes, beliefs or behaviour of a person. It is more related to conformity and compliance. Typically, persuasion
is treated as a form distinct from that of the other three forms of social influence.
Behaviour of a person can be changed in many ways among which the method of persuasion plays a crucial role.
Persuasion is an active form of influence and is internal in its focus. Change in people’s beliefs or a feeling is the
goal of such influence.

Role of persuasion and social influence in bringing behavioral change:

• Helps in Effective Execution Government schemes: Sometimes persuasion and social influence
works better than coercion. Making celebrities ambassadors for various social schemes like Beti Padhao
Beti Bachao is a manifestation of the same. Success of the initiatives like Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan-
cleanliness drives and Ujjwala Yojana’s give it up campaign can be attributed to persuasion.
• Develops a Sense of Moral conditioning: Persuasion can bring change in the social attitude of
people. For example, regular announcements to keep the station clean persuade people to change their
behaviour. The Selfie campaign was a major success in promoting the Beti Padhao Beti Bachao scheme.
• Incentivizing good behaviour: For instance in income declaration schemes a window was open to
declare black money with some fine and no legal action that incentivized people instead of penalizing
them.
• Following rules: It helps in making people follow rules which bring inconvenience to them, like District
collectors visiting houses in the morning to persuade people for waste segregation before disposal
• External forces of persuasion include advertising; the features of advertising that influence our
behaviors include the source, message, and audience.
• Recent Campaigns like Darwaza Bundh karo, Swatch Bharath campaign, Beti Bachao Beti padao etc
are some of the peculiar example for social influence and Persuading methods.
Thus social behaviour and persuasion are effective attributes to deal with issues like girl child education, inter-
caste marriage, temple entry for women. These methods are democratic and in sync with the Gandhian ideals
of preferring insistence over coercion. In civil services, they can be viable in bringing about behavioural change
keeping intact the dignity and respect of all stakeholders.

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ETHICS EDEN IAS

APTITUDE AND FOUNDATIONAL VALUES FOR CIVIL SERVICES

CHAPTER - 3

APTITUDE
Aptitude is an innate, inherent capacity to perform a task or learn a skill. An aptitude is a component of a
competence to do a certain kind of work at a certain level. Outstanding aptitude can be considered as “talent.”
Aptitude is inborn potential to do certain kinds of work whether developed or undeveloped. Aptitude is an innate
potential that helps in creating and developing following qualities:

• Conceptualization and Creativity

• Leadership and Adaptability
• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
• Technical and Inter-Personal Skills
• Coordination and Collaboration
• Brainstorming and Trouble Shooting
MAJOR MANIFESTATIONS OF APTITUDE
Aptitude generally has three manifestations viz. intellectual aptitude, moral aptitude and emotional aptitude.

• Intellectual Aptitude would ensure that respective civil servant would think rationally, act purposely
and deal effectively with his environment. Thus, it can be regarded as means oriented aptitude.
• Emotional Aptitude would ensure his eff ective conduct with colleagues, subordinate and public at
large. Thus, it may be regarded as the behavior oriented aptitude.
• Moral Aptitude includes the desirable values, like justice, empathy, compassion etc. This is also called
as Foundational Values for Civil Services and would ensure that civil servants perform their duties not
only efficiently but also effectively, upholding public interest. Thus, it may be regarded as end-oriented
aptitude
APTITUDE Vs ATTITUDE
Both attitude and aptitude are essential traits to succeed in any walk of life. However, they become more important
in civil services for its impact on society. Having said this, there are few vital differences between aptitude and
attitude.

The basic difference between aptitude and attitude is that Aptitude is a measure of ability and is loosely associated
with intelligence, whereas attitude is a characteristic associated with one’s personality. Aptitude is a relatively
consistent trait, while attitude is more fluid and is likely to change.

Key Differences between Aptitude and Attitude

Parameter Aptitude Attitude

Aptitude is the ability of a person Attitude is the set of beliefs, emo-
Definition
to acquire a specific skill. tions and ideas.
Aptitude is closely associated with Attitude affects behaviour and per-
Impact Centre
intelligence and talent. sonality, character and virtues.
Aptitude can be manifested in both Attitude is more of a psychological/
Manifestation
physical as well as mental forms. mental Aspect.
Aptitude is an innate characteristic Attitude is a result of experiences,
Origin
exposure and education.
Aptitude is relatively rigid and does Attitude is dynamic, it consistently
Nature
not change drastically. changes.
It is a measure of competency, It is usually good or bad, positive or
Scale
hence it is not relative. negative.

The main difference between aptitude and attitude is that aptitude is a measure of competency, while attitude is
a set of beliefs and emotions. The former is relatively permanent, while the latter is likely to change frequently.

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Some of the Desired Aptitudes in Public Services Include

• Excellent organisation and negotiating skills
• Creativity and flexible thinking
• Leadership skills
• Decision-making ability
• Ability to lead a team or work in a team
• The ability to breakdown a complex problem at hand
• Good communication skills to bridge communication gaps
• Time-management skills and ability to meet deadlines
• The ability to organise and prioritize workload
• Logical and rational approach towards administrative problems
• Scientific temperament
• Basic awareness about technology, economy and geography
• High level of professionalism
• Art of persuasion and ability to negotiate under tough circumstances without sacrificing public interest
For a civil servant both these qualities, i.e., aptitude and attitude are of equal importance as they go hand in hand
in developing a personality which inculcates a sense of service. A civil servant must have an aptitude/ability to
do his job as well as an attitude to do his duty, i.e., to serve the people. In fact, Good aptitude and positive attitude
makes the bureaucracy efficient, effective and responsive to the needs of the people.

FOUNDATIONAL VALUES AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FOUNDATIONAL VALUES FOR CIVIL SERVANT

Public Service refers to the broad framework under which government employees extend services with the aim
of advancing greater public good. The term is linked with a social agreement.
It includes the services provided, the contiguous interactions and the grievance redressal linked with those
services. All the aspects of day to day life ranging from health, education, infrastructure and law and order among
others that the government provides are under the purview of public service.
Public Service Values are those values which are created and sustained by the government on behalf of the public.
These are the principles on which government and policies should be based on. Various foundational values that
are required to be essentially present in a civil servant are Integrity, Impartiality and Non-Partisanship, Neutrality,
Objectivity, Dedication and Commitment, Tolerance, Sympathy, Empathy and Compassion, Trustworthiness,
Perseverance, Honesty etc.

Types of Foundational Values

Foundational values for civil services may be categorized into two main groups. They are Goal oriented (i.e.
social, political, economic justice) and Means oriented (i.e. empathy, Integrity, discipline, impartiality)

1. Goal oriented/ End-oriented values: These are concerned with the goals which civil servants should
aim to achieve while performing their duties. They relate to the end product, and may best be visualized
as those covered by Directive Principles of State Policy, Fundamental Rights etc.
2. Means-oriented values: They are concerned with the ways in which civil servants behave or act while
performing their duty. They relate to the means and include such values as transparency, responsiveness,
efficiency etc.
Second Administrative Reform Commission Suggestions
Civil servants should have a certain minimum set of standards on which they evaluate things. According to Second
Administrative Reform Commission (2nd ARC), integrity, dedication to public service, impartiality, political
neutrality, anonymity, etc. are said to be the hallmarks of an efficient civil service.
The 2nd ARC in its report ‘Ethics in Governance’ has elaborated on values expected in Civil Servants. It also
makes references to Civil Services in other countries like the U.K. and Australia. The Commission is also of the
opinion that in addition to commitment to the Constitution the following values should be included:

• Adherence to the highest standards of probity, integrity and conduct

• Impartiality and non-partisanship
• Objectivity and Openness
• Commitment to the citizens’ concerns and public good

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• Empathy for the vulnerable and weaker sections of society

FOUNDATIONAL VALUES AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE
INTEGRITY
The word integrity is derived from the Latin word “integritas” meaning “wholeness” or “completeness”.
Integrity refers to the inner sense of “wholeness of character” that occurs due to the continued adherence to
values and moral principles. Integrity is a foundational moral virtue and bedrock upon which a good character is
built. For example if a person is honest at all times and under all circumstances, that person is a ‘man of integrity’.
Integrity means the ability of an individual to remain consistent and committed to his/her personal and
professional values. It means that one adheres to ethical and moral values, code of conduct and code of ethics. It
is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles..
Significance of Integrity
Adherence to integrity as a trait can be seen consistently in lives of great leaders. This is intern very much
important for public servants also.
• To deal with public and their affairs fairly, efficiently and sensitively to the best of his abilities integrity
in nature is important.
• It ensure that civil servant do not misuse his/her official position to further his private interest for
instance taking bribe by police to file an FIR.
• It is important for good governance and to prevent failures which may occur due to resistance to
accountability and transparency.
• A person of integrity does his/her duties with conscience. E.g. Policeman ordered to fire on unarmed
peaceful protestors. Honest policeman will obey the order. Policeman of integrity will refuse to fire.
• Integrity helps a person to be loyal with his/her organisation, to have love, empathy, compassion for the
vulnerable, not to abide to any illegal offer etc.
• One of the best real life examples for an administrator with integrity is Mr. Ashok Khemka (a 1991 batch
IAS officer of the Haryana Cadre) who has been transferred 51st times in his 24 years of Civil Service
career, who conducted crusade against the corruption.
According to second Administrative Commission report integrity and compassion towards weaker sections are
two essential values that a public servant must possess.
IMPARTIALITY AND NON-PARTISANSHIP
Impartiality and Non-partisanship both form essential foundational values in the process of governance. While
impartiality ensures equality without any bias and prejudices in the general, non-partisanship ensures a neutral
approach in politics and a solid commitment to core values of Institutions.
Impartiality is a principle of justice holding that decisions should be based on objective criteria, rather than on
the basis of bias, prejudice, or preferring the benefit to one person over another for improper reasons. Hence it is
also called as evenhandedness or fair-mindedness.
Non-partisanship refers to lack of affiliation towards any political group, organisation or party. Non-partisanship
can be understood as political neutrality. In other words non-partisanship is the practice of no involvement with
any political party even if the person has strong belief in any political ideology.
Role of Impartiality and Nonpartisanship in engendering the faith and confidence:
• Impartiality enables the administrator to bridge the gaps of trust deficit between the people and the
Government. So impartiality increases the faith of the people in the system.
• Impartiality lies at the heart of public service and is the core of the commitments of a public servant.
• A public servant must be impartial and must not act on the basis of nationality, race, religion, or political
point of view.
• His / her service must be based on the principle of non-partisanship. Non-partisanship is an essential
value of the public service and is foundation for the roles and responsibilities of public servants.
• A non-partisan public service is one where appointments are based on merit and free of political
influence and where public servants perform their duties, and are seen to perform their duties, in a
politically impartial manner.
• For Example: Allocating a government contract impartially and transparently through an open auction
without showing any partisanship, nepotism, favoritism undoubtedly fosters faith on the system of
governance.
• Impartiality and non partisanship erodes the nepotism, favoritism, biasedness etc thus people feel
develops more faith and confidence on the system and institutions.

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Significance of Non-partisanship in Bureaucracy

• Non-partisanship strengthens the democratic procedure by facilitating a smooth transition between
governments, and thereby helps in the continuation of good-governance.
• Non-partisanship ensures that objective and evidence-based advice is provided at all times to the
ministers and thus ensuring that the efficacy of the administration is always maintained.
• Non-partition ship helps to maintain trust of people in Administration. It helps to maintain a healthy
relationship between political executives and civil servants.
• It motivates civil servants to provide recommendations/suggestions to policy makers without ill-will
or favor.
• Non-partisanship strongly attracts other pre-requisites of noble administration like transparency,
honesty etc. Thus it helps in effective policy formulation and its implementation.
• It also helps in mending self-interest based political ideology towards holistic development.
• It keeps the ideology of the constitution above any other political, religious or economic ideology.
• Above all non-partisanship helps in the development of a professional bureaucracy and maintains the
prestige of the civil services in the eyes of the people.

Thus both impartiality and non-partisanship are the foundational values in civil services and together they both
will enhance the faith of the people on administrative system as well as governance.

COMPASSION
Compassion is a feeling of empathy towards another person. It is the emotion that people feel in response to the
suffering of others which in turn motivates a desire to help. Compassion is a sense of concern that arises when we
are confronted with another’s suffering and feel motivated to see that suffering relieved.

Significance of Compassion
• Compassion offers the possibility of responding to suffering with understanding, patience, and kindness
rather than, say, fear and repulsion.
• It is a readiness to help or to want to do something ourselves about another person’s situation.
• Mother Theresa has often been referred to as an embodiment of compassion. Her selfless work for the
poor and destitute till date is inspiring and spoken of.
• Instance of ‘Compassionate Kozhikode’: Popularly known as ‘Collector Bro’, a civil servant from
Kozhikode started the ‘Compassionate Kozhikode’ and ‘Compassionate Keralam’, winning the trust and
volunteer help from the locals to successfully clean ponds, feed the hungry, help and improving lives
after the recent floods and involving youth in the betterment of the society.
• A compassionate public servant towards weaker sections can deliver the services with greater
dedication.

According to second Administrative Commission report integrity and compassion towards weaker sections are
two essential values that a public servant must possess.

EMPATHY, SYMPATHY AND TOLERANCE

For a public servant the attributes like empathy, compassion, and tolerance are important prerequisites to serve
the poor, needy and vulnerable sections and also to establish the welfare state.

Empathy
• Empathy refers to the ability of a person to understand the feeling of others and the capacity to place
oneself in another’s shoes.
• Empathy is the experience of understanding another person’s condition from their perspective by
placing oneself in their shoes and feel what they are feeling. Empathy is known to increase prosocial
(helping) behaviors. Therefore it is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
• Example: In the remote areas of Manipur, with no road, connectivity to the two villages of Tusem and
Tamenglong was a huge problem and the locals had to either walk for hours, or swim across the river.
Armstrong Pame, an IAS officer collected Rs 40 lakh through social media for the construction of the
road and got a 100 km stretch of road constructed in the state. This reflects the empathetic nature of a
civil servant.

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Sympathy
• Sympathy is feeling that you care about someone and feels sorry about someone’s troubles, grief etc.
• Sympathy refers to acknowledging and recognizing another person’s hardships. Sympathy is the
feeling that you care about and are sorry about someone else’s trouble, grief, misfortune etc. A feeling
of pity and sorrow for someone else’s misfortune.
• For instance consider the issue of child labour; On seeing a child waiter in a restaurant if a person is
just feeling sad and pity towards the boy, then he is said to be sympathetic and expressing the sympathy.
Tolerance
• Tolerance can be defined as having a fair and objective attitude towards those whose lifestyle varies
from one self.
• Tolerance Is an attitude of fairness towards someone who’s viewpoints or opinions, caste, religion, race,
gender etc. Tolerance comprises of allowing people to exercise their rights, religious or constitutional.
• For instance: In Jainism tolerance is captured in the ideal of Syadvada, which means that every view
is correct from its own perspective, but no particular view is absolutely correct.
Significance of Empathy, Compassion, and Tolerance in Administrative System:
• The Empathetic administrative system will formulate the people centric policies and schemes; the
attributes of empathy and sympathy makes the public servants to engage more by heart & soul in the
administrative process.
• The Compassionate administrative system works diligently for the welfare of the poor and
vulnerable sections and it also strives for achieving the goal of socio economic welfare as envisaged by
the constitution of India.
• For Example: Government schemes like UJWALA, PAHAL (LPG Gas subsidy) etc reflects the above
vision.
• A tolerant administrative system will effectively implement the policies and Programmes in a fair,
objective and unbiased manner towards all the sections and thus can foster the faith and trust on the
government.
• All the above said virtues are very much important prerequisites for public servants so as to strive for
establishing the ideal of socio-economic justice.
Hence, in a huge democratic country like India, which is an epitome of unity in diversity and a home for many
poor and vulnerable sections, an effective people centric bureaucratic system with the above said attributes are
inseparable and indispensable.
EMPATHY AND OBJECTIVITY
Empathy is the ability to emotionally understand what other people feel, see things from their point of view, and
imagine yourself in their place. Essentially, it is putting yourself in someone else’s position and feeling what they
must be feeling.

Objectivity in governance means adherence to rationality, legality and to proven standards, procedures and
norms in institutions by the public authorities. It implies that the governance decisions should be taken based on
merit and after rigorous analysis of evidence.

Need for being objective as well as empathetic while executing public service:
• Objectivity and empathy are complementing values as these result in civil servants behaving in a
compassionate manner and patiently listening to citizens while taking a balanced view.
• Also, it ensures that civil servants are passionate about their service and dispassionate about the profile
of the people that they are serving, except in extraordinary situations such as dealing with pregnant
women, widows, Divyangs etc.
• Objectivity without empathy makes a civil servant robotic, whereas, empathy without objectivity leads
to non-conformity to rules, biasness and wastage of public resources.
• For service to the country, civil servants have to imbibe better understanding of whom to serve – their
needs, aspirations and living conditions. While compliance with processes is important to ensure
objectivity and fairness, the processes themselves need to be empathetic, particularly towards the
vulnerable and weaker sections of the society.
• Priority should be given to ensure that intended outcomes benefit the society, while duly protecting the
interest of poor, underprivileged and weaker sections.
• It is therefore imperative to inculcate amongst the civil servants, a strong sense of values like empathy,
tolerance, compassion towards the weaker section.

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Serving all citizens equally without any bias or prejudice with a special focus on those who have been left out of
the developmental process should be the direction, the ‘antyodaya’ approach, leaving no one behind. Therefore,
civil servants must be objective as well as empathetic to achieve the vision of national integration and inclusive
development.

CIVIL SERVICES NEUTRALITY

Civil Service Neutrality refers to political impartiality. Neutrality is not being biased in providing facts, feedback,
opinions, etc. to the political executive or diligently carrying out tasks ordered by the government, irrespective of
which political party’s government is in power.

Need for a Neutral Bureaucracy

• Neutrality depicts that public officials are not slaves to either the politicians or any other
authority other than the moral authority of the Constitution. It shows that the principle of neutrality
implies a measure of independence both from the partisan interests of the government of the day and the
exogenous agenda that prompts certain social groups to cow others down to humiliating vulnerability.
• Bureaucracy should be neutral in terms of ideology and politics. So that there will not be an affinity
to a particular class or ideology. Most importantly, it also suggests that even in the post-retirement
period, public officials could make significant interventions for more noble purposes underlying
the good society even without joining a particular brand of formal politics that has scant regard for
constitutional principles such as freedom from fear and human dignity.
• For a genuine public official, commitment to constitutional principles is not only a lifelong project but,
more importantly, it can be carried out without any political or ideological mediation.
• If bureaucracy won’t be neutral then it cannot lend its whole-hearted support to the existing
political system and to the economic and political system if any radical changes are introduced.
• Without neutrality, there can be a close nexus between bureaucracy and large-scale enterprises which
could further lead to crony capitalism.
• In advanced societies, there is a number of classes and this finally leads to the conflict among classes.
The officials should remain neutral in this conflict. Otherwise, they will be very eager to protect the
interests of the class/classes to which they belong.

Democratically elected leaders legislate and make policy, the permanent executive of civil servants is meant
to advise and execute it, irrespective of their own views. Politicization of Bureaucracy leads to undue political
influence in the governance. Bureaucrats need to maintain political neutrality and impartiality to ensure the
triumph of democracy and smooth functioning of its institutions. Thus, the neutrality principle has a moral
function to prevent public officials from becoming slaves to the government of the day.

NOLAN PRINCIPLES OF PUBLIC LIFE

Public officials are expected to uphold certain highest standards in their actions and an ethical code acts as a
guide to achieve this. In the year 1994, The Committee on Standards in Public Life, famously known as the Nolan
Committee, was set up in the UK to advice on the ethical standards in the public life.

The Nolan Committee Promotes Seven Principles of Public Life that Can Serve as Guide for Civil Servants,
Which are as follows:

1. Selflessness: Holders of public office should act solely in terms of the public
interest. They should not do anything to gain financial or other material
benefits for themselves, their family or their friends.
2. Integrity: Holders of public life should not place themselves under any
financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organizations that might
influence them in the performance of their official duties. They must avoid
placing themselves under any obligation to people or organisations that might
try inappropriately to influence them in their work.
3. Objectivity: Holders of public office must act and take decisions impartially, fairly and on merit, using
the best evidence and without discrimination or bias. In carrying out pubic business, including making
public appointments, awarding contracts, or recommending individuals for rewards and benefits,
holders of public office should make choices only on merit.

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4. Accountability: Holders of public office are accountable to the public for their decisions and actions
and must submit themselves to the scrutiny necessary to ensure this.
5. Openness: Holders of public office should act and take decisions in an open and transparent manner.
Information should not be withheld from the public unless there are clear and lawful reasons for so
doing. They should record reasons for their decisions and restrict information only when the wider
public interests clearly demand.
6. Honesty: Holders of public offices have a duty to declare any private interest relating to their public
duties and to take steps to resolve conflicts arising in a way that protects the public interests.
7. Leadership: Holder of public office must possess leadership qualities to handle the service efficiently.
They should promote and support these principles by way of leadership and examples.

Holders of public office should exhibit these principles in their own behaviour. They should actively promote and
robustly support the principles and be willing to challenge poor behaviour wherever it occurs

INSIGHTS IN TO NOLAN PRINCIPLES OF PUBLIC LIFE

Honesty and Its Significance
• Honesty implies being truthful, non pretentious, and devoid of tendency to fraud/at others. The quality
of being free of deceit; truthful and sincere refers to Honesty.
• Honesty makes a person more loyal truthful and open in the life. For an administrator the values
(anchors) like honesty & integrity are very much essential to withstand the cancerous storms of society
like bribery, corruption etc.
• Example: A person who stops at the traffic signal by watching red signal, when police is watching is a
honest person but a person with integrity will not jump the signal even in midnight, when no one is
watching him.
• Example: Once Lal Bahadur Shastri was imprisoned. He was granted a 15days of parole to visit his
ailing Daughter but she died in 3 days period only. Shastri Ji returned back to jail immediately after
performing her last rites. This instance proves the honesty of Lal Bahadur Shastri.
Integrity and Its Significance
• Integrity means the ability of an individual to remain consistent and committed to his/her personal and
professional values. It means that one adheres to ethical and moral values, code of conduct and code of
ethics.
• It is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. Adherence to integrity as a trait can
be seen consistently in lives of great leaders.
• Integrity in governance point of view refers to “honesty” or “trustworthiness” in the discharge of official
duties, serving as an antithesis to “corruption” or “the abuse of office.
• “Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching” – C. S. Lewis
• Mythological Example:
a) Satya Harishchandra is an epitome of integrity; He adhered to truth even in the face of the most
grueling circumstances and even got ready to behead his wife. He has never jumped the truth for
anything.
• Exemplary Bureaucrat for Integrity:
a) One of the best real life personalities to represent an officer with integrity is Mr. Ashok Khemka
(a 1991 batch IAS officer of the Haryana Cadre) who has been transferred 51 times in his 24
years of Civil Service career. He is being awarded the S R Jindal Prize in 2011 for ‘crusade against
corruption’ for his effort in exposing corruption in high places.
• Exemplary leaders for integrity:
a) Mahatma Gandhi worshipped truth and non-violence throughout his life. To maintain integrity
with his principle he cancelled the Non-Cooperation movement.
b) In 1964, Nelson Mandela was sentenced to 27 years in prison at Robben Island. He accepted it with
dignity. He knew that overthrowing apartheid called for struggle and sacrifice, and was prepared
for the long walk to freedom. Ten thousand days in prison failed to break Mandela and he refused
to compromise on his beliefs or leave the struggle midway. This reflects the utmost integrity of
Nelson Mandela.

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Accountability and Its Significance

• Accountability means making people answerable for their behaviour and making them responsive to
the entity from which they derive their authority. It is the act of making the civil servants answerable
for his acts of omissions/commissions.
• Accountability ensures that officials are answerable to their superiors for proper performance of
assigned duties in line with laws, policies and procedures. It is a pivot of administrative discipline,
responsibility and efficiency.
• The Holders of public office are accountable for their decisions and actions and must submit themselves
to the scrutiny necessary to ensure this.
• For example: The Citizens Charter of the Central Board of Direct Taxes(CBDT) provides for inter-alia
service delivery standards which include the specified timelines for issue of refunds or redressal of
grievances. If the public servant skips the deadline and fails to meet the standards then he/she must
hold accountability for the same.
Leadership Skills and Its Significance
• The holder of the public office should promote and support these principles by their exemplary actions.
• In essence, leadership is an art of inspiring without inspiring. A leader is not someone who urges you
to follow; he is someone who makes it impossible for you not to follow, for he sees a vision far grander
than you.
• For Example: Leaders should take the responsibility for the team’s failure on his/ her shoulders, should
impart the credit of success to his team.
• “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”- John C Maxwell
• Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, Galileo, Hawking and many such great people
were considered great leaders not because of their genetic trait of leadership or because of their unique
ability to lead. They were leaders because they were able to nurture visions of a far greater impact and
purpose than themselves.
• For example: Satish Dhawan is the former chairman of ISRO. DR. Kalam was the project director to
put Rohini satellite into orbit. However, the first project went failure; during these hard times, Satish
Dhawan stepped forward and addressed the press conference stating that the team had worked very
hard but that it needed more technological support. But in 1980, ISRO successfully put Rohini satellite
in to orbit. Now Satish Dhawan asked Dr. Abdul Kalam to address the press conference. This shows the
exemplary leadership skills of Satish Dhawan to lead the team.
Openness and Its Significance
• Openness is an overarching concept or philosophy that is characterized by an emphasis on transparency
and free unrestricted access to knowledge and information as well as collaborative or cooperative
management and decision making rather than a central authority. It is often synonymous with
transparency.
• The Holder of the public office should be as open as possible about his decisions and actions. He should
give reasons for his decisions and restrict only in special cases.
• Openness in governance means all the decisions must be taken in a transparent manner; all the
information should be disclosed to the public unless the law forbids it.
• A transparent and open system of administration encourages public participation in government’s
decision–making processes. It is especially useful in promoting grass root level democracy.
• RTI Act is the foremost measure that government took for promoting transparency in administration.
Objectivity and Its Significance
• Objectivity means evaluating a situation fairly, based on facts, without any subjective bias, personal
beliefs, feelings or external influences.
• Example: 18th century Indian social reformers presented scientific, rational and objective arguments
against the practice of sati in an objective manner without any bias.
• In carrying out public business, including making public appointments, awarding contracts, or
recommending individuals for rewards and benefits, holders of public office should make choices on
merit.

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Selflessness and Its Significance

• Selflessness is a sense of having little or no concern for oneself, especially with regard to fame, position,
money.
• Holder of the public office should act solely in terms of public interest. He should not act in order to gain
financial or other benefits for himself, his family or friends.
• Selflessness is the concern for the welfare of others. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures and a core
aspect of various religious traditions.
Courage of Conviction and Its Significance
• Courage of conviction means willingness to stick to one’s principles even if they are unpopular and face
vehement opposition. Often, we hide our genuine feelings and views for sake of social conformity or for
avoiding unpleasantness. But moral courage demands that we boldly espouse our favorite causes and
express our genuine feelings.
• Steadfast adherence to one’s principles is a great virtue in civil servants. If one lacks courage, then
his good intentions are of no avail. He will be bullied by unscrupulous seniors or politicians to join or
condone their unethical actions.

COMPETENCY OF A CIVIL SERVANT

Competencies are the set of underlying characteristics of an employee such as motive, trait, skill, aspects of one’s
social image, social role or a body of knowledge, which can result in effective and superior performances in a job
or role.

The competency of a civil servant can be analysed based on the following criteria:
Ethos, i.e. the set of moral beliefs, attitudes, habits etc. is the characteristic of a person, group or institutions. It
judges the competency of civil servants in following manner:

• People first: A competent civil servant has the passion for serving people with special care for the
marginalized and disadvantaged sections of the society.
• Strategic thinking: Ability to understand dynamic internal and external environment and respond to
the opportunities and challenges for the betterment of society.
• Organizational awareness: Understanding of the organization’s mandate, structure, policies,
processes, norms and its interface with other organisations.
• Leading Others: Ability to engage, energize and enable the team to excel.

Ethics i.e. deals with moral principles that guide human behaviour by differentiating between good and bad
conduct.

• Integrity: A competent civil servant consistently behaves in an open, fair and transparent manner,
honors one’s commitments and works to uphold the public service values.
• Transparency: Maintains clear communication on the reasons for the decisions taken without
distorting facts.
• Accountability: Takes ownership for outcomes (successes or failures) while addressing performance
issues fairly and promptly.
Equity i.e. the quality of being fair and impartial towards all stakeholders
• Consultation and consensus building: Competent civil servants need to identify the stakeholders
and influencers, seek their views and concerns through formal and informal channels. They should
build consensus through dialogue, persuasion, reconciliation of diverse views/interests and trusting
relationships.
• Decision making: Making timely decisions by taking into account relevant facts, tasks, goals, constraints,
risk and conflicting points of view.
• Empathy: Empathy is about being able to accurately hear out and understand the thoughts, feelings
and concerns of others, even when these are not made explicit.

Efficiency i.e. the comparison of what is actually produced or performed with what can be achieved with the same
consumption of resources.

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• Result orientation: A competent civil servant should have high drive for achieving targets and
competing against a standard of excellence.
• Planning and Coordination: Ability to plan, organise and monitor work with effective utilisation of
resources such as time, money, and people.
• Innovative Thinking: Open to change, approaches issues differently, offers alternate/out of box
solutions and strives for efficiency by working smartly.
• Problem Solving: Understanding a situation by breaking it into small parts, organising information
systematically and setting priorities.
• Communication Skills: Articulates information to others in language that is clear, concise, and easy to
understand.
Hence, a competent civil servant plays a key role in creating an enabling environment for the development and
management of human resources of the Government for efficient, accountable and responsive governance.

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EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
CHAPTER - 4
EMOTION
According to the American Psychological Association (APA), emotion is defined as “a complex reaction pattern,
involving experiential, behavioral and physiological elements.” Usually, emotions are often confused with
feelings and moods, but the three terms are not interchangeable. Emotion is an affective state of consciousness
in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate, or the like, is experienced, as distinguished from cognitive and volitional states of
consciousness. Whereas, the term “Affective” is defined as something pertaining to feeling or emotions, especially
pleasurable or unpleasurable aspects of a mental process.

INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence is a set of cognitive abilities which allow us to acquire knowledge, to learn and to solve problems.
Intelligence is the ability to think, to learn from experience, to solve problems, and to adapt to new situations.
Intelligence is important because it has much impact on human behaviour.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
The term Emotional intelligence was coined by two researchers – Peter Salovey and John Mayer in 1990 but
got popular in 1996 by Daniel Goleman. Emotional intelligence refers to “the ability to identify one’s own
emotions and those of others, harness and apply them to tasks, and to regulate and manage them”.
According to Goleman (1998), “Emotional intelligence’ refers to the capacity for recognizing our own
feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions, well in ourselves and in our
relationships.

EMOTIONAL QUOTIENT (EQ) AND INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENT (IQ)

Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is a measure of a person’s cognitive abilities allowing one to acquire knowledge,
learn and solve problems while Emotional Quotient (EQ) measures one’s ability to monitor emotions, cope with
pressures and demands and control one’s thoughts and actions.

The differences in the concept of intelligence in Emotional Quotient (EQ) and Intelligence Quotient (IQ)-
• IQ measures concepts like logical reasoning, word knowledge and math skills, while EQ measures
creative abilities or emotional abilities.
• It is not necessary that a high IQ person can easily make social bonds or relations but a person with a
high EQ is adept at maintaining relationships or building social bonds.
• Intelligence level or IQ of a person may never change but EQ can be increased through practising self
awareness, self-confidence and self-restraint of emotions.
Thus, Emotional Quotient is broader than just gauging one’s intellect based on knowledge and aptitude in
solving complex problems and includes qualities of being self aware, managing emotions, having self-motivation,
recognizing emotions of others and handling relationships

Skills Required for Being Emotionally Intelligent

• Self-Awareness: Emotionally intelligent people are aware of how they feel, what motivates and
demotivates them, and how they affect others.
• Social Skills: Emotionally intelligent people communicate and relate well with others. They listen
intently and adapt their communications to others’ unique needs, including diverse backgrounds. They
show compassion.
• Optimism: Emotionally intelligent people have a positive and optimistic outlook on life. Their mental
attitude energizes them to work steadily towards goals despite setbacks.
• Emotional Control: Emotionally intelligent people handle stress evenly. They deal calmly with
emotionally stressful situations, such as change and interpersonal conflicts.
• Flexibility: Emotionally intelligent people adapt to changes. They use problem-solving to develop
options

KEY ELEMENTS OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Some of the elements of emotional intelligence According to a research done by Hatch and Gardner, 1993 are:

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• Reorganizing groups: An essential quality for an administrator or leader who initiates and coordinates
the efforts of a network of people for their individual good and that of the team they are part of; -
• Negotiating solutions: It is the talent of the mediator that prevents and manages conflicts, negotiating
solutions to defuse and annihilate them, eliminate tensions and disputes, potential hazards that may
disturb the peace and endanger safety at a given moment; -
• Inter Personal relationships: The ability to build and maintain interpersonal relationships with the
help of empathetic communication;
• Social analysis: The ability to sense or detect the feelings of others, to decode emotions and to
knowingly act to the benefit of certain constructive and efficient relationships.
MAYER AND SALOVEY MODEL OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE (The Four Branch Model)
Mayer and Salovey described EI more specifically in 1997 by outlining the competencies it encompasses. They
organized those competencies along the four branches:

• Perceiving emotions: It refers to the ability to perceive i.e. recognize

emotions and also the ability to specifically categorize the current
emotional state, in oneself and in others. For example, it enables the
person to understand the kind of feeling he/she or other person is going
through.
• Understanding emotions: It is the ability of a person to comprehend the
emotions in the given messages better. It also enables one to understand
the relationship between emotions, thought, and behaviour. For example,
with this ability one can accurately understand as to how a particular
emotion can affect the thinking or action of oneself and that of others.
• Using emotions to facilitate thought: This model is a logical corollary of the aforementioned models,
i.e. from the above two it can be deduced that emotions can act as facilitators of thinking by channelizing
emotions for constructive purpose, like making appropriate decision or solving some problem.
• Managing emotion: It refers to the ability to take responsibility for one’s emotions, and converting
the negative emotions into positive ones. Its utility lies in generating the desirable emotions in oneself
or in others, which are conducive to the task at hand. It is because emotions are energy for motions;
therefore if desired emotions are created then efforts in the direction of task can be made easily. For
example, motivating oneself and others to perform some task, like focusing on studies when otherwise
it is difficult to focus; or managing the stressful situation without losing temper etc
DANIEL GOLEMAN MODEL OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE (The Five Component Model)
Goleman further refined the concept of emotional intelligence in 1999. According to Goleman five main elements
of emotional intelligence are

1. Self-awareness.
2. Self-regulation.
3. Motivation.
4. Empathy.
5. Social skills
• Self-awareness: It is the ability to recognize and understand personal moods and emotions and
drives, as well as their effect on others. Hallmarks of self-awareness include self confidence, realistic
self-assessment, and a self-deprecating sense of humor. Self awareness depends upon one’s ability to
monitor one’s own emotion state and to correctly identify and name one’s emotions.
• Self-regulation: It is the ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses and moods, and the tendency
to suspend judgment and to think before acting. Some of its hallmarks include trustworthiness and
integrity; comfort with ambiguity; and openness to change.
• Internal motivation: This refers to a passion to work for internal reasons that go beyond external
rewards like money and status. This can be driven by an inner vision of what is important in life, a
joy in doing something, curiosity in learning, a flow that comes with being immersed in an activity. Its
hallmarks include a strong drive to achieve, optimism even in the face of failure, and organizational
commitment.

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• Empathy: It is the ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people. It involves imaginatively
stepping in someone’s shoes and emoting as per the context. It is a skill that helps one treat people
according to their emotional reactions. Its hallmarks include expertise in building and retaining talent,
cross-cultural sensitivity. It is important to note that empathy does not necessarily imply compassion.
Empathy can be ‘used’ for compassionate or cruel behavior. Serial killers who marry and kill many
partners in a row tend to have great emphatic skills.
• Social skills: It includes proficiency in managing relationships and building networks, and the ability
to find common ground and to build rapport. Hallmarks of social skills include effectiveness in leading
change, persuasiveness, and expertise building and leading teams.
Thus, Goleman’s model is more comprehensive and is most suited for effective functioning in a social system,
especially in governance and administration.

UTILITY/ ROLE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN PUBLIC SERVICES:

The Quality of emotional intelligence is an essential prerequisite in the field of public services for many reasons.
People who are high in emotional intelligence recognize how to listen to their emotions and control their intensity
so they are not influenced by others. Emotionally intelligent people know how to keep troublesome emotions in
check. Emotionally intelligent people sense the effect their emotions have on others.
Emotionally intelligence people know how to use their strengths and compensate for their weaknesses.
Emotionally intelligence people listen to other people’s emotions and can understand with them. Emotionally
intelligent people act morally and build trust through honesty and consistency.

The Emotional intelligence plays significant role in public services in the following ways:
• For better targeting of Policies and initiatives: Bureaucrats need to know emotions, moods and
drives of persons at whom public policy is targeted for better acquaintance with the nature of problems
in society and their possible solutions.
• To motivate the subordinates towards particular goal: EI helps a person in comprehending emotions
of others, thus an emotionally intelligent civil servant can motivate his/her subordinates towards a
particular goal.
• For effective Stress Management during the exigencies: EI enables one to manage emotions in
anxiety-provoking situations and thus helps one in maintaining one’s physical and mental well being.
• For efficient and effective Decision making: EI helps in recognizing such emotions that are unrelated
to any specific problem and not allowing them to be influential to the final result.
• To maintain balance in the professional and personal life: EI helps a civil servant in managing his/
her personal life as well as professional life.
• On personal front, EI makes one more flexible, empathetic and clear in expression. EI helps in
motivating the sub-ordinates especially under exigent or demanding situations.
• EI helps in appreciating the challenges of public services better and helps in reducing stress.
• EI helps in engendering policies that bring tangible improvements in the lives of the vulnerable sections
of the society. EI act as a viable device to take relevant and sound decisions.
Therefore, emotional intelligence plays a crucial role in the administration and it is very much essential for a civil
servant to posses the attribute for an efficient delivery of public services.

Role of Emotional intelligence in establishing inter personal relationships:

• Emotional intelligence is a constituent of human personality that plays a critical role in establishing
positive inter-personal relationships.
• Interpersonal Relationships involves the verbal and non-verbal communication skills, relating and
collaboration skills, conflict management skills, promoting team spirit, respecting others and being
respected.
• On a complex level, this type of intelligence translates into the individual’s ability to distinguish among
the various interpersonal relationships and the ability to respond efficiently to the respective situations,
as well as to guess and interpret the hidden reactions of others.
• Therefore, Emotional intelligence plays a critical role in establishing positive interpersonal relationships
and apart from this it also forms a constituent part of human personality.
• For instance: A person with sound emotional intelligence will perceive the emotions of others quickly
and will respond accordingly without which the relations cannot be handled efficiently.

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Thus, Emotional intelligence focuses upon basic human skills inside our being, on the ability to control our
feelings and inner potential to create a positive interaction. The ability to communicate efficiently for the benefit
of a positive interaction may constitute an example of emotional intelligence in action.

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PUBLIC SERVICE VALUES AND ETHICS IN

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
CHAPTER - 5

Ethics is a system of accepted beliefs, principles and values that control and govern human behaviour. The study
of ethics includes both the ‘science of the good’ and ‘the nature of the right’.

Public Administration as a discipline is influenced by both political science and the science of management. The
philosophical premises of Public administration were primarily influenced by Political Science its technological
dimension drew inspiration from Management Sciences.

Characteristics of Public Administration

• It is part of executive branch of government.
• It is related with the activities of the state.
• It carries out the public policies.
• Public Administration is politically neutral.
• It realizes the aspirations of the people as formulated and expressed in the laws.
• Scholars insist on the commitment and dedication to the well being of the people. Otherwise Public
Administration behaves in a mechanical, impersonal and inhuman way

ETHICS IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION /ADMINISTRATIVE ETHICS

Administrative ethics/ Ethics in Public Administration are considered as “a set of moral norms and requirements
for those in public administration to aim their professional activity at attainment of common wealth and effective
use of moral values”.

The significance of Ethics in Public Administration can be summed up in the following quote of John F Kennedy -
“No responsibility of government is more fundamental than the responsibility of maintaining the higher standards
of ethical behaviour” - John F Kennedy.

It is a truism that the crux of administrative morality is ethical decision making. The questions of facts and
questions of values cannot be separated from ethical decision making. Thus the science of administration gets
integrated with the ethics of administration.

THE SALIENT ASPECTS OF ETHICS IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

The notion of Ethics has expanded itself to involve all major realms of human existence. The salient aspects of
ethics in public administration could be broadly summarized through the following maxims:

• Maxim of Legality and Rationality: An administrator shall follow the law and rules that are framed to
govern and guide policies and decisions.
• Maxim of Responsibility and Accountability: An administrator would not hesitate to accept
responsibility for his decision and actions. He would hold himself morally responsible for his actions
and for the use of his discretion while making decisions. Moreover, he would be willing to be held
accountable to higher authorities of governance and even to the people who are the ultimate beneficiaries
of his decisions and actions.
• Maxim of Work Commitment: An administrator would be committed to his duties and perform his
work with involvement, intelligence and dexterity. As Swami Vivekananda observed: “Every duty is
holy and devotion to duty is the highest form of worship.”This would also entail a respect for time,
punctuality and fulfillment of promises made. Work is considered not as a burden but as an opportunity
to serve and constructively contribute to society.
• Maxim of Excellence: An administrator would ensure the highest standards of quality in administrative
decisions and action and would not compromise with standards because of convenience or complacency.
In a competitive international environment, an administrative system should faithfully adhere to the
requisites of Total Quality Management.

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• Maxim of Fusion: An administrator would rationally bring about a fusion of individual, organizational
and social goals to help evolve unison of ideals and imbibe in his behaviour a commitment to such a
fusion. In situation of conflicting goals, a concern for ethics should govern the choices made.
• Maxim of Responsiveness and Resilience: An administrator would respond effectively to the demands
and challenges from the external as well as internal environment. He would adapt to environmental
transformation and yet sustain the ethical norms of conduct. In situations of deviation from the
prescribed ethical norms, the administrative system would show resilience and bounce back into the
accepted ethical mould at the earliest opportunity.
• Maxim of Utilitarianism: While making and implementing policies and decisions, an administrator
will ensure that these lead to the greatest good (happiness, benefits) of the greatest number.
• Maxim of Compassion: An administrator, without violating the prescribed laws and rules, would
demonstrate compassion for the poor, the disabled and the weak while using his discretion in making
decisions. At least, he would not grant any benefits to the stronger section of society only because they
are strong and would not deny the due consideration to the weak, despite their weakness.
• Maxim of National Interest: Though universalistic in orientation and liberal in outlook, a civil servant,
while performing his duties, would keep in view the impact of his action on his nation’s strength and
prestige. The Japanese, the Koreans, the Germans and the Chinese citizens (including civil servants)
while performing their official roles, have at the back of their mind a concern and respect for their
nation. This automatically raises the level of service rendered and the products delivered by the civil
servants.
• Maxim of Justice: Those responsible for formulation and execution of policies and decisions of
governance would ensure that respect is shown to the principles of equality, equity, fairness, impartiality
and objectivity and no special favours are doled out on the criteria of status, position, power, gender,
class, caste or wealth.
• Maxim of Transparency: An administrator will make decisions and implement them in a transparent
manner so that those affected by the decisions and those who wish to evaluate their rationale, will be
able to understand the reasons behind such decisions and the sources of information on which these
decisions were made.
• Maxim of Integrity: An administrator would undertake an administrative action on the basis of
honesty and not use his power, position and discretion to serve his personal interest and the illegitimate
interests of other individuals or groups.
CODE OF ETHICS FOR PUBLIC ADMINISTRATORS/ ETHICS IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
The American Society of Public Administration (ASPA) has laid down the code of Ethics for Public Adminis-
trators:
• Public Interest should precede Private Interest: The public servants should put the public interest
above the self interest and subordinate institutional loyalties to the public good. They are committed
to exercise discretionary authority to promote the public interest. Accordingly they should oppose all
forms of discrimination and harassment, and promote affirmative action.
• People Centric and Participatory Administration: The public servants should recognize and support
the public’s right to know the public’s business and involve citizens in policy decision-making. The
public servants should encourage the people to participate actively in the affairs of the government.
• Should be abide by the Rule Of Law: It is the duty of the public servants to respect the Constitution
and the Law that define responsibilities of public agencies, employees, and all citizens and promote
constitutional principles of equality, fairness, representativeness, responsiveness and due process in
protecting citizens’ rights.
• Values Oriented Administration: The public servants are committed to perform their duties honestly
and should not compromise them for advancement, honour, or personal gain. They should conduct
official acts without favoritism and ensure that others receive credit for their work and contributions.
• The public officials should make every effort to strengthen organizational capabilities to apply ethics,
efficiency and effectiveness in serving the public. The public officials should strive for Professional
Excellence. They should work hard to strengthen individual capabilities and encourage the professional
development of others to upgrade competence.

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SOURCES OF ETHICAL GUIDANCE: LAWS, RULES, REGULATIONS AND CONSCIENCE

Ethics examines the criteria for judging human actions as right or wrong. From where do such standards come or
what are their sources? Moral philosophers have identified laws, rules, regulations and conscience as important
sources which guide human ethical conduct. The first three ideas have different meanings in Politics and
jurisprudence on one side and in Ethics on the other.

LAWS – Meaning and Its Definition

The concept of law historically arose from religion, philosophy and social norms. In simple terms, the law may
be understood as the systematic set of universally accepted rules and regulation created by an appropriate
authority such as government, which may be regional, national, international, etc. It is used to govern the action
and behavior of the members and can be enforced, by imposing penalties.

Types of Laws according to Aquinas

In general there are many branches of law –criminal law, civil law and laws covering specific sectors. However,
Aquinas distinguishes four kinds of law: (1) Eternal law; (2) Natural law; (3) Human law; and (4) Divine law.

Eternal Law
Eternal law comprises laws that govern the nature of an eternal universe. Eternal law is derived from the idea of
God as the ruler of the world. It can refer to all laws (including to laws of nature according to some writers) by
which the universe is ordered.

Divine Law
Divine law is concerned with those standards that must be satisfied by a human being to achieve eternal salvation.
One cannot discover divine law by reason; its principles can be known only through divine revelation. Aquinas
cites as examples Old Testament of Bible (which Jews follow) and the New Testament (which Christians follow)
as divine laws.

Natural Law
The natural law consists of those principles of the eternal law that govern the behaviour of beings endowed with
reason and free will. It is the ‘participation of the eternal in the rational creature’. It is ‘an imprint on us of the
divine light”. According to St. Paul, the natural law is written in the hearts of men. We can understand natural law
as divine moral ideas found in human heart.

Human Law
Aquinas says that human law is made by men: it is an ‘ordinance of reason for the common good, promulgated
by him, who has the care of the community’. It is valid only insofar as it matches with the natural law; or in
Augustine’s famous remark, an unjust law is really no law at all. This is the defining characteristic of the natural
law theory. According to Blackstone, in natural law theory: 1) there can be no legally valid standards that conflict
with the natural law; and 2) All valid laws derive whatever force and authority they have from the natural law

RULES AND REGULATIONS

The terms ‘rules’ and ‘regulations’ have the same meaning in Ethics. However, the two terms are sometimes
given different meanings in legal contexts. Every law contains a provision for making rules necessary for its
implementation. The rule–making powers are with government’s executive branch. Rules cannot go beyond the
law and are subject to ratification of legislature. Rules are subordinate legislation. However, Hart and Fuller use
the term ‘rule’ in a sense equivalent to law. Naturally, students have to make out from the context of a question or
discussion as to which meaning is appropriate.

The term ‘regulation’ refers nowadays to regulations which regulatory authorities – like Central Electricity
Regulatory Commission – issue for regulating a particular sector like power, insurance or telecom. However,
this is a current usage connected with regulating certain economic activities. But in Ethics, the terms ‘rule’ and
‘regulation’ have the same meaning.

LAW AND ETHICS

Generally the term law refers to the enactments of legislature made in the general interest of public. Many times
the term law is juxtaposed with the term ethics, but there is a subtle difference, as ethics are the principles that
guide a person or society, created to decide what is good or bad, right or wrong, in a given situation. It regulates
a person’s behavior or conduct and helps an individual in living a good life, by applying the moral rules and
guidelines.

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Key Differences between Law and Ethics

The major differences between law and ethics are mentioned below:
1. The law is defined as the systematic body of rules that governs the whole society and the actions of its
individual members. Ethics means the science of a standard human conduct.
2. The law consists of a set of rules and regulations, whereas Ethics comprises of guidelines and principles
that inform people about how to live or how to behave in a particular situation.
3. The law is created by the Government, which may be local, regional, national or international. On
the other hand, ethics are governed by individual, legal or professional norms, i.e. workplace ethics,
environmental ethics and so on.
4. The law is expressed in the constitution in a written form. As opposed to ethics, it cannot be found in
writing form.
5. The breach of law may result in punishment or penalty, or both which is not in the case of breach of
ethics.
6. The objective of the law is to maintain social order and peace within the nation and protection to all the
citizens. Unlike, ethics that are the code of conduct that helps a person to decide what is right or wrong
and how to act.
7. The law creates a legal binding, but ethics has no such binding on the people.
Key Differences between Laws and Ethics

FEATURE LAW ETHICS

The law refers to a systematic Ethics is a branch of moral
body of rules that governs the philosophy that guides people
Meaning
whole society and the actions of its about the basic human conduct.
individual members.
What is it? Set of rules and regulations Set of guidelines
Government Individual, Legal and Professional
Governed By
norms
Expression Expressed and published in writing. They are abstract.
Violation of law is not permissible There is no punishment for violation
Violation which may result in punishment of ethics.
like imprisonment or fine or both.
Law is created with an intent to Ethics are made to help people to
maintain social order and peace in decide what is right or wrong and
Objective
the society and provide protection how to act.
to all the citizens.
Binding Law has a legal binding. Ethics do not have a binding nature.
Law and ethics are different in a manner that what a person must do and what a person should do. The former is
universally accepted while the latter is ideal human conduct, agreed upon by most of the people. Both the law and
ethics are made in an alignment so that they do not contradict each other. Both go side by side, as they provide
how to act in a particular manner. Every person is equal in the eyes of law and ethics, i.e. nobody is superior or
inferior. Further, these two allow a person to think freely and choose.

CONSCIENCE
• Conscience is a person’s moral sense of right and wrong, viewed as acting as a guide to one’s behaviour.
It also flows from our repository of experiences and knowledge. It is often referred to as the inner voice
of reason.
• Conscience is the part of your mind that tells you whether what you are doing is morally right or wrong.
A person’s moral sense of right and wrong, viewed as acting as a guide to one’s behavior
VOICE OF CONSCIENCE
• Conscience represents our moral being. It consists of the ethical principles which we have learnt and
internalized. We imbibe these principles during our upbringing, study, and exposure to religious ideas.
Conscience stands like a sentinel watching our actions and conduct.

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• Voice of conscience: There are times when our actions, decisions and conduct fail to measure up to
our acquired moral values embedded in our conscience. Conscience makes us conscious of such failures
and causes mental disquiet. This is popularly known as voice of conscience.
• Heeding the voice of conscience is another expression for following the path of morality. To this
end, we should be conscious of moral codes, and follow them when appropriate situations arise. In
ordinary situations of life in family, at office and among friends, moral issues seldom arise. But we
should be on lookout and recognize the moral dimensions of situations. Following conscience, like
forming good character, depends on practice and should be made into a habit.
CRISIS OF CONSCIENCE
• Conscience is a person’s moral sense of right and wrong, viewed as acting as a guide to one’s behaviour.
It also flows from our repository of experiences and knowledge. It is often referred to as the inner voice
of reason.
• Crisis of conscience is a situation in which it is very difficult to decide what’s the right thing to do? The
term is also used when someone is worrying because they think that they have done something unfair
or morally wrong.
• It is a case of ethical dilemma, but often in a more strong sense. When there is a crisis of conscience, the
individual fear that his action may be against the voice of conscience and hence ethically wrong.
• Crisis of conscience refers to a situation that severely tests one’s moral caliber. One may end up violating
moral values in such situations. They are hard to tackle. People are torn apart by conflict between
conscience and self-interest
MAX WEBER’S BUREAUCRATIC THEORY
Max Weber’s Theory of Bureaucracy is one of the pioneer studies in organizational models. Max Weber’s concept
of bureaucracy is closely related to his ideas on “legitimacy of authority”. It is famously referred as Max Weber’s
Legal-Rationality Model of Bureaucracy.

The ideal-type construction of bureaucracy, propounded by Max Weber, highlighted an ethical imperative of
bureaucratic behaviour. And he also tried to emphasize that bureaucratic morality should always prevail over
personal conscience for better discharging of official duties in the country.

Max-Weber’s six characteristics of bureaucracy:

According to Weber, these are the six characteristics of bureaucracy:
1. Task Specialization (Division of Labour)
2. Hierarchical layers of Authority
3. Formal Selection Process
4. Rules and Requirements
5. Impersonality and Personal indifference
6. Achievement based career orientation
1. Task specialization (division of labor). Weber felt that task specialization promotes the timely
completion of work at the highest level of skill. Tasks, therefore, in Weber’s ideal organization are
divided into categories based on team members’ competencies and areas of expertise. Employees and
departments have clearly defined roles and expectations in which they are responsible solely for the
labor they do best. This is designed to maximize efficiency for the organization. Overstepping one’s
responsibilities, such as presenting new ideas outside of your department’s scope, is generally frowned
upon.
2. Hierarchical management structure. Weber advocated that management should be organized into
layers, with each layer being responsible for its team’s performance. Weber believed that each layer of
management should provide supervision to the layers below them while being subject to the control of
those above them. Thus, individuals at the top of the management hierarchy have the most authority,
while those at the bottom have the least power. This hierarchical structure clearly delineates lines of
communication, delegation and the division of responsibilities.
3. Formal selection rules. In the ideal organization, Weber believed that employees should be chosen
based on their technical skills and competencies, which are acquired through education, experience
or training – no other factors should be considered. And since workers are paid for their services,
and services are divided by job position, an employee’s salary is entirely dependent on their position.
Contract terms are also entirely determined by the organization’s rules and regulations, and employees
have no ownership interest in a company.

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4. Efficient and uniform requirements. Employees, argued Weber, should always know exactly what
is expected of them. In the ideal organization, the rules are clearly defined and strictly enforced.
This promotes uniformity within the organization and keeps the company running as smoothly and
efficiently as possible. If new rules and requirements need to be introduced, higher-level management
or directors are responsible for implementing and enforcing them.
5. Impersonal environment. Under Weber’s theory, relationships between employees are to be only
professional only. The impersonal environment characterized by bureaucracies is designed to promote
decision-making that is based solely on facts and rational thinking. It prevents favoritism or nepotism
as well as involvement from outsiders or political influence, anything that could interfere with the
mission of the organization.
6. Achievement-based advancement. Weber felt that promotions within an organization should be
based solely on achievement, experience and technical qualifications. Personal favors, relationships or
personality traits should not factor into personnel decisions.
In an ideal organization, all employees and managers are treated equally and responsibilities are evenly divided
based on each teams’ area of expertise. Weber also believed a work environment should be professional and
impersonal.

Max Weber’s Bureaucratic Morality Vs Personal Conscience

• Weber opined that the state bureaucracy should possess its own independent bureaucratic morality.
He said that it’s not wise to apply the regular norms, ethics and morals which we apply to the matters
of personal conscience to the matters of public administration and bureaucracy. It’s true to some extent
as Bureaucratic values can differ to personal values or morality.
• In administration, one should not exhibit nepotism and favoritism and things should work out as per
merit and objectivity. However, In personal values, subjectivity can have it own place. In personal life,
ones moral values can be to serve his/her parents at the first place and then look after for others. This
should not happen in bureaucracy
• But Personal and administration values and morality can also overlap up to an extent. some of the
most common perceived values in public administration are integrity, fairness, accountability, loyalty,
excellence, respect, honesty, probity etc can easily overlap with individual or personal values. Moreover
there can be an intersection of bureaucratic morality and personal conscience also.
Bureaucratic inertia and Red Tapism
• Bureaucratic inertia is the inevitable tendency of bureaucratic organizations to perpetuate the
established procedures and modes, even if they are counterproductive and/or diametrically opposed
to established organizational goals.
• Red Tapism refers to excessive regulation or rigid conformity to formal rules that is considered redundant
and bureaucratic and hinders action or decision-making. In other words, these are burdensome rules,
providing no added value. It includes unnecessary paperwork, obtaining licenses, having multiple
people or committees approve a decision and various low-level rules that make conducting one’s affairs
slower, more difficult.
• Red tapism is a practice of excessive regulation or rigid conformity to formal rules that is considered
redundant or bureaucratic and hinders or prevents action or decision-making.
• Red tape can also include filing and certification requirements, reporting, investigation, inspection and
enforcement practices, and procedures.
• Red Tapism hinders good governance and the country’s economic progress. It leads to a culture of
corruption and inefficiency. Efforts must be made to make rules and regulations simple with emphasis
on reducing delays in government work culture.
ACCOUNTABILITY AND ETHICAL GOVERNANCE
Accountability and ethics are closely related. Effective accountability helps the achievement of ethical standards
in the governance system. For example, legislative or parliamentary control through questions, debates and
committees provide ample opportunity to the people’s representatives to raise, among other things, issues of
ethics and morality in the governance system.

• Accountability means making people answerable for their behaviour and making them responsive to
the entity from which they derive their authority. It is the act of making the civil servants answerable
for his acts of omissions/commissions.

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• Accountability ensures that officials are answerable to their superiors for proper performance of
assigned duties in line with laws, policies and procedures. It is a pivot of administrative discipline,
responsibility and efficiency.
• In simple words accountability is to take complete responsibility by a person or an organization for
what he/she or the organization did or failed to do (which was their duty) and must be able to give
satisfactory answers or extend proper reasons for it.
If there is no accountability then the civil servants would turn in to despots without checks and balances. Lack of
accountability will engender arbitrariness and corruption in the administration.

TYPES OF ACCOUNTABILITY
The notion of accountability can be classified according to the type of accountability exercised and/ or the person,
group or institution the public official answers to.

Horizontal and Vertical Accountability

• Horizontal accountability is the capacity of state institutions to check abuses by other institutions or
branches of government, or the requirement for agencies to report sideways. The accountability of the
legislature to the judiciary or the executive to the legislature is an example of horizontal responsibility.
The idea is to create checks and balances and eliminate the chances of abuse of power by any equally
placed institution or official.
• Vertical accountability is the means through which citizens seek to enforce standards of good
performance on officials. In other words Vertical forms of accountability are those in which citizens
and their associations play direct roles in holding the powerful to account. Elections are the formal
institutional channel of vertical accountability. But there are also informal processes through which
citizens organize themselves into associations capable of lobbying governments and private service
providers, demanding explanations and imposing or at least threatening to impose less formal sanctions
like negative publicity
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY
• The main difference between responsibility and accountability is that responsibility can be shared
while accountability cannot. Being accountable not only means being responsible for Accountability
something but also ultimately being answerable for your actions.
• Also, accountability is something you hold a person to only after a task is done or not done. Responsibility
can be before and/or after a task.
• In ethics and governance, accountability is answerability, blameworthiness, liability, and the expectation
of account-giving. Responsibility may refer to: being in charge, being the owner of a task or event.
• For Example: Suppose Mr. Gupta is presently serving as the District Magistrate and he is entrusted with
the task of providing benefits under some government scheme dedicated to the people living below
the poverty line. Then it will be his responsibility to ensure that the scheme is properly implemented.
At this point one cannot hold Mr. Gupta accountable for performing this task. Mr. Gupta will be held
accountable i.e. he will owe an explanation for his actions only if the task is not finished within the
stipulated time or the task was not properly implemented.
ETHICAL CONCERNS RELATED TO PUBLIC SERVICES
The seven major concerns regarding public services are
1. Theft & Fraud by Public Officials
2. Improper Use of Government Property
3. Bribery & Influence Peddling
4. Conflict of Interest & Self-dealing
5. Divulging Confidential Information
6. Improper Conduct Post-Employment
7. Immoral Conduct by Public Officials
• Theft & Fraud by Public Officials: One of the more serious ethical issues in government is theft of
public property by public officials.
• Improper Use of Government Property: Another important issue is the use of public property by
public officials for private benefit. This would include, for example, using one’s office telephone for
personal long-distance calls, or using government vehicles for personal transportation. Such abuses of
government property are not exactly theft.

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• Bribery & Influence Peddling: Bribery occurs when a person of authority is offered, and accepts,
some personal benefit in exchange for performing some action. A public official may, for example, be
offered money, property, or free services. In exchange, s/he agrees to take some action that benefits the
giver of the bribe, such as voting a certain way on a piece of legislation, or turning a blind eye to some
illegal activity.
• Conflict of Interest & Self-dealing: Conflict of interest occurs when a public official’s private interests
are such that they may influence the performance of his or her public duties.
• Divulging Confidential Information: Public servants and elected officials are often privy to all sorts
of sensitive information, such as military/security secrets or personal information about citizens
(criminal records, tax information, and medical histories).
Common Ethical Issues Encountered By Public Servants
Some of the most common ethical issues with which public servants are confronted, revolve around the idea of
responsibility. These include aspects such as:

• Administrative discretion
• Corruption
• Nepotism
• Administrative secrecy
• Information leaks
• Public accountability
• Policy dilemmas
ETHICAL DILEMMAS
Ethical dilemmas or moral dilemmas or ethical paradoxes, are situations in which there is a choice to be made
between two options, neither of which resolves the situation in an ethically acceptable fashion. In such cases,
societal and personal ethical guidelines can provide no satisfactory outcome for the chooser. An ethical dilemma
is a complex situation that often involves an apparent mental conflict between moral imperatives, in which to
obey one would result in transgressing another.

Ethical dilemmas can be divided into three broad categories

1. Personal Cost Ethical Dilemmas: It arises from situations in which compliance with ethical conduct
results in a significant personal cost to the decision maker in a difficult situation.
2. Right-versus-Right Ethical Dilemmas: It arises from situations of two or more conflicting sets of
bonafide ethical values.
3. Conjoint Ethical Dilemmas: It arises when a careful decision-maker is exposed to a combination of the
above-indicated ethical dilemmas in searching for the “right-thing-to do.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Conflict of interest situation arises when there is an actual or apparent conflict between public duty and
private interest of a public official. In such a situation, an official’s private interests could improperly influence
the performance of official duties. Conflict of interest reduces public trust and confidence in the integrity and
impartiality of public functionaries.

Example: A public official whose personal interests conflict with his/her professional position. Instances of the
largest shareholder appointing himself as CEO, deciding his salary and then appointing his son to a key post and
higher royalties to the parent company are some of the serious conflict of interest issues in India which don’t
receive the necessary attention.

Public servants experience conflict of interests under following circumstances:

• Personal and professional responsibilities: Public servants may be approached by near and dear
ones to take favourable decisions which may put him in conflict with his line of duty.
For example: public servant in charge of giving out contracts for a certain project will face a conflict of interest if
one of the applicants is a relative or friend.

• Conflict due to moral values: A public servant’s responsibility may demand him to take decisions which
are at conflict with his own values.
For example- in land acquisition cases, a civil servant may prefer not to harm scheduled tribes but due to pressure
from higher authority he will have to evict them from their lands.

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• Conflicting Organizations: A public servant may be associated with other organizations like NGOs/
welfare societies with apparently conflicting objectives and this might put him in certain conflict of
interest.

Civil servants need to properly handle such conflicting interests and situations. This can be done by following
the principles like Enhanced transparency and objectivity in decision making and declaring one’s conflict of
interest to the concerned authorities to recuse one from any conflicting situations. There is a need to reduce
discretion and codify procedures. Ensuring high ethical conduct: As a civil servant, one has to adhere to the
standards of civil service values like impartiality, efficiency, integrity and must show exemplary behavior.
ETHICS IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
International ethics is an area of international relations theory which concerns the extent and scope of ethical
obligations between states in an era of globalization. International ethics may be elaborated as that which enables
one to participate more actively in shaping and building good international community.

Good acquaintance of international ethics provides people with insights to assess the good and harms, the rights
and wrongs, which can occur in the international space. The idea behind developing strong set of ethical principles
that can shape international relations is to build a fair and just international community.

International ethics guides international relations and resolution of international conflicts. International ethics
guides the international environmental efforts to fight against environmental degradation, pandemics, terrorism
etc which are common shared problems and which require actions from many nations who are major contributors
to forces generating such problems.

Ethics in international relations acts as a compass in the conduct of diplomatic international affairs. The difference
in the value systems and the diversity across the world makes ethics as an imperative in today’s world. Ethics in
international relations plays a prominent role in maintaining the world’s peace and stability.

Significance of ethics in international relations:

• Strict adherence to the human rights and value systems will help to solve the international issues like
Rohingya refugee crisis, migrant laborer issues, Human rights violations etc.
• Upholding the principles of mutual respect and territorial sovereignty will
help to mitigate the territorial disputes and border issues like conflicts in the
Middle East, Indo -china, Indo – Pak border disputes etc.
• Following the ethical values like honesty, integrity, accountability in
international relations will help to avoid the issues like US- China Trade wars
etc.
• Adopting the values like compassion, kindness, solidarity and justice will strive
to handle the effective disaster management during the times of crisis.

Occasions where ethics in International relations is compromised:

• In the realm of International affairs, most of the nations claim their commitment
to universal values but on many occasions they find it difficult to conduct their behaviour as per their
values because the subject of international relations is dynamic and evolves from time to time.

For Instance, although China claimed itself as a peaceful nation through its ‘peaceful’ doctrine on many occasions,
china is majorly responsible for the tensions in South China Sea region deviating from the path of peace.

• However, Ethics in international relations is compromised with respect to a states national interest,
territorial sovereignty and makes the nation states derelict from the universal value systems.

A nation can only prosperous and attain greatness if there will be peace and mutual respect for others sovereignty.
Attaining global common good is a quintessential aspect for global peace and harmony and ethics in international
relations is an effective tool to achieve it.

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CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
Corporate Governance is defined as a set of systems, processes and principles which
ensure that a company is governed in the best interest of all stakeholders. It is about
promoting corporate fairness, transparency and accountability.
Four Pillars of Corporate Governance
The value of corporate governance may well lie on its four pillars, on which the OECD
Principles of corporate Governance are based. They are accountability, transparency,
responsibility, fairness.
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a phenomenon wherein organisations serve the interest of society by
taking responsibility for the Impact of their activities on customers, employees, shareholders, communities and
the environment in all aspects of their operations.
In other words, CSR is the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic
development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local
community and society at large
BUSINESS ETHICS
Business ethics refers to the application of moral principles to solve business problems. Here, the word ‘morals’
refers to accepted customs of conduct in a society. The purpose of business ethics is to guide the efforts of
managers in discharging their duties to the satisfaction of various stakeholders e.g., employ¬ees, owners,
customers, suppliers, and the general public.
“Business Ethics is an art and science for maintaining harmonious relationship with society, its various groups
and institutions as well as recognizing the moral responsibility for the Tightness and wrongness of business
conduct”, as said by Wheeler.
Role of Business Ethics in Profitability:
Business ethics refers to implementing appropriate business policies and practices by adhering to various ethical
principles during the conduct of business. A number of factors are responsible for making a business profitable,
among which the business ethics acts as an important catalyst in the success of a company.
The role of ethics in making the business profitable
• The principles of business ethics will subject the economic reality to a normative and prescriptive
examination, adherence to which may lead to yield low profits in short run but in long run definitely
they will procure better profits.
• Ethical accounting practices, treatment of employees, interactions with the public, and information
disseminated to shareholders etc can have a direct impact on the overall profitability of the company.
• When these integral aspects of a business are not performed with a resounding theme of business
ethics from the top-down, each facet of the business has a greater potential to falter in the short or long-
term.
• Poor corporate governance, insider trading, bribery, discrimination, lack of social responsibility are
some of the manifestations of non adherence to business ethics which eventually leads to fall in the
profitability of a business entity.
In general the business ethics are meant to ensure a certain level of trust between consumers and corporations. It
also guarantees the public fair and equal treatment while delivering the services therefore business ethics plays
vital role in measuring the profitability of an organization.

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PROBITY IN GOVERNANCE
CHAPTER - 6

PROBITY
Probity, which descends from Latin probus, meaning “honest,” implies tried and proven honesty or integrity.
Probity is the evidence of ethical behaviour in a particular process. The term probity means integrity, Uprightness
and honesty. Thus the quality of having strong moral principles such as honesty, integrity refers to probity.
Probity in governance is an essential and vital requirement for an efficient and effective system of governance and
for socio- economic development. It is concerned with procedures, processes and systems rather than outcomes.
An important requisite for ensuring probity in governance is absence of corruption. The other requirements are
effective laws, rules and regulations governing every aspect of public life and, more important, an effective and
fair implementation of those laws, etc.
Probity helps in ushering good governance which not only leads to effective use of public resources but will also
lead to higher socio-economic growth and human development. Thus, it is very necessary to take initiatives, enact
strong legislations and ensure their effective implementation to inculcate a culture of probity in governance.

Objectives of Probity in Governance

• Ensuring accountability, transparency and integrity in public service.
• Ensuring compliance in all process.
• Preserve public faith and confidence in the government processes.
• Avoid misconduct, fraud and corruption.

Role of Probity in Fostering Effective and Efficient Governance:

• Helps in tackling corruption: Probity plays a crucial and vital role in tackling the menace of corruption
and to bring socio-economic development to the country.
• Enhances the effectiveness and efficiency in governance: It brings efficient and effective system of
governance through transparency, justice, fairness, responsibility, accountability, responsiveness etc.
• Probity helps in developing trust, credibility and social capital in the governance.
• Strives to fulfill the expectation of society from those elected or appointed to the public office.
An upright and honest officer will never resort to any sort of corrupt practices which will enhance the trust and
confidence on the government thus it will also make the governance effective and efficient.

PROBITY AND GOOD GOVERNANCE

Probity is vital feature of governance which facilitates government to act ethically and perform its duty. It has
been observed that due to different irregularities such as corruption; insensitivity; red tapism, irresponsibility;
disregard to office and law, the governance system losing its credential people. Therefore it is imperative for
government to follow rules and adopt policies of impartiality, transparency to gain confidence of populace. Hence
probity and good governance is intricately linked to each other.

Certain Measures Required for Ensuring Probity in Governance:

• Moral education: Moral education is a must to ensure probity in governance. To make an individual
high on integrity, it is necessary to provide him with ethical training that will inspire him to improve
governance. The moral education will surely ensure that this takes place.
• Accountability: Accountability reduces chances of malpractices in governance. When an individual
is expected to give answers to higher authorities, he/ she avoid performing acts that will reduce
his/her position. This will translate into good governance. For example, regular social audits ensure
accountability and thus lead to probity.
• Information sharing and transparency in Governance: Sharing information and transparency are
indispensable pillars of good governance that compel the state and civil society to focus on results, seek
clear objectives, develop effective strategies, and monitor and report on performance.
• Access to information: Many laws were enumerated to bring probity in governance for sharing
information to the public by putting information in the public domain and which includes the following:
1. Right to information Act

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2. Ombudsman Office in the local/state level

3. Accountability bill for disclosure of Income and Assets
4. Records Management laws
• Grievance redressal: Easy access of government officials to the public is important for grievance
redressal. It can be ensured through:
1. Availability of Contact numbers of senior servants to Public
2. Details in Departmental websites
3. Facilitation counters for citizens
4. Assessment and Monitoring
• Code of conduct: Probity is maintained by formulating and employing model code of conduct for
ministers, bureaucracy, judiciary, and civil society groups.
• Institutional reforms: Introducing public delivery of service agreements by executive agencies for
ensuring accountability, objectivity and transparency. Allowing stakeholders like citizen committees to
participate in various decision-making processes and encouraging and facilitating public participation
through the following:
1. Public Hearings
2. Citizen Advisory Boards
3. Government Contract Committees
4. Public Watchdog Groups
5. Independent Anti-Corruption Agencies
6. Capacity building of citizens and civil society groups
Steps Taken to Ensure Probity in Governance
For ensuring probity in governance in India, several legislative and administrative measures have been undertaken
and rest measures are under process of design/ implementation. A few among these are discussed below:

• Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and the Amendments to the Act in 2018: The Prevention
of Corruption Act, 1988 incorporates the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947, the Criminal Law
Amendment Act, 1952, and sec. 161 to 165-A of the Indian Penal Code with modifications. The law
defines who a public servant is and punishes public servants involved in corruption or bribery. It also
punishes anyone who helps him or her commit the crime corruption or bribery.
• Whistle Blowers Protection Act 2014: One of the measures adopted in several western countries
to fight corruption and protect the informers of unlawful activities is the enactment of Public Interest
Disclosure Acts, which are popularly called Whistle-blower Acts. India enacted its own version in 2014.
The Act provides a mechanism for receiving and inquiring into public interest disclosures against acts
of corruption, willful misuse of power or discretion, or criminal offences by public servants.
• Enactment of Right to Information Act 2005: The right to information (RTI) in India was developed
through judicial pronouncements initially and later given proper shape through Right to Information
Act 2005. The Right to Information Act 2005 is helping the cause of probity in governance via citizen
activism. It is not just about filing RTI applications but also initiates debates, discussion on issues, cases
etc. It is serving as a way to an open society and is ushering in a culture of asking questions.
• Central Vigilance Commission: The CVC was established in 1964 pursuant to the recommendations
of the Santhanam Committee to advise the government in respect of matters pertaining to maintenance
of integrity in administration. The jurisdiction of CVC extended to all public servants and employees of
central public-sector undertakings, nationalized banks and autonomous organizations.
• Institutions of the Lokpal and the Lokayuktas: The basic idea of the institution of Lokpal has been
borrowed from the concept of Ombudsman in countries such as Finland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden,
U.K. and New Zealand. Presently, about 140 countries have the office of the Ombudsman. Indian version
this office is provided under the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act 2013. The Act seeks to provide for the
establishment of the institution of Lokpal to inquire into allegations of corruption against certain public
functionaries and matters connecting them
Probity is a crucial feature of governance which endows government to act ethically and perform its duty as per
the norms only. It is significant for the government to follow the rules and regulations as well as adopt policies of
impartiality, to gain confidence from the public

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PUBLIC SERVICE
• Public service refers to the broad framework under which government employees extend services with
the aim of advancing greater public good. The term is linked with a social agreement.
• It includes the services provided, the contiguous interactions and the grievance redressal linked with
those services. All the aspects of day to day life ranging from health, education, infrastructure and law
and order among others that the government provides are under the purview of public service.
PUBLIC INTEREST
• The term ‘public interest’ means matters concerning welfare of the people. Civil service or public
service is for the welfare of the people. As such policies and their implementation should be guided by
public interest or public welfare. All government works have the overriding motive of public interest.
• Civil servants should be guided solely by public interest in their official decision making.
SPIRIT OF SERVICE
• It us nothing but Serving the people and nation in a selfless manner which will provide an inner
satisfaction of paying back to the society what one owes.
• Example: Gandhiji Serving in Dr. Booth’s hospital which consisted in ascertaining the patient’s
complaints, laying the facts before the doctor and dispensing the prescriptions. It brought him in close
touch with suffering Indians, most of them indentured Tamil, Telugu or North Indian men.
• “The best way to find your self is to lose yourself into the service of others”. This quote of simply signifies
the importance of spirit of service.
COURAGE OF CONVICTION
• Courage of conviction means willingness to stick to one’s principles even if they are unpopular and face
vehement opposition. Often, we hide our genuine feelings and views for sake of social conformity or for
avoiding unpleasantness. But moral courage demands that we boldly espouse our favorite causes and
express our genuine feelings.
• Steadfast adherence to one’s principles is a great virtue in civil servants. If one lacks courage, then
his good intentions are of no avail. He will be bullied by unscrupulous seniors or politicians to join or
condone their unethical actions.

COMMITMENT
• Commitment means that one is intensely and passionately wedded to one’s work. Many people work on
their jobs mechanically, lackadaisically, and as an unavoidable chore. Commitment is the mark of those
like accomplished musicians or scientists or sportsmen for whom work is an end in itself and holds
their interest all the time.
• It also refers to being always responsible and genuine to the words, deeds and promises. It is the most
important ingredient of public servant. There might be a chance to flout promises and rebuild our
relationships in personal life. But in official capacity, breaking a promise or vow can’t be undone or
taken back because it affects public at large.
CODE OF ETHICS
• Code of Ethics (CoE) is a written set of guidelines issued by an organisation to its officials to guide their
conduct in accordance with its primary values and ethical standards.
• It ensures that individuals belonging to an organization have a consistent approach in carrying out
their responsibilities and making decisions.
• Codes of Ethics (CoE) contain the general principles and values (social, moral etc) that the organisation
must strive to achieve. For example in civil services, CoE can prescribe not to take bribe, help needy,
maintain integrity, etc
• Example: Nolan Committee public service values are a set of such famous codification. Ten
Commandments of bible, seven laws of Noah in Judaism, Set of moral stipulations mentioned in Quran,
Bhagavat Gita etc can also be called as code of ethics.
CODES OF CONDUCT
• Code of conduct (CoC) implies a systematic documentation of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.
Conduct refers to behaviour and Codification refers to a systematic documentation.

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• They also ensure that members of an organisation maintain a consistent and appropriate behaviour
towards one another, towards clients and persons outside the organisation.
• Codes of Conduct are specific guidelines that the organisation must follow. CoC explicitly mentions
what actions would be taken in case of their violation.
• For Example, not taking a political stand, not briefing media about internal matters, maintaining
decorum of organization, following dress code, standard protocols while receiving dignitaries etc., can
be some features of code of conduct rules.
• Codes of conduct generally cover an individual’s official or professional conduct. Code of conduct differs
from organisation to organization.
• Examples:
1. In India, the Central Government has issued conduct rules for government employees known as Central
Civil Services [Conduct} Rules 1964. Code of conduct for ministers in India, code of conduct for judiciary
etc.
2. Code of conduct for a Judge: No politics, no favours from political parties, fare judgement etc.
3. Code of conduct for a civil servant: Integrity, not to criticise the government, not to give or take dowry,
maintaining probity etc.
4. Code of conducts for ministers: disclose all its assets and liabilities, not to have interest in office of
profit, integrity, not to misuse public funds for personal interests etc.
Differences between Code of Ethics and Code of Conduct

CODE OF ETHICS CODE OF CONDUCT

It includes core ethical values, principles and ideals of It is a directional document containing specific
the organisation. practices and behaviours that are followed or restricted
under the organisation.
Code of ethics is a set of principles which influence the Code of conduct is a set of guidelines that influence
judgement. employee’s actions.
Codes of ethics are wider in nature as compared to Codes of conduct are narrow.
code of conduct.
Ethical standards generally are non-specific and are Conduct standards generally provides a fairly clear
designed to provide a set of values or decision-making. set of expectations about which actions are required,
acceptable or prohibited.
It enables employees to make independent judgments It enables employees to work in compliance with rules
about the most appropriate course of action. and actions are guided by the codes.
A particular rule in the Code of Ethics might state that A Code of Conduct might list several specific laws
all employees will obey the law. relevant to specific areas of organizational operations
that employees need to obey.
SEVOTTAM SERVICE DELIVERY EXCELLENCE MODEL
Sevottam is an assessment - improvement model that has been developed with the objective of improving the
quality of public service delivery in the country. The model was conceived by the Department of Administrative
Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG), Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions in 2006.
The word “Sevottam” is a combination of two Hindi words: Seva (Service) and Uttam (Excellent). It means
“Service Excellence”, emphasizing the idea of “Service”. It symbolizes the change in mindset within the Government,
from administration and control to service and enablement.
Objectives
The key components of Sevottam are captured with the following objectives:
1. Successful implementation of Citizen’s Charters: It requires opening up a channel for receiving
citizens’ inputs into the way in which organizations determine service delivery requirements. Citizens’
Charter publicly declares the information on citizens’ entitlements; making citizens better informed
and hence empowering them to demand better services.
2. Service Delivery Preparedness and achievement of Results: An organization can have an excellent
performance in service delivery only if it is managing the key inputs for good service delivery well, and
building its own capacity to continuously improve delivery. This shall include identification of services
rendered, the service delivery process, its control and delivery requirements.

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3. Sound Public Grievance Redress Mechanism: This requires a good grievance redress system
operating in a manner that leaves the citizen more satisfied with how the organization responds to
complaints/grievances, irrespective of the final decision.
Benefits of the Sevottam model
The framework enables implementing organizations to undertake a systematic, credible and authenticated self-
assessment (or ‘gap analysis’) for citizen-centric service delivery. Using this analysis, practical solutions are
gradually and systematically incorporated into the organization’s day-to-day routine thereby ensuring sustainable
results. There are four broad ways in which the Sevottam model can be used:

• As a self - assessment tool by organizations already motivated to improve service delivery

• As a requirement standard
• As a benchmark assessment process to be established
• As a rating model to recognize and reward organizations that are doing commendable work in service
delivery
Seven Steps Model for implementation of Sevottam
There are seven basic steps for implementation of Sevottam. These are as under:-
1. Define your services and identify your clients
2. Set standards and norms for each service
3. Develop capability to meet the set standards
4. Perform to achieve the standards
5. Monitor performance against the set standards
6. Evaluate impact through an independent mechanism
7. Continuous improvement based on monitoring and evaluation

CITIZEN’S CHARTER
• A Citizens’ Charter is an instrument which seeks to make an organization transparent, accountable and
citizen friendly. Therefore a citizens’ charter is basically a set of commitments made by an organization
regarding the standards of service which it delivers.
• In other words, the Citizen’s Charter is a written declaration by a Government department that highlights
the standards of service delivery that it subscribes to, availability of choice for consumers, avenues for
grievance redress and other related information.
• The basic objective of the Citizens Charter is to empower the citizen in relation to public service delivery.
Principles of Service Delivery
The six principles of the Citizen’s Charter movement as originally framed were – quality, choice, standards, value,
accountability and transparency.

1. Quality - improving the quality of services

2. Choice - for the users wherever possible
3. Standards - specifying what to expect within a time frame
4. Value - for the taxpayers’ money
5. Accountability - of the service provider (individual as well as Organization)
6. Transparency - in rules, procedures, schemes and grievance redressal
7. Participative- Consult and involve
Components of Citizen’s Charter
A good citizen’s charter should include the following details:
• Organization’s vision and mission statements.
• A business carried out and other such details of the organization.
• Explain who are citizens and clients.
• Statement of services including quality, time-frame, etc. offered to citizens and how to get those services.
• Grievance redressal mechanisms.
• Expectations from citizens/clients.

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• Additional commitments like the amount of compensation in case of service delivery failure.
Objectives of Citizen’s Charters
The basic objective of the citizen’s charters is to empower citizens through the delivery of public services.

• Improve the quality of public services

• Ensuring transparency and right to information
• Save the time of both the customer and the service provider
• Have clear targets for all levels of services
A Citizen’s Charter includes: vision and mission statements; identification of services; identification of levels;
identification of client groups/stakeholders/users; specification of time-frames for each service; specification of
time-frames at each level; specification of service quality standards; specification of service delivery standards;
and providing information about the grievance redressal procedures.

Significance of Citizen’s Charters

Citizen’s charters are significant in that they empower citizens when it comes to public services.
• It boosts accountability in the delivery of public services.
• It enhances good governance. It improves the effectiveness of organizations by having measurable
standards.
• It augments the quality of services delivered by incorporating an internal and external monitoring
entity.
• Being citizen-centric, it creates a professional and customer-oriented environment for the delivery of
services.
• It also helps boost the morale of the staff.
• It enhances transparency and openness.
WORK CULTURE
Work culture is regarded as a set of practices, values and shared beliefs within an organization. It is a concept
which deals with beliefs, thought processes and attitudes of the employees. An organisation is said to have a
strong work culture when the employees follow the organization’s rules and adhere to the existing guidelines.

Work culture is regarded as a set of practices, values and shared beliefs within an organisation and its employees
that arise from what is generally regarded as appropriate ways to think and act. It is the work culture that decides
the way employees interact with each other and how an organisation functions. The work culture is a product of
its history, traditions, values and vision.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A HEALTHY WORK CULTURE

Following are the main characteristics of a healthy work culture:
• One respects his fellow worker, i.e., employees are cordial with each other, Conflicts are minimum and
they are resolved after considering the underlying causes,
• Each employee is treated in alike manner. It is recognized by the employer and managers that partiality
leads to dissatisfied employees and eventually an unhealthy work culture.
• Employees are judged only by their work and nothing else, Performers are encouraged. And the ones,
who have not performed well, are not criticized but are asked to pull up their socks for the next time.
• Employees’ participation in decision making and quality suggestion is encouraged.
• There is two way communications. Employees’ feedback, negative or positive, is well taken into
consideration,
• Workshops, seminars and presentations are frequently conducted to upgrade the existing skills of the
employees.
Importance of an ethical work culture in the growth of an organisation
• Promotes transparency, innovation and discipline: Healthy work culture promotes transparency,
innovation and discipline in an organisation.
• Helps in reducing Conflicts: Good work culture promotes effective communication and helps in
reducing conflicts among individuals/team during work.
• Increases Productivity and Quality: Transparency, responsibility, unbiased are underpinnings of
good work culture. These will enable individuals and teams to become self-organized which in turn
improve quality and productivity.

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• Fosters sustainable Work: Good work culture includes peer respect, recognition of hard work, and
freedom to bring new ideas (innovation). These will help in long term prospects of the organization.
• Facilitates effective Communication: Healthy work culture provides a platform for effective
communication among the verticals and horizontals of the organisation which helps in getting work
done effectively.
Various Ways in which we can create an ethical work culture in an organisation
Robbins and Judge (2009) offer a nice list of what management can do to create a more ethical organizational
culture. They suggest a combination of the following practices:

1. Being a role model and being visible: The employees look to the behavior of top management as
a model of what’s acceptable behavior in the workplace. When senior management is observed (by
subordinates) to take the ethical high road, it sends a positive message for all employees.
2. Adapting Organizational code of ethics: Ethical ambiguities can be reduced by creating and
disseminating an organizational code of ethics. Remember, however, that a code of ethics is worthless if
top management fails to model ethical behaviors.
3. Offer ethics training: Set up seminars, workshops, and similar ethical training programs. Use these
training sessions to reinforce the organization’s standards of conduct, to clarify what practices are and
are not permissible, and to address possible ethical dilemmas.
4. Visibly reward ethical acts and punish unethical ones: Performance appraisals of managers should
include a point-by-point evaluation of how his or her decisions measure up against the organization’s
code of ethics. Appraisals must include the means taken to achieve goals as well as the ends themselves.
People who act ethically should be visibly rewarded for their behavior. Just as importantly, unethical
acts should be punished.
5. Provide protective mechanisms: The organization needs to provide formal mechanisms so that
employees can discuss ethical dilemmas and report unethical behavior without fear of reprimand. This
might include creation of ethical counselors, ombudsmen, or ethical officers.
A perfect example of a good workplace culture is ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation). It was founded in
the 1960s and has since then contributed immensely in the development of the nation. Despite India being a third
world country, ISRO has against all odds launched various space programs, the most recent being Chandrayaan 2.
It cannot be denied that one of the most important factors of ISRO’s success is healthy work culture.

CORRUPTION
Corruption refers to “giving or obtaining advantage through means which are illegitimate, immoral, and/
or inconsistent with one’s duty or the rights of others.” Corruption is a complex social, political and economic
phenomenon that affects all countries and hinders the rule of law. It undermines democratic institutions, erodes
economies and contributes to political instability.

While there is no internationally agreed definition of corruption, there are many actions which are recognized
as forms corruption. They include, the abuse of power, bribery, and embezzlement of public funds, maliciously
interfering with the justice system or hiding the financial gains of corruption etc.

Corruption in governance can be operationally defined as the misuse of entrusted power for private gain or
the use of public office for private gain. The corrupt behaviour would include bribery, fraud, stealing the public
resources, favoritism, seizure of public assets for private use, etc

Major Forms of Corruption in India

In India, there are six major forms by which corruption reins the private and the public organisations which
are listed as follows:
• Embezzlement: This is the act of withholding of funds and assets from being used for their specific
purpose and rather converting it to use for self-benefit. This is basically theft of organization’s money
and is enlisted as a financial fraud. It occurs when either the employee steals from the employer in
private organisations or public officials misappropriating public resources which were meant for the
welfare of the common and utilising it for their personal use.
• Nepotism: This is a type of exclusive favoritism for one’s own family, relatives or friends when it comes
to granting employment in various sectors. The Nehru-Gandhi family is one of the biggest examples of
political nepotism. In the film industry, the established directors prefer giving a break to children of
renowned actors only. This does not only increase corruption, but also demotivates talented individuals
and leaders by denying them opportunities to showcase their potential.

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• Conflict of Interest: The most common denominator when it comes to corruption is this form. This is
closely associated with authorities in procurement positions. It occurs when a person or a group find
an opportunity to exploit the resources of the organisation for their personal benefit rather than using
it for the well-being of the organisation.
• Favoritism: This arises from the natural tendency of a man to favour the ones who are closer to him.
This includes people who share common ideologies, social backgrounds or have mutual benefit from
each other. In the government and administration, it is seen in the form of a Hindu leader appointing a
Hindu person at a high ranking post in political parties, or a leader belonging to a certain lingual group
putting the interest of his ethnicity over national interest. Such favoritism is bound to have negative
impact of the communal harmony of the nation.
• Fraud: Using deceit, swindle or deception to steal money and resources is termed as fraud. This is
another of the financial crimes that are linked with corruption. Frauds involve manipulation or
distortion of information, facts and expertise by public officials for their personal advantage. Chit fund
scams are a prime example of frauds in India.
• Bribery: This is the form of unofficial and illegal payment in the form of cash currency to get a job
done or bypass the legal framework. This is a rampant crime that has given rise to corruption at every
environment in India.
TYPES OF CORRUPTION
• Types: According to Second ARC Report Corruption can be of two types Viz; Collusive corruption and
Coercive corruption.
Collusive Corruption
• There are several cases of collusion between the bribe giver and corrupt public servant, in such cases of
collusive corruption, both parties benefit at immense cost to society. Awarding of contracts for public
works and procurement of goods and services, recruitment of employees, evasion of taxes, substandard
projects, collusive violation of regulations, adulteration of foods and drugs, obstruction of justice and
concealing or doctoring evidences in investigation are all examples of such dangerous forms of collusive
corruption.
Coercive Corruption
• In a vast majority of cases of bribery, the citizen is a victim of extortion and is compelled to pay a bribe
in order to get a service to which he is entitled.
• It is observed that there is a vicious cycle of corruption operating and most citizens often end up losing
much more by resisting corruption. Delays, harassment, lost opportunity, loss of precious Lime and
wages, uncertainty and, at Limes, potential danger of loss of life or limb could result from resistance
to corruption and non compliance with demands. In such cases, the citizen is an unwilling victim of
coercive corruption.
Corruption hinders sustainable development and the respect for human rights. Therefore, everyone has a
role in preventing corruption by acting with personal integrity and making ethical choices. Citizen and youth
participation is critical to combating corruption. We need to simplify the message about corruption so that every
citizen regardless of their level of education can understand it and its negative impact on their own lives.

PUBLIC FUNDs AND ETHICAL ISSUES ASSOCIATED WITH UTILIZATION OF PUBLIC FUNDS
PUBLIC FUND
Public fund is the financial resource of the public which is held by state in a custodian capacity. Public fund
management relates to the way governments manage the public funds and the impacts on the growth of the
economy and the wellbeing of citizens. Public resources should be applied for the best possible public benefit.
Therefore, public entities should be guided by certain principles when they manage public resources.

Utilization of public funds by public entities should demonstrate following ethical principles:
1. Lawfulness.
2. Accountability
3. Openness and transparency
4. Sustainability of the funding relationship
5. Fairness

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6. Honesty
7. Integrity
8. Probity
Factors associated with under utilization of funds:
Political Factors
• Political rivalry: Sometimes political class indulges in acts of vendetta which erodes the cooperation
and collective efforts required for development. For example delay in allocation of developmental funds
to opposition MLAs/MPs by Government in power.
• Irrational freebies distribution: Irrational distribution of freebies and signing off loans for electoral
popularity puts pressure on budgetary balance.
• Politicized protests: Frequent ill intended protests and bandhs by any political faction increase the
incurred costs due to delay in the public works undertaken.
Administrative Factors
• Policy paralysis: Delays, inaction and inability to take policy decisions by the government or its various
departments and agencies is one the main causes of inefficiency in public fund utilisation.
• Bureaucratic attitude: Sometimes despotic attitude and obstructionist attitude of officials especially
in higher echelons of bureaucracy acts as hindrance in carrying out developmental activities.
• Inadequate political will: Like recently due to inefficiency and underutilization of funds, the Members
of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) has been suspended for two financial years.
• Red tapism: Due to over regulation and practice of requiring excessive paperwork and tedious
procedures before official action hinders implementation of schemes and projects, thereby it affects
process of effective public fund utilisation.
Social Factors
• Social apathy towards corruption: In India many people accept corruption as a norm due to which
even the people with ill-gotten money enjoy the same status as the honest rich.
• Inefficient education system: Failure of the education system to inculcate the moral values of honesty
and integrity firmly in its people.
• Inequality: Social and economical equality in Indian society foment greed among people to amass as
much resources as possible when they get an opportunity.
• Lack of Institutional social accounting: The process of communicating the social and environmental
effects of actions and inactions of public authorities to particular interest groups within society like in
the MNREGA scheme is not institutionalised.
Some Ethical Issues Related to Utilization of Public Funds:
• Lack of fairness: Utilization of public funds for bailouts of businesses.(EX; Using public funds for
corporate bailouts)
• Lack of Honesty, integrity: Corruption in utilization of public fund.
• Malfeasance in governance: Excessive use of public money for government advertisement.
• Inefficient Decision making: Running loss making PSU using public money.
• Lack of effective resource planning: International aid giving when millions in India are devoid of basic
amenities like education, healthcare, clean drinking water, electricity etc. and over utilization of funds
towards research, defence, spending on space missions and interplanetary missions when remote
villages are in accessible.
• Utilization of public fund for bailouts of businesses. Example- Using public funds for corporate bailout.
• Corruption in utilization of public fund
Public resources should be applied for the best possible public benefit. Therefore, public entities should be guided
by certain principles when they manage public resources. Efficient utilisation of public funds requires a number
of reforms for good governance such as decentralisation of power, plugging legislative loopholes, strengthening
the public Institutions like CVC and RTI, enhancing administrative accountability and making society more
democratic. These reforms could make society more sustainable in the long run.

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