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Ethics Theory
Q&A Discussion Forum
48 Published by IES GS at September 6, 2017 Tags Categories
1. What is ethics?
1. Ethics vs Morals vs Values Click Here For Video
2. How do we know what is ethical? Lectures
2. How to solve?
4. Emotional Intelligence
1. Emotions
2. Components of EI
3. What is EI?
4. How EI helps? TEST SERIES
5. Attitude
1. Components
2. Persuasion
YouTube Channel
6. Power and Authority
1. Types of power
Group
2. Types of Authority
7. Corporate Ethics
1. Corporate Governance Page
2. Work Culture
3. Corporate Social Responsibility
8. Professional Ethics
Recent Posts
1. Ethical Skills
2. Code of Ethics and Code of Conduct Quiz – June 24, 2018
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June 25, 2018
9. Environmental Ethics
June
1. What is Ethics? 25,2018
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We hear the word ‘ethics’ now and then. Often we confuse between the words ethics, June
values and morals. In this article, we shall try to clear these confusions. 25, 2018
Ethics is a wider term encompassing values and morals. It is the branch of Quiz- June 22,2018
knowledge that deals with moral principles. Ethics is a branch of philosophy which June 24, 2018
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deals with the questions like what is good or bad and why. In our society there are
many institutions that tell us what is good or bad, right from our family. Ethics as a June
branch of knowledge tries to analyse the various systems.The various in퀎�uences in 24,2018
1
our ethical thoughts are the social norms, law of land(constitution), religion, June
knowledge etc. 24, 2018
IES-GS Paper1
strategy
Motivational lecture
Motivational lectu…
Date: 01-07-18
In our daily life, we can follow the following principles to know what is ethical
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Is it sensible?
Is it desirable?
Check with the Categorical imperative – “Act as if the maxim of thy action were to
become by thy will a universal law of nature.”
Which means “Are you willing to permit everyone to adopt the action?” If Yes, your
action is moral. If No, your action is immoral.
For example, as a civil engineer, you decided to go for a substandard building
material, for favouring a particular contractor. Think whether you permit this if the
same is going to be your own house? No. Then your action is unethical
Thus ‘Adhering to Quality’ becomes a moral
Utilitarianism says that actions are right if they are useful or for the bene䙵t of a
majority
Finds applications in governance
For example, take labour reforms. It will help 90% of workers, where as the 10%
who are already enjoying the protective laws will lose. Utilitarian principle will give
‘yes’ for the reforms
Based on the belief that all human have the right to live with dignity
If an action violates the basic rights of anyone else, it is unethical
For example, A railway engineer decided to skip the mandatory safety checks of
the track, owing to work pressure. But this negligence can cost life of travellers, if
accident happens. He/she cannot take the right to life of others for granted
Thus ‘Adhering to safety practices’ is a moral responsibility
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1. Situation
2. Individual’s role
3. Scale of the effect of actions
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Every moral things All legal may not be moral Ex: Do not use cell phones
may not be legal Ex- Triple talaq, which in class room
The branch of ethics which deals the question what is good and bad is called
NORMATIVE ETHICS
2.1 Integrity
Integrity refers to quality of a person’s character
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3. Ethical dilemmas
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 . The common ethical
dilemmas are
1. Receiving gifts – You are working as an engineer, and the contractor who carries
out projects in your department and you are good friends. Can you accept gifts
from him during festivals?
2. Breaching con䙵dentiality – When your spouse or relatives ask for critical
information from our o穑�ce, which is not supposed to be disclosed
3. Affecting impartiality – You happens to be in an interview panel to select
candidates for job, in which your relative or friend is also participating
4. Reporting malpractices – When you come to know that your friend or relative is
doing malpractice, will you report to authority?
1. Listen to your voice of conscience – This will buy time and prevents impulsive
actions
2. Be responsible – Do not ignore your responsibility. For example, an engineer has
to take care of safety, however compelling the other factors may be
3. Respect other’s fundamental rights
4. Give preference to larger good, compared to a smaller good(Social responsibility)
5. Declare any con퀎�ict of interest early, in cases like any commercial interests
con퀎�icting with o穑�ce work
6. Rescue yourself from situations like being in an interview panel where friend is
also participating
4. Emotional Intelligence
Academic aptitude (IQ) was once considered the most important part of intelligence.
But now Emotional Intelligence is recognised as playing a major role in a person’s
success. Today companies worldwide routinely look through the lens of EI in hiring,
promoting, and developing their employees.
4.1 Emotions
Emotions are recorded experiences in the brain. Have salience, ie the emotions are
either +ve or -ve. Emotional decisions seems to be spontaneous or impulsive. These
emotions have a signi䙵cant role in decision making along with reasoning. While
reasoning is used in exploring various options; emotions are used to decide among
various options.
4.2 Components of EI
The emotional intelligence is the ability to to identify and manage your
own emotions and the emotions of others. This requires
1. Perception – are you correctly recognising your emotions? Won’t you confuse
sometimes whether you are sad, or angry or disgusted? Observe carefully own
emotions and recognise them.
2. Attribution – is assigning reasons for your emotions. Hasn’t there be situations
where you just do not know why are you sad? Analyse what happened and 䙵nd
the actual cause
3. Management – is knowledge when and how to use your emotions. Once you have
proper perception and correct attribution, you know when and how your emotions
occur. Thus you can manage them.
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5. Attitude
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Are evaluation of various aspects of the social world such as that towards a
person, object, event, ideology etc.
It can be either positive or negative.
Social factors have a major role in determining a person’s attitude.
For example we Indians do ‘jugaad’ as an acceptable form of frugal engineering.
The absence of su穑�cient resources have created this societal attitude of 䙵nding
solutions through shortcuts.
When the attitude is formed towards a person or social group, it creates a
stereotype.
5.1 Components
Attitude has cognitive, affective and behavioral components
5.2 Persuasion
Is effort to change the attitudes, beliefs, perceptions or behaviours. The success of
persuasion depends on three factors:
(1) source – there is a difference when your mother tells not to eat junk food and
when Virat Kohli says the same.
(2) message – many will not listen to the tra穑�c police’s message to wear helmet, but
when it comes along with a emotional tone of care for family, more people obeys.
(3) target – young minds can be easily persuaded, so the packaged foods business
mainly target kids in their advertisements.
Coercive Power
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Reward Power
Legitimate Power
Referent Power
Is the power and ability for an individual to attract others and to build loyalty
created through the values of the individual
Informational Power
Expert Power
leader is not only capable of but actually possesses the superior power of
charisma
Ex- Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr.
Traditional authority
Legal-rational authority
7. Corporate Ethics
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7. Corporate Ethics
The broad area dealing with the way in which a company behaves towards, and
conducts business with, its internal and external stakeholders, including employees,
investors, creditors, customers, and regulators.
A supervisory board is constituted and should lay down the framework for the
functioning of the board of directors -It will monitor performance as well as the
value system for the company
The board of directors manages the affairs of the company and oversee the
functioning of the executive management
The executive runs the day to day operations.
The regulators
Companies are regulated under the companies act. If they are listed in the stock
exchange, SEBI(Securities and Exchange Board of India) watches over certain
operations, especially to protect the small shareholders.
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The Third Umpire
Match 䙵xing
Poor Performance
their money
For example,
The company which believes in diversity will include more female employees
The armed forces work culture is strict hierarchical, where obedience is given
more importance
Corporations can have detrimental effects on the environment. Example Oil spills.
Industries such as chemical manufacturing, mining, agriculture and 䙵shing can
do permanent damage to local ecosystems.
Climate change can also be attributed in large part to corporations. Ex- Power
corporations
Many corporations have pro䙵ted from the deterioration of the global
environment.
In many cases, harm to the environment and harm to vulnerable communities go
hand-in-hand
8. Professional Ethics
Professionals possess and use specialised knowledge and skill.
“Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more
clever devil”
Ethical sensitivity, involves the skill or ability to interpret the reactions and
feelings of others.
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Where as the Self-Help Skills are Care of possessions, diet, hygiene, modesty,
posture, self-reliance, and tidy appearance etc
The Social Skills includes Good behaviour, good manners, good relationships,
helpfulness, No wastage and good environment etc.
Code of Ethics
Code of Conduct
9. Environmental Ethics
Deals with relationship of man with environment.
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the concept of “needs”, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to
which overriding priority should be given; and
the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization
on the environment’s ability to meet present and future needs.
ethical consumerism
minimising waste and recycling
love for nature and other living beings etc
The branch of ethics concerned with particular moral issues like corporate ethics,
environmental ethics etc, is called APPLIED ETHICS
IES GS
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Ethics in Engineering
Profession
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21 Comments
http://iesgeneralstudies.com/ethicstheory/ 16/20
6/26/2018 Ethics Theory – General Studies Material for UPSC ESE Paper1 by
Sir please release pdf version for statics portion also so that we could take printout and
study it. Internet is not available everytime.
All materials are very goof and of high quality. Thank you for such initiative
either use pdf crowd addon to save the page or simply print the page,it will be
saved as pdf use foxit or just save the entire webpage
Thnk u sir…
How do you decide between utilitarianism and human rights? For example right to privacy
provides basic human rights but fails in utilitarianism. Or Rohingya muslim migrant.
Deporting them is as per utilitarianism but is a failure of every human to life and dignity.
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Challenge noted!!! I have another doubt regarding con퀎�ict of interest. Suppose you are
holding a primary position for a certain interest and then you also hold a ” o穑�ce of pro䙵t”
however for the betterment of the same interest. So will that qualify for con퀎�ict of interest.
If yes How ?? Example the Delhi parliament secretary issue. It’s established that they the
elected members hold o穑�ce of pro䙵t as per constitution but can we also say it succumbs
to con퀎�ict of interest just by knowing that they hold “o穑�ce of pro䙵t”.
Actually the rule that those who are holding constitutional positions should not
hold ‘o穑�ce of pro䙵t’ is made to avoid the con퀎�ict of interests. There is a need
for rede䙵ning what constitutes the ‘o穑�ce of pro䙵t’ as suggested by the second
ARC.
The issue you mentioned here became debatable, simply because of the fact
that the posts of parliamentary secretaries are not recognised as
constitutional post. So it quali䙵es as ‘o穑�ce of pro䙵t’ as per rule. In ethical
sense, the post may not create a con퀎�ict of interest, but rule wise it does.
Is this enough for ies prelims exam regarding human ethivs or more topic is also there????
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IES GS says:
November 15, 2017 at 2:08 pm
Amit says:
November 16, 2017 at 8:03 am
Dear Sir,
Can you please suggest some site for practicing good problems on Ethics as in IAS
problems are more descriptive then being optional
samar says: Reply
http://iesgeneralstudies.com/ethicstheory/ 19/20
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sir, these notes enough for eithics subject or do we need to refer any book?
You can refer more about the different terms mentioned here.
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