Abortion refers to the termination of the unborn entity (or termination of pregnancy) at any of the above stages. Abortions at times occur due to internal biochemical processes of the pregnant woman or due to injuries suffered by her. These are known as miscarriages and create no moral issues. Debates on abortioncentre on induced abortions which are brought about by human action.
Abortion debates involve two broad issues: (i) the value of life, both of mother and foetus; and
(ii) individual freedom and rights of women over their bodies. These debates also cover the rights of foetus or unborn baby, definitions of human life and the point at which life begins.
Prior to 1971, under the Indian Penal Code, induced abortion was illegal. Abortion in India is now covered under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act 1971. According to MTP Act, Pregnancies not exceeding 12 weeks may be terminated based on a single doctor’s opinion formed in good faith. In case of pregnancies exceeding 12 weeks but less than 20 weeks, termination needs opinion of two doctors. Abortion is allowed subject to various conditions.
There are many forms of non-Marxist communism. The most influential of these is anarchism, or anarcho-communism. It advocates not only communal ownership of property but also the abolition of the state. Anarchists argue that the state and private property are interdependent institutions. The state exists to protect private property, and the owners of private property protect the state. If property is to be owned communally and distributed equally, the state must be smashed once and for all.
Accountability means the answerability of officials for due discharge of functions assigned to them. James Fesler and Don Kettl divide accountability into two dimensions: ‘One is [formal or legal] accountability; faithful obedience to the law, to higher officials’ directions, and to standards of efficiency. The other is ethical behaviour; adherence to moral standards and avoidance even of the appearance of unethical actions.
Accountability can be enforced through external and internal controls. External controls include: legislative supervision of administrative actions; judicial scrutiny of administrative decisions and procedures; and participation of citizens in administrative processes. Internal controls include: the use of rules and procedures, making administration transparent, provision for whistle blowers, democratizing organizations and promotion of professional and ethical standards.
Over strict enforcement of accountability can prove counterproductive. There is a conflict between the value of accountability and the values of originality, experimentation, inventiveness and risk-taking.
(Paul C. Light, Federal Inspectors General and the Path to Accountability)
Accounts
Accounts of a company contain complete and comprehensive details of its financial transactions. Financial transactions result in revenue and expenditure. Revenue consists of various forms of income. All revenues have to be promptly put into company’s accounts. Expenditures incurred have to be properly vouched or backed by receipts for their authentication. Expenditures are classified into categories such as revenue and capital expenditure. Revenue expenditures cover day to day items like payments for wages and raw materials. Capital expenditures lead to creation of physical or financial assets like buildings or fixed deposits in banks. Accounts have to be prepared according to a prescribed format (conforming to accounting standards) to correctly classify transactions and reflecttheirtruenature.Thetwo mainfinancialstatementsof a company are – profit andlossaccount and the balance sheet.
Act utilitarianism is the view that an act is right ifits consequences are at least as good as those of any alternative. Another way of expressing this view is that any act should aim at the greatest happiness of greatest member of people. This view can be said to be consequentialist, welfare-oriented, aggregative, maximizing andimpersonal. The view is consequentialist because it saysthat acts are right or wrong solely in virtue of the goodness or badness of their consequences. It is welfare-oriented because it makes rightness depend on goodness, and interprets goodness as referring to human welfare. The view is impersonal and aggregative since rightness is determined impersonally by considering the increases and decreases of well being of all those affected by the act, and adding the increases and decreases in respect of all the affected persons. The view is maximizing since it says in effect: always maximise net desire satisfaction.
Although the reference in the preceding paragraph is to welfare, we can also use the terms ‘utility’ or ‘happiness’. An act is good if it leads to the greatest happiness of the greatest number. As we have seen earlier, application of act utilitarianism leads in some situations to absurd results. Hence, most writers nowsubscribe to ruleutilitarianism.
(R.G. Frey, Act-Utilitarianism)
Act Deontological Theories
The common meaning of deontology is that morality consists in strictly following one’s duties and universal moral commands. Kant is a famous exponent of deontology. However, in recent times,
some philosophers formulated act deontological theories which discard general moral maxims. They seek to link morality to individual acts of people.
Act deontological theories maintain that the basic moral judgements are all purely particular ones like “in this situation I should do so and so” and that general ones like that “we should always keep promises”, are useless or are derivable from particular ones. Each situation has to be judged individually without reference to principles like utilitarianism. Aristotle’s comment that in golden mean “the decision rests with perception” is an example of act-deontological approach. Act- deontological theories are seen analogous to “situational ethics”.
John A. Rohr makes a distinction between two categories of public administrative ethics. One category is legally enforceable and the other is aspirational or is supposed to form part of a civil servant’s moral aspirations or ideals. The first category deals almost entirely with financial irregularities in such matters as bribery,conflict of interest and financial disclosure. In theIndian context, administrative ethics in this sense are found in the codes of conduct for civil servants. The second category goes beyond legal obligation and looks for practical ways in which public servants can fulfill their oath to upholdthe constitution. IntheIndiancontext,thiswillmeanthat civil servants shouldworktowards realisation of constitutional values.
(John R. Rohr, Constitutionalism and Administrative ethics)
These are traditionally understood as civil service codes and traditions. In recent times, public administration theorists have added rather exalted moral principles to this concept. Among these are
– Rawls’sconcept of social equity, allegiance to a higher law beyond both individual andgovernment, a moral framework applicable both to public and private domains, or a notion of a lasting moral order. Although these are abstract ideas, we should look at their general drift.
The affective component of attitudes refers to feelings or emotions linked to an attitude object. Affective responses influence attitudes in a number of ways. Emotions shape attitudes through feelings that are aroused in response to an attitude object. For instance, many people indicate that spiders make them feel scared. This negative affective response is likely to cause a negative attitude toward spiders.
Altruism is based on beneficence and selflessness; it is other regarding and the opposite of self-interest and self-love. Altruism denotes certain motivations and actions performed from those motivations. An altruistic act is one which is done with the ultimate aim of benefiting another person. Even if such an act ended up harming the intended beneficiary, we might still call it an instance of altruism, albeit misguided. An act that is done in order to benefit another, but only with a view to one’s own laterbenefit, is not an altruisticact.
Some moral philosophers try to show that many seemingly altruistic acts are disguised forms of self-interest. Thus, it may be argued that a father who also dies in an effort to save his drowning child is not altruistic. His conduct may be interpreted as a means to avoid lifelong guilt feelings he will experience if he made no attempt to save his child. Such forced interpretations are often made to explain moral conduct in terms of one’s favourite ethical theory.
Sophists were the first to deny the existence of objective moral standards. They were peripatetic teachers who taught rhetoric (art of speaking) and other skills needed for lawyers and politicians in ancient Greek city states. They had to tailor their teachings to the specific circumstances that prevailed in different states. They had to emphasise on prudence and other pragmatic virtues necessary for successinthe practical affairsinlife,professions andpolitics. In the process, theypartlyabandoned the then prevailing moral concepts and codes. One of the chief aims of Socrates was to combat the moral relativism of sophists.
Cyrenaics are a philosophical group who advocated that pleasure is the only good for men. They rejected other higher ideals. Epicureans also advocated that human beings should pursue happiness as their goal. Cyrenaics recommended that men should chase momentary pleasures or make the best of every moment of life. They had no concern for the morrow.
Epicureans took a long term view of happiness. Their prescription implies foresight. Accordingly, human beings should aim at maximizing happiness over the life span. They should not sacrifice futurepleasures to excessiveindulgence in thepresent. Epicureans also preferredrefined pleasures of mind and not just bodily joys.
The classical Greek and Roman Cynics regarded virtue as the only necessity for happiness. They sought to freethemselves from conventions;becomeself-sufficient; andliveonlyin accordance with nature. They rejected conventional notions of happiness involving money, power and fame, and sought happiness in the pursuit of virtue. In rejectingconventional social values, they criticised the types of behaviours, such as greed, which they viewed as causes of suffering. The modern view of cynicism sees it as “an attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of others.” This modern definition of cynicism is in marked contrast to the ancient philosophy, which emphasised “virtue and moral freedom in liberation from desire”. Early Cynics were not mere social critics ; they were public advocates of cosmopolitanism, freedom of speech, a woman’s right to select her spouse, and constitutional law.
Stoicism taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge; the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason (also identified with Fate and Providence) that governs nature, and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain. Stoicism views the world as permeated by rationality and as divinelyplanned.Moral goodnessand happinessare achieved, if at all, by replicating that perfect rationality in oneself, and by finding out and enacting one’s own assigned role in the cosmic scheme of things. Stoic ethics make concern for others as central to human nature. Some commonly prized items, like honour and health, are commended by nature and should be sought, but not fortheirown sake. They are instrumentally preferable, because learning to choose rationally between them is a step towards the eventual goal of ‘living in agreement with nature’.
Virtue and vice are intellectual states. Vice is founded on ‘passions’: these are at root false value judgments, in which we lose rational control by overvaluing things which are in fact indifferent. Virtue, is the one thing of intrinsic worth and therefore genuinely ‘good’. The wise are not only the solepossessors of virtue and happiness, but also, paradoxically, of the things people conventionally value – beauty, freedom, power, and so on. Though geographically scattered, the wise persons form a true community or ‘city’, governed by natural law.
In brief, Stoics taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge; the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason (also identified with Fate and Providence) that governs nature, and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain.
(Portion on Stoics from David Sedley’s entry on Stoicism in the Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy)
Traditionally, philosophers excluded animal kingdom and nature from moral discourse. From early 1970s, environmental issues and animal rights became popular topics of discussion both among philosophers and lay public. In 1975, Peter Singer published his work Animal Liberation. Its basic message is---‘All animals are equal’. It implies that human beings are also (biologically speaking) animals, and should not ill treat or abuseother animals. Theseviews haveled to lot of argumentation in support of and against animal rights.
Appetite is a blind tendency towards a particular end. Satisfactions of appetite are frequently referred to simply as pleasures, while unsatisfied appetites are called pains. A pleasure-seeker is one who seeks the satisfaction of his animal appetites, or of human impulses which are akin to these appetites.
Aptitude: Nature and Measurement
Intelligencetestsassess general mental ability.Aptitude refers to special abilitiesin a particular field of activity. It is a combination of characteristics that indicates an individual’s capacity to acquire some specific knowledge or skill aftertraining. We assessaptitude with the help of selectedtests.The knowledge of aptitude can help us to predict an individual’s future performance. While assessing intelligence, psychologists often found that people with similar intelligence differed widely in acquiring certain knowledge or skills. There are certain areas in which some intelligent students do not do well. Students are able to perform well in certain areas of study and activity.
These specific skills and abilities are called aptitudes. With proper training, these abilities can be considerably enhanced. In order to be successful in a particular field, a person must have both aptitude and interest. Interest is a preference for a particular activity; aptitude is the potentiality to perform that activity. A person may be interested in a particular job or activity, but may not have the aptitude for it. Similarly, a person may have the potentiality for performing a job, but may not be interested in doing that. In both cases, the outcome will be unsatisfactory. A student with high mechanical aptitude and strong interest in engineering is more likely to be a successful mechanical engineer.
Aptitude tests are available in two forms: independent (specialized) aptitude tests and multiple (generalized) aptitude tests. Clerical Aptitude, Mechanical Aptitude, Numerical Aptitude, and Typing
Aptitude are independent aptitude tests. Multiple Aptitude Tests exist in the form of test batteries (tests covering multiple aptitudes), which measure aptitude in several separate but homogeneous areas. Differential Aptitude Tests (DAT), the General Aptitude Tests Battery (GATB), and the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) are well-known aptitude test batteries. Among these, DAT is most commonly used in educational settings. It consists of 8 independent subtests: (i) Verbal Reasoning, (ii) Numerical Reasoning, (iii) Abstract Reasoning, (iv) Clerical Speed and Accuracy,
(v) Mechanical Reasoning, (vi) Space Relations, (vii) Spelling, and (viii) Language Usage.
In 1905, Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon made the first successful attempt to formally measure intelligence. In 1908, when the scale was revised, they gave the concept of Mental Age (MA), which is a measure of a person’s intellectual development relative to people of her/his age group. A mental age of 5 means that a child’s performance on an intelligence test equals the average performance level of a group of 5-year old children. Chronological Age (CA) is the biological age from birth.
A bright child’s MA is more than her/his CA; for a dull child, MA is below the CA. Retardation was defined by Binet and Simon as being two mental age years below the chronological age.
In 1912, William Stern, a German psychologist, devised the concept of Intelligence Quotient (IQ). IQ refers to mental age divided by chronological age, and multiplied by 100. The number 100 is used as a multiplier to avoid the decimalpoint. When the MA equals the CA, the IQ equals
100. If MA is more than the CA, IQ is more than 100. IQ becomes less than 100 when the MA is less than the CA. For example, a 10-year-old child with a mental age of 12 would have an IQ of 120 (12/10 * 100), whereas the same child with an MA of 7 would have an IQ of 70 (7/10 * 100). The average IQ in the population is 100, irrespective of age.
(From NCERT class XII text for psychology)
Social psychologists reserve the term attitude to refer to our relatively enduring evaluation of something, where the something is called the attitude object. The attitude object might be a person, a product, or a social group. Attitudes involve a preference for or against the attitude object, as commonly expressed in such terms as prefer, like, dislike, hate, and love. When we express our attitudes–for instance, when we say, “I love rasagullas,” or “I hate snakes,” or “I like Biharis”– we are expressing the relationship (either positive or negative) between the self and an attitude object. Statements such as these make it clear that attitudes are an important part of the self-concept. Attitudes tie the self-concept to the attitude object, and so our attitudes are an essential part of us. This perspective has generated a number of conceptual models of the attitude concept.
The most influential model of attitude has been the multi-component model. According to this perspective, attitudes are summary evaluations of an object that have Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioural components.
The annual audit is one of the cornerstones of corporate governance. It provides an external and
objective check on the way in which the financial statements have been prepared and presented by the directors of the company. It has to ensure that accounts provide a true and fair view of company’s financial statements. Auditors’ role is to design audit in such a manner that it provides a reasonable assurance that the financial statements are free of material misstatements.
Every listed company and some other specified companies have to constitute an audit committee. Audit committee shall have not less than three independent directors; at least two of them should be able to understand financial statements like balance sheets, profit and loss accounts, cash flow statements and statements of changes in equity. The chairperson should have this ability. The terms of referenceor jurisdiction of an auditcommitteeshallincludeall mattersrelating to finance,accounts, commercial transactions, investments and audit. The directors and employees can report to the audit committee their genuine concerns or apprehensions about things happening in the company. Any person who uses such mechanism shall have direct access to chairperson of the audit committee
Behaviour is one of the three components of an attitude directed towards an object. The behavioural component of attitudes refers to past behaviours or experiences regarding an attitude object. For instance, people might guess that they must have a negative attitude toward child labour, if they remember having signed a petition against depriving children of their educational and playing opportunities.
The idea that people might infer their attitudes from their previous actions was formulated by Daryl Bem. According to Bem’s self-perception theory, individuals do not always have access to their opinions about different objects, and sometimes infer their attitudes by thinking about how they have behaved with respect to the attitude object in the past.
Corrupt public servants try to hide their illegitimate wealth through ‘Benami’ transactions. In these transactions, the government servant holds property in someone else’s name. The Law Commission recommended enactment of a legislation for prohibiting Benami transactions and acquiring properties held Benami. A law entitled The Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act was passed in 1988. The Act precludes the person who acquired the property in the name of another person from claiming it as his own. The Act prohibits Benami transactions and prohibits the acquirer from recovering the property from the Benamidar. The Act permits acquisition of property held Benami.
Beneficence is a principle of duty, not an attribute of one’s character. Benevolence is a disposition, habit, quality, trait of the person or soul, which an individual either has or seeks to have. The philosopher Schopenhauer has taken benevolence and justice as the cardinal virtues. Benevolence is the love of others. It means the desire to do good and to be kind and generous. The philosophers
of Scottish Enlightenment [such as Hutcheson, Hume and Adam Smith] emphasised benevolence as a virtue and regarded it as central to the attainment of their version of good society.
(William Frankena op.cit, & David ft. Hart, Administration and Ethics of Virtue)
The items which different writers include in the list of bureaucratic ethos vary. One set consists of accountability, economy and competence. Other items are trustworthiness, duty to the organization, respect for law, and respect for rules and regulations. (See also bureaucratic values)
Every officer incurring or authorizing expenditure from public moneys should be guided by high standards of financial propriety.Everyofficer should also enforce financial order and strict economy and see that all relevant financial rules and regulations are observed, by his own office and by subordinate disbursing officers. Among the principles on which emphasis is generally laid are the following:-
(i) Every officer is expected to exercise the same vigilance in respect of expenditure incurred from public moneys as a person of ordinary prudence would exercise in respect of expenditure of his own money.
(ii) The expenditure should not be prima facie more than the occasion demands.
(iii) No authority should exercise its powers of sanctioning expenditure to pass an order which will be directly or indirectly to its own advantage.
(iv) Expenditure from public moneys should not be incurred for the benefit of a particular person or a section of the people, unless (a) a claim for the amount could be enforced in a Court of Law, or (b) the expenditure is in pursuance of a recognised policy or custom.
(v) The amount of allowances granted to meet expenditure of a particular type (e.g. travelling allowance or house rent allowance) should be so regulated that the allowances are not on the whole a source of profit to the recipients.
Cardinal virtues are defined as a group of virtues suchthat (1) they cannot be derived fromone another and (2) all other virtues can be derived from them or shown to be forms of them. Ancient Greek philosophers identified four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance and justice. 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. 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.
Categorical imperative means an unconditional (without any exceptions) command (order). Kant maintained that morality means that men have to regard ethical maxims as categorical imperatives and obey them. Kant formulated categorical imperative in two ways. (1) Act in such a manner that the standard or principle underlying your action can be adopted as a universal law by every
individual in society. (2) Treat humanity in yourself and everyone else always as an end and never as a means to an end. Kant’s conception of morality is deontological. In Kant’s view, morality has no connection with one’s feelings, desires or happiness. It is duty for duty’s sake.
Kant also speaks of hypothetical imperatives which are actually means to other ends. A student desirous of securing high marks in an examination works very hard at studies. His ‘working hard’ or industry is a hypothetical imperative. It is a means for his success in securing high marks.
Morality includes cultivation of certain dispositions or traits, which include character, and virtues like honesty, kindness, and conscientiousness. Virtues are dispositions or traits which are not innate, and have to be cultivated partly through learning from teachers and elders and partly through practice. Virtues are traits of character than of personality (like cheerfulness or personal elegance). They all involve a tendency to do certain kinds of action in certain situations, not just to think or feel incertain ways. Virtues of character are not skills or abilities. Many moral thinkers have suggested that morality should not be seen as concerned with rules or principles (as in utilitarianism), but should be seen as concerned with virtuous dispositions or traits of character. Thus Plato and Aristotle usually speak about virtues and the virtuous and not so much in terms of the right and the obligatory.
Characteristics of Emotionally Intelligent Persons
¤ Perceive and be sensitive to your feelings and emotions.
¤ Perceive and be sensitive to various types of emotions in others by noting their body language, voice and tone, and facial expressions.
¤ Relate your emotions to your thoughts so that you take them into account while solving problems and taking decisions.
¤ Understand the powerful influence of the nature and intensity of your emotions.
¤ Control and regulateyour emotionsand their expressionswhiledealing with self andothers to achieve harmony and peace.
The correct action in a given situation often follows from the moral agent’s moral character. Some individuals cultivate virtues through constant practice. They have the virtues or dispositions which lead them to correct action in any situation.
The functions of government fall into two broad heads: legal exercise of authority and provision of services. Modern states are welfare States and provide a wide range of public services to their citizens. The services cover areas such as education, health, housing and transport. Services also include such requirements as a driving license, telephone connection, gas connection, tax refund, Aadhaar card, passport, and extracts from public records of one’s property, educational qualification and date of birth. Citizens often experience considerable difficulty in securing timely, reliable and quality services from government agencies. Citizen Charters are a means of solving the day to day problems which citizens experience while dealing with organisations providing public services.
Where members, depositors or any class of them are of the opinion that the affairs of a company are being conducted in a manner prejudicial to the interest of company, its members or depositors, they may file an application before tribunal. The class action can also cover the auditors. Class action can be contrasted with individual litigation. Class action means a representative suit and the court judgement delivered in such suit will apply to all the members of that class – even to those who did not join the suit.
A clone is an exact genetic copy of a molecule, cell, plant, or animal. It is no novel phenomenon but common in nature. Whenever single cell organisms like bacteria reproduce by cell division, the resultant cells are clones of the original cells. Similarly, when a worm is divided into two parts, each part will regenerate into a full genetic duplicate of the original worm. Identical twins resulting from separated embryos in uterus are natural clones.
Scientists extract DNA from the cell of an adult mammal and insert it into a hollowed out donor egg. By jump-starting the egg with a jolt of electricity, they can create an embryo that would become, if implanted into a surrogate mother, the patient’s identical twin. As for human beings, no cloning is allowed.
The first law regulating cloning is UK’s Human Fertilisation Embryology Act (1990). It permits licensed research using human embryos only for very limited purposes involving studies into infertility treatment, congenital diseases, and causes of miscarriages, contraception techniques and the detection of genetic abnormalities.
Classical conditioning can be used to create positive emotional reactions to a person, object or event by associating positive feelings with the target object. Commercial advertisements use classical conditioning to create a favourable impression about a product in the minds of readers or viewers. For example, it will show popular cricket stars consuming a particular brand of soda while having fun. It influences the audience by carrying over their favourable feelings about cricketers to the particular soda brand.
Codes of ethics usually contain general values while codes of conduct clearly spell out the principles which are derived from values. In the words of Jeremy Bentham, a principle is “a general law or rule that guides behaviour or decisions,” whereas values articulate “an aspiration of an ideal moral state.”
Values refer to political and social visions and exalted goals which societies seek to achieve. In contrast, codes of conduct have a narrow focus. Codes of conduct are particular rules of conduct either imposed from higher levels of an organization or voluntarily accepted as the requirements of a profession or occupation.
A code of ethics differs from a code of conduct in another way. A code of ethics or a code of morality has a wide canvas. It may virtually cover all aspects of a man’s life. It will contain prescriptions
and prohibitions which cover one’s personal, social, economic, political and religious life. Codes of ethics apply to the culture, education, and religion of a whole society. Codes of conduct generally cover an individual’s official or professional conduct.
The cognitive component of attitudes refers to the beliefs, thoughts, and attributes we associate with an object. In many cases, a person’s attitude might be based primarily upon the positive and negative attributes they associate with an object. For example, when one author recently bought a new car, he devoted considerable attention to different vehicles’ safety records, gas mileage, and repair costs. In this example, attitudes toward the different cars were formed through a methodical consideration of the positive and negative characteristics of each car.
In simple terms, cognitive dissonance is an unpleasant internal (psychological) state that exists when we notice inconsistency in our attitudes or between attitudes and behaviour. People reduce dissonance by:
¤ Changing attitudes or behaviour to make them consistent with one another.
¤ Acquiring new information that supports an attitude or behaviour, or
¤ Trivializing the inconsistency
In general, people will reduce dissonance by whichever method requires the least effort.
An act of corruption has two players: the bribe-giver and the bribe-taker. In cases of coercive corruption, the bribe-giver is a victim of extortion. Bribe-taker forces bribe-giver to make the payment. Besides this coercive corruption, there is also collusive corruption in which the bribe-giver and bribe- taker act as partners and rob society. In this situation, the bribe-giver is as great an offender as the bribe-taker. The acts involved in these situations defraud public exchequer and also harm public welfare.Amongsuchinstancesare–executionof substandardworks,distortionof competition,robbing the public exchequer, kickbacks or commissions in public procurement, tax evasion by collusion, and causing direct harm to people by spurious drugs and violation of safety norms.
There is a special arrangement for the audit of companies where the equity participation by Government is 51 percent or more. The primary auditors of these companies are Chartered Accountants, appointed by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, who gives the directions to the auditors on the manner in which the audit should be conducted by them. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India is also empowered to comment upon the audit reports of the primary auditors. In addition, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India conducts a test audit of the accounts of such companies and reports the results of his audit to Parliament and State Legislatures.
Communism is a political and economic doctrine which seeks to replace private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and control of the major means of production (e.g., mines, mills, and factories) and the natural resources of a society.
Karl Marx is the chief theorist of communism. His theory covers three main aspects: (i) materialist conception of history; (2) critique of capitalism and its workings; and (3) revolutionary overthrow of capitalism anditseventual replacement by communism.
Communitarian ethics refers to several views which share a general orientation. These are communitarian, neo-Aristotelian, and character or virtue ethics. They reflect a new perspective on morals. Communitarians refuse to consider human beings as atomistic or in isolation from society. Traditionally, Western thinkers regarded the essence of human self as consciousness, thought and reason. Communitarians go back to the Aristotelian notion of man as a social animal whose moral development can take place onlywithin an ideal community(polis).Theyreject the idea of a universal and independent humanself.
Communitarians hold that human beings are born into actual historical societies; they share the values and aims of such societies. Individual judgements and decisions-to-act should not be seen as autonomously determined. They are the outcomes of reciprocal interaction between human beings and society. In this regard, communitarians speak of man’s “situatedness” in society. They deny ‘individual primacy’ and accord due role to social influences on men. Communitarians do not regard human beings as wholly self-seeking rationalist decision-makers – a model which underlies modern market based economic theory. They emphasise community based sentiments such as benevolence, altruism, loyalty, and group-based sentiments. This view has important implications for perspectives on public administration and public policy.
Communitarianism focuses on character or virtue ethics. Morality is expressed not in terms of rules but as virtues. For example, ‘Kill not’ is an expression of a rule. But ‘Hate not’ prescribes a virtue which we need to cultivate. Communitarianism also calls for practical wisdom instead of rigid codes or rules.
Communitarian ethics has four weaknesses. First, neither all communities nor all their features are benign. Secondly, community based ethics tend to be particular or parochial and lack universality. Thirdly, communitarianism, in overemphasizing group virtues and solidarity, can usher in totalitarian trends. Fourthly, communitarianism seems like a form of “idealistic stained-glass window nostalgia” for societies which exited human history long ago.
(CharlesJ.Fox,The Use of Philosophy in Administrative Ethics)
Committee on Public Undertakings (COPU)
COPU is a parliamentary committee. The Committee on Public Undertakings exercises the same powers on the public sector undertakings as the Public Accounts Committee exercises over CAG’S audit reports of the Government Departments.
The habitual modes of action that accompany a formed or stable character are described by the term conduct.
Publicservants have to decidevarious matters in thecourse of their work. In doing so,they have to act in a detached and disinterested manner keeping in view only the relevant facts and law. Sometimes, it may so happen that a public servant has a personal interest in a matter he or she has to decide. Then he is said to have a conflict of interest. In other words, his personal interest and official duties are in conflict. He should not decide such matters, but should recuse himself from them.
In most conflicts, neither party is right or wrong; instead, different perceptions collide to create disagreement. Conflict is natural and managers have to respond to conflict situations quickly and professionally. Conflict can be positive; if managers deal with it openly, they can strengthen the organization by correcting problems. Conflicting views give managers an opportunity to learn more about themselves, explore views of others, and develop productive relationships. Clear and open communication is the cornerstone of successful conflict resolution.
Conflict management refers to the practice of recognizinganddealing withdisputes in a rational, balanced and effective way. Conflict management, within a business environment usually involves effective communication, problem resolving abilities and good negotiating skills to restore the focus on the company’s overall goals.
To manage conflict effectively, one has to be a skilled communicator. One has to create an open communication environment in the organization by encouraging employees to talk about work issues. Listening to employee concerns will foster an open environment. One has to really understand what employees are saying by asking questions and focusing on their perception of the problem.
The term conscience is derived from the Latin “to be conscious (of wrong)”. But Butler gave it its definite moral meaning. There are two meanings of the term. First, it means a feeling of pleasure or pain, and especially a feeling of pain, accompanying the violation of a recognised principle of duty. Secondly, it means the principle of judgment by which we pronounce one action or one kind of action, to be right and another wrong. This principle of judgment may be of a particular individual or a social group. Such phrases as “the Non-Conformist Conscience,” “the Conscience of Europe,” and the like, illustrate use of the term in its reference to groups.
Butler considered human nature as an organic whole, with many elements, some of which are naturally subordinate to others. Human nature comprises many particular passions or impulses which lead us to pursue particular objects. These are naturally subordinate to self-love, on the one hand, and to benevolence, on the other.Men naturallyrestrain or guide their passions for promoting their own good or that of others. But there is a principle in human nature superior to self-love or benevolence. This is the principle of reflection upon the law of rightness; and this is what Butler understood by conscience.
There are two versions of the concept of conscience. First, it is simply an inexplicable faculty which we find within us, by which laws are laid down. Secondly, it is an intelligible authority whose commands can be understood by rational reflection. The former view is generally known as Intuitionism; the latter as the law of reason.
Modern writers maintain that conscience refers to codes of moralitywhich are inculcated in men duringtheprocess of upbringinginfamilyandthrougheducation.These represent social values and mores. The psychoanalyst Freud divided human consciousness into three parts. Id represents the primitive drives of man which seek satisfaction unmindful of consequences. Ego is a more rational part of consciousnessthatrecognisesthatone has to regulate or checkone’sselfishpleasure seeking impulses considering the social norms and codes. This is a part of prudence which can be regarded as the realityprinciplethat guides human actions. Realityprinciple can be contrasted with pleasure principle, which underlies the primitive impulses of id. Superego, the third part of consciousness, consists of the moral codes which men acquire. Conscience can be considered as the analogue of superego.
Conservatism is a political doctrine that emphasises the value of traditional institutions and practices. It regards society as a living organism with organically interlinked parts. Conservatives value institutions which evolved slowly for they promote social stability and continuity. Government should guard existing ways of life and not attempt to transform society rapidly. Suspicion of government activism separates conservatism from liberalism and radicalism.
Constitutional Protection to Civil Servants – Article 311
Article 311 gives job security to government servants. It provides procedural safeguards to them against arbitrary dismissal or removal or reduction to a lowerrank. These provisions are enforceable in a court of law. Any order which a disciplinary authority passes in violation of Article 311 will be ab initio void or flawed or invalid from its very inception. The provisions of Articles 311 apply to all government servants.
Conventional or Customary Morality
Conventional morality refers to those customs, laws, and judgments on which there is common social agreement. This agreement or common feeling is the starting point of ethics and of ethical thought. This agreement is itself a source of authority and a test of right and wrong. This social consensus became the source of authority of morals, when morals were no longer accepted on the authority of divinity and religion. However, majority is not always right. Common agreement does not make anything right or wrong, or true or false.
The significance of convention or general agreement in morals lies in the fact that these conventions constitute norms of conduct that have emerged from social experience. They form the factual basis or raw material of ethics. Many literary writers have rebelled against conventional morality which they termed petty-fogging and hypocritical. Philosophers like Nietzsche proposed a “transvaluation of all our values”, and wanted to turn our moral codes topsy-turvy. Many philosophers, on the other hand, think that it is not the business of Ethics to make a new morality, but rather to understand and interpret the morality we have.
Capital Punishment (Death Penalty)
Since long many people have been arguing for abolition of capital punishment or death penalty. Those who support reinstituting or retaining capital punishment are called retentionists. They believe that capital punishment is justified in heinous crimes like premeditated or cold blooded murder. Abolitionistsbelievethat capital punishment is never morallyjustified.
IPC prescribes death and penalty for grave crimes such as murder, rape resulting in victim’s death, waging war against the State. Similarly, The Arms Act, The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, The Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, The Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, The Army/Air Force/navy Acts, contain capital punishment for serious offences.
The Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of capital punishment in “rarest of rare” cases. It ruled that if capital punishment is provided in the law and if the procedure is fair, just and reasonable, death sentence is constitutional. “Rarest of rare” cases imply that courts should specify “special reasons” while awarding death penalty.
Corporate governance refers to the processes, and the related organisational structures, by which organisations are directed, controlled and held to account. It involves a set of relationships between an organisation’s management, its board, its shareholders and other stakeholders. It can also be viewed as the laws, rules, regulations, systems, principles, processes which regulate companies. Three areas are of particular importance for corporate governance – finance, audit and corporate law(which ensurescompliancewith regulations).Chief financial officer andcompanysecretaryplay critical parts in corporate governance.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
If a company a) has a net worth of rupees five hundred crore or more, or b) turnover of rupees one thousand crore or more, or c) a net profit of rupees five crore or more in a financial year, then it has to constitute a Corporate Social Responsibility Committee of the Board. The committee should have three or more directors, with at least one independent director. The Board’s report to share holders should disclose the composition of the Corporate Social Responsibility Committee. CSR policy has to be formulated and monitored by the board’s CSR committee. CSR can cover health, education, anti–poverty, skill development and other similar programmes which help the poor and needy.
Corruption includes:
(i) Demanding and/or accepting [by any public servant] of gratification other than legal remuneration with respect to an official act or for using his influence with any other official.
(ii) Obtaining a valuable thing, without consideration or with inadequate consideration from a person with whom he has or is likely to have official dealings or with whom his subordinates have official dealings or where he can exert influence.
(iii) Obtaining for himself or for any other person any valuable thing or pecuniary advantage by corrupt or illegal means or by abusing his position as a public servant.
(iv) Possessing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income
(v) Cases of misappropriation, forgery or cheating or other similar criminal offences.
Utilitarian and other consequentialist theories evaluate human actions, motives and institutions depending fundamentally on their actual or likely consequences (good and bad). So, moral agents in any situation have to select that action which leads to more good than bad to society. On the other hand according to deontology, solution to moral problems or difficulties depends on finding rationally valid rules or principles for dealing with them. Deontological theories assert that there are other considerations that may make an action or rule right or obligatory besides the goodness or badness of its consequences. These may be certain features of the act itself (other than its beneficial effects). These features, for example, may be that the act keeps a promise; or that it is just; or that it is divine command or a State law. In other words, a deontologist contends that it is possible for an action or rule of action to be the morally right or obligatory one even if it does not promote the greatest possible balance of good over evil for self, society or universe. Further, the moralagent does notrefer to his feelings, pleasures or ends. He acts in obedience to duty or a moral command. Thus forKant, moralityconsistsin unflinchingobedience to an ethical command.
In theory, government decisions at various levels are objective in the sense that they rely on a set of impersonalrulesandoperateequallyasbetweensimilarlysituatedindividuals.However, in practice no set of rules, no matter how exhaustive, can cover all possible cases. Hence, rules cannot entirely guide decisions. In such situations officials have to use their individual discretion in decision making. But discretionary power has to be minimised. There is a tendency for corruption to follow in the wake of discretion.
Ethics is a part of philosophy. It is called moral philosophy. Philosophers analyse morality, moral doctrines, moral questions and moral judgements. Ethics discusses these questions in three, rather distinct (but related), ways. First, it conducts historical and empirical inquiries into moral practices of existing or past societies. These studies are taken up in history, anthropology, social psychology and sociology. These are factual or descriptive studies of moral behaviour of people in current or past social systems.
It is customary to distinguish between the facts and the theories based upon the facts. The facts of ethics are our actual morals. Ethical theory has to do with the reasons for them. We may think that the morals of people - the facts of ethics - are how they actually act, the folk-ways or mores. But this is not so. The morals of a people are the ways they think they ought to act, in other words their judgments of good and bad, or of right and wrong. Ethical facts are always judgments; ethical theories, the reasons given for these judgments. The fact has to do with the judgment of right and wrong; the theory with the question of why it is right or wrong.
The secondtype of studyrepresents discussions into what is right, good or obligatory. Thistakes the form of normative judgements like – ‘Wealth should be equitably distributed’, ‘Women should have equal rights with men or ‘Old people should be covered by social security’. After making such judgements, one has to give reasoned logical analysis supporting them. One may also think about or discuss what is right or good in any given case, and then arrive at a normative judgement. By and large, until the beginning of the twentieth century, philosophers tended to propose new moral ideas or espouse and refine existing moral theories.
This approach of philosophers changed because philosophy methodologically took a linguistic or analytical turn in the twentieth century. This meant that philosophers gave up discussing substantive questions of what moral principles should an individual or society adopt or how one should lead one’s life. Instead, they discuss the meanings of moral terms based on the writings of earlier philosophers and on how common people use such terms in their ordinary speech. This type of analysis discusses matters like – What is the meaning of good or right? What are the logical implications of act-utilitarianism? How can moral judgements be justified? Can they be justified at all? Such discussions are often marked by hair splitting and logic chopping.
Some writers divide the subject matter of Ethics textbooks into certain broad parts. One such division is –
1. The Psychology of the Moral Consciousness (Moral agent’s desires, drives and dispositions)
2. The Sociology of the Moral Life (Actual facts of everyday morals of men and women in society)
3. The Theories of the Moral Standard (Theories like utilitarianism, deontology, virtue and self realisation)
4. The Application of the Standard to the treatment of the Moral Life. (Application of ethical principles to individual, social and administrative contexts)
Doctrine of Double Effects (DDE)
The DDE assumes the following scenario:
¤ Agent X is contemplating an action T, which X foresees will produce both good/moral/just effects J and bad/immoral/unjust effects U.
¤ The DDE permits X to perform T only if: 1) T is otherwise permissible; 2) X only intends J and not U; 3) U is not a means to J; and 4) the goodness of J is worth, or is proportionately greater than, the badness of U.
¤ Assume now that X is a country and T is war.
¤ The government of X, contemplating war in response to an attack by aggressor country Y, foresees that, should it embark on war to defend itself, civilian casualties will result, probably in both X and Y.
¤ The DDE stipulates that X may launch into this defensive (and thus otherwise permissible) war only if: 1) X does not intend the resulting civilian casualties but rather aims only at defending itself and its people; 2) such casualties are not themselves the means whereby X’s end is achieved; and 3) the importance of X defending itself and its people from Y’s aggression is proportionately greater than the badness of the resulting civilian casualties.
¤ The DDE, in making these claims, refers to common shared principles regarding the moral importance of intent, of appealing to better expected consequences, and insisting that bad not be done so that good may follow from it.
Duty, Obligation and ‘Ought To’
These three expressions tend to be used synonymously both in philosophy and common discourse. But they have slightly different meanings. Duty is to be used when we have in mind some rule like ‘Tell the truth’ or some role like that of a major commanding forces at the front. Obligation has to be used when we have in mind a law or agreement or promise. In these cases one person has an obligation and another has a correlative right. Ought to is a wider term to cover things which we do not regard as duties or obligations or to which others have any right. The statement that ‘one ought to go out of his way to assist the indebted’ does not constitute a duty or obligation; nor does it point to any rights to which the indebted are entitled.
EgoisticHedonism is the doctrine that what each ought to seek is hisown greatest pleasure.The only writers who have held this doctrine in a pure form are the Cyrenaics and Epicureans. The writers of the former school, however, confined themselves to advocating the pursuit of the pleasure of each moment as it passes i. e. they did not take account of long term consequences. The Epicureans recommendedthat oneshould secure the happiness of life as a whole. In modern times,owing to the spirit of self-sacrifice introduced by Christianity,this doctrine has seldom been avowed in any form.
Moral philosophers generally tend to oppose ethical egoism because in a way it undercuts morality. It places the individual happiness at the centre of the moral universe. There can be no objection to individuals seeking happiness, but they should not completely ignore the other members of society.
According to Freud, much of human behaviour reflects an attempt to deal with or escape from anxiety. Thus, how the ego deals with anxiety largely determines how people behave. Freud believed that people avoid anxiety mainly by developing defence mechanisms that try to defend the ego against the awareness of the instinctual needs or of situation threatening their self-esteem. Thus, defence mechanism is a way of reducing anxiety by distorting reality.
Althoughsomedefenceagainst anxiety is normal and adaptive,peoplewho use thesemechanisms to such an extent that reality is truly distorted develop various forms of maladjustment.
Freud has described many different kinds of defence mechanisms. The most important is repression, in which anxiety provoking behaviours or thoughts are totally repressed by the unconscious. When people repress a feeling or desire, they become totally unaware of that wish or desire.
Repressing one’s feelings can lead to psychological problems. Freud’s early studies in Vienna were about hysteria in ladies caused by their repression of their sexual impulses and embarrassments. Freud cured them by making them aware of their repressed feelings through psycho analysis.
Othermajordefence mechanismsareprojection,denial, reactionformation andrationalization. In projection, people attribute their own traits to others. Thus, a person who has strong aggressive tendencies may see other people as acting in an excessively aggressive way towards her/him. In denial, a person totally refuses to accept reality. Thus, someone suffering from HIV/AIDS may altogether deny her/his illness. In reaction formation, a person defends against anxiety by adopting behaviours opposite to her/his true feelings. A person with strong sexual urges, who channels her/his energy into religious fervour, presents a classical example of reaction formation. In rationalization, a person tries to make unreasonable feelings or behaviour seem reasonable. For example, when someone buys a set of new pens after doing poorly in an examination, she/he may try to rationalize her/his behaviour by asserting “I will do much better with these pens”.
People who use defence mechanisms are often unaware of doing so. Each defence mechanism is a way for the ego to deal with the uncomfortable feelings produced by anxiety. However, Freud’s ideas about the role of defence mechanisms have been questioned.
Daniel Goleman explains emotional intelligence as consisting of “abilities such as being able to motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustrations; to control impulse and delay gratification; to regulate one’s moods and keep distress from swamping the ability to think; to empathize and hope.” We can regard these as positive qualities which help us in steadfastly pursuing goals which ultimately lead to success and happiness. Except empathy, the other qualities are directed towards one’s ownself.
According to Howard Gardener, interpersonal intelligence is the ability to understand other people: what motivates them, how they work, how to workcooperatively with them. Successful sales people, politicians, teachers, clinicians, and religious leaders are all likely to be individuals with high degrees of interpersonal intelligence. Intrapersonal intelligence is a correlative ability, turned inward. It is a capacity to form an accurate, veridical [true] model of oneself and to be able to use that model to operate effectively in life.
In another formulation, Howard Gardener mentions that the core of interpersonal intelligence includes “the capacities to discern and respond appropriately to the moods, temperaments, motivations, and desires of other people”. In intrapersonal intelligence, the key to self- knowledge is “access to one’s own feelings and the ability to discriminate among them and draw upon them to guide one’s behaviour.”
Additional Note Emotional intelligence is a set of skills that underlie accurate appraisal, expression, and regulation of emotions. It is the feeling side of intelligence. A good IQ and scholastic record is not enough to be successful in life. You may find many people who are academically talented, but are unsuccessful in their own life. They experience problems in family, workplace and in interpersonal relationships. What do they lack? Some psychologists believe that the source of their difficulty may be a lack of emotional intelligence. Salovey and Mayer consider emotional intelligence as “the ability to monitor one’s own and other’s emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use the information to guideone’sthinking andactions”.EmotionalQuotient(EQ) isused to expressemotionalintelligence
in the same way as IQ is used to express intelligence. In simple terms, emotional intelligence refers to the ability to process emotional information accurately and efficiently.
The term emotional literacy is used at times as a synonym for emotional intelligence, but the two differ in important ways. According to Claude Steiner, Emotional Literacy is made up of ‘the ability to understand your emotions, the ability to listen to others and empathize with their emotions, and the ability to express emotions productively. Emotional literacy improves relationships, creates loving possibilities between people, makes co-operative work possible, and facilitates the feeling of community.
He breaks emotional literacy into 5 parts:
1. Knowing one’s feelings.
2. Having a sense of empathy.
3. Learning to manage one’s emotions.
4. Repairing emotional damage; and
5. Emotional interactivity.
According to Steiner, emotional literacy involves understanding one’s feelings and those of others to facilitate relationships, including using dialogue and self-control to avoid negative arguments. The ability to be aware and read other people’s feelings enables one to interact with them effectively so that powerful emotional situations can be handled in a skilful way. Steiner calls this “emotional interactivity”.
The dictionary meaning of empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. People often confuse the words empathy and sympathy. Empathy means ‘the ability to understand and share the feelings of another’ whereas sympathy means ‘feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else’s misfortune’ (example: sympathy for the flood victims).
Inpsychology,empathy refers to theability to imagineoneself in another’splaceand understand the other’s feelings, desires, ideas, and actions. It is a term coined in the early 20th century, equivalent to the German Einfühlung and modelled on “sympathy.” The term is used with special (but not exclusive) reference to aesthetic experience. The most obvious example, perhaps, is that of the actor or singer who genuinely feels the part he is performing. With other works of art, a spectator may, by a kind of introjection, feel himself involved in what he observes or contemplates. The use of empathy is an important part of the counselling technique developed by the American psychologist Carl Rogers. This ability helps managers and administrators to deal with workers and general public.
Human actions can be seen as made-up of two parts. One part consists of the objective or aim of action – also calleditsend. Theotherpart consists of methods or mechanisms – usuallycalled means in ethics – used for achieving the ends.
Moral discussions often involve questions about the relation between ends and means. The end of an action is that for the sake of which it is performed; the means is the way in which the end is to be achieved. The distinction arises also in connection with various moral principles. Some of these are – you may not do evil for the sake of good; who wills the end wills the means; people must always be treated as ends, never merely as means. One perennial debate in ethics is whether bad means can be used to secure good ends. The general view of most moralists is that no good can result from evil. If achieving a goal necessarily involves bad means, it has to be given up. There is a general consensus that good ends can be or should be reached only through good means. It is vehemently argued that evil means inevitably defeat even good ends. Or in trying to reach certain ideals (as it happened in Soviet Union) one may end up inflicting enormous harm.
Working out how to adapt means to ends is one characteristic function of reason. According to Hume and Weber, the place of reason in practical affairs consists in instrumental or technical rationality. In other words, reasoning is concerned only with the best or efficient means of reaching social goals. On such an account, questions of ends are not subject to reason, but are non-rational matters of emotion or desire; reason therefore cannot adjudicate between conflicting ends, but only tell us how to achieve them. Many writers regard that the equation of reason with instrumental reasoning is a symptom of industrial,technical societies.They arguethat humanrationalityhelpsin suitable choice of individual and social goals.
(Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy)
Definition
Environmental Ethics or Ethics of Nature is a branch of applied ethics that discusses values, rules, norms and criteria for responsibly handling non-human natural entities. It provides the groundwork forsocial policy on issues of environmental protection, animal protection, nature protection, animal rights and sustainability.
Environmental ethics cover three main areas:
1. Resource Ethics: responsible management of scarce and non renewable resources and environmental media such as water, soil, air and climate
2. Animal Ethics: Responsible treatment of animals, particularly those which can experience pain
3. Ethics of Nature Protection: responsible treatment of collective biotic entities e.g. populations, species and ecosystems.
Major strands of thought
1. Anthropocentrism (Greek: anthropos = human being) holds that animals, plants, or organisms have no intrinsic value. They deserve protection only if they serve human purposes as resources, or as sources of joy or of recreation/sports. Human beings are seen as at the top of ‘nature’s ladder’ by virtue of their reasoning abilities. Classic Western philosophers like Bacon, Descartes and Kant believed in this view which is based on dualism (body/soul; body/spirit; body/brain).
2. Pathocentrism (Greek: pathos = suffering, pain) assumes that all life is of the same origin and thus related. As a consequence, all living beings have the capacity to experience pain. In Christian tradition, this leads back to an ‘ethics of compassion’.
3. Holism: It is the doctrine that the whole is more than the sum of its parts or that in certain contexts one has to look at the system as a whole than at its parts.
The following three doctrines provide the basis for many environmental themes and values.
(a) Biocentrism
Albert Schweitzer advocates that we should have reverence for life. “All life wants to live, like me”. Paul Taylor says that all living has intrinsic value, and a will of life. Living beings have own interests and strive for their own good. Biocentrism can be either individualistic or holistic. It generally excludes ecosystems and non-living nature, like ozone layer.