Ethics

In an “I will do what I like” kind of world we have today, what relevance do we have to ethics? Is it really justifiable to have ethics in vogue in today’s context? Is it really true that we can do anything we want always? It reminds me of a small story I read in school

An English gentleman is walking on street waving his stick at his own will. In an unfortunate moment, the stick hit the nose of another gentleman who is coming from behind. When the second man objected, the first man replied that he has freedom to wave his stick at his own will to which second man said, “Your freedom ends where my nose begins”. He is absolutely right. It is very much applicable even when it comes to ethics.

We truly are not free to do everything we like. But let’s reserve this argument for later and assume we are. Just like the above story our freedom ends where other person’s begins. We do not have freedom to hurt or impact other person’s life by our actions/words/thoughts. Sometimes we do not realize that our actions are impacting our family, our kids, our friends and also our society. Who gives us right do so? This will bring us back to the first question “Are we really free to do everything we like, if we do not know what impact it will have on others in the long run?” Answer is big NO.

Why we need Ethics now?

The next argument that arises is “We are all taught good manners and good behavior by our parents since we are kids. Why we need discourses on Ethics again?” True most of our parents taught us what is good and what is bad when we were kids. But their biggest failure was they thought it was adequate to teach. Our earlier generation did not put into practice themselves the good things they taught their kids. That lead to our generation take easy on some of those things. Say for example a father teaches his son to be show respect to elders and the same person when he talks to his father or father like person in a harsh note, what the kid will learn from this contradiction. Say for example a mother teaches her daughter importance of chastity for a woman but what will the kid learn if the mother does not put that into practice in her own life?

By far our ethics have condensed to the level of what is convenient for us. And for every rule broken comes a justification. It looks very appropriate at the moment and justification very apt, if we overlook long term consequences of the situation. A simplest example is a boy and girl fall in love and disobeys traditional caste system to get married. Little will they realize that their marriage can create problems for rest of their family and even their kids!

What are Ethics anyways?

It would be over confidence if I consider myself as an expert in this field and start my discourses on the subject. Frankly speaking, I am trying to put some of the things I know into a organized manner. Not that I know everything, but I have gotten a chance to witness few things in the world by the way of my own deeds (right as well as wrong), by way of spectator to few deeds done by other and also a victim of deeds others committed for their own selfish gains. I would also add a disclaimer that some of the places you may find myself carried away a bit by the emotion and I seek your advance forgiveness. There starts a series of articles on ethics.