The word ethics is not just a mere word in the dictionary written before the word ethnic, but it has some real significance, where slow and steady no more wins the race, instead fasts and smarts, regardless of the paths chosen by them are the scene stealers in today’s world. Right from early childhood competitions winning, losing, habits –good or bad, friends- right or wrong is being inculcated in a child through various ways may be value education classes or through other co- curricular activities. But such classes are never given enough importance but are considered a fun activity class like art and craft or music for instance.
But why is it that this topic ethics which addresses questions about morality that is concept such as good and bad, noble and ignoble, right and wrong, justice and virtue never taken seriously by educators, unlike maths or science for instance..
At a school level, a child unaware of ethics can do various harmful things such as:
- Cheating during exams
- Bullying schoolmates
- Making obscene video-clips
- Gunfire or hitting schoolmates
If children endure at school, ethics as a subject than they would grow into a matured, tactful, tolerant and moral enough good professionals or global citizens. And not someone who puts individual interest above group responsibility.
At company level, when a Chartered Accountant no matter how best he is in his field if he lacks ethics in him that would only lead to forged balance sheets. Or a sales executive just as shown in the recent movie Rocket Singh- the salesman doesn’t need to think twice before hacking into his own company’s databases. (to take revenge). Instead he could have just confronted his bosses. But the chap lacked ethics and his faith in it.
Had it been a formal subject in high school he would be sure that the people around him do know what is right and what is wrong, what is fair and what is unfair.
But sometimes just sometimes, when you are eating vada pau on the street and a poor kid comes and asks you for one, then you question your ethics as to should I or should not? Or when for the president of a country like India which has observed peaceful relations with even its enemies, should I or should I not fight a war killing thousands?. When questions like this arise it is difficult to stay ethical but as one of the philosophers’ John Stuart Mill trumpets the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number can be observed according to my point of view. As I feel that an attempt of sharing your vada pau with that little boy at least once in a lifetime would be prized for both the parties. Or for the president talks with the opponent might minimize the intensity of the war, considering the greater good love for mankind.
Additionally, if ethics is made a formal subject in high school it would not only give the students an idea about its principal areas and including them in their daily life but would also give them an insight into the study of philosophy which rarely is considered a subject equivalent to Commerce or Sciences after high school.
My friends often tease me to be the Aristotle or Socrates of modern world, but I guess I am just like an old wine in a new bottle.
