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Personal Ethics
Ethics. The word defies a simple and comprehensive definition. My first exposure to it was many decades ago when during a casual conversation, my father told me of an incident. A few people were visiting him and they decided to go for a walk. Those were the days when residential phones were not as common as they are now. So one had to request a neighbor or go to a store for the use of a phone. As my father and the visitors were taking a walk, one of them went into a store to make a call. When he joined the group, he told them that he made a long distance call but paid only for a local call. This story made me think about what is right. It was then that I started paying attention to ethics. However, even now I am unable to define ethics is, and the closest that I can get to is that ethics defines what is right. One can talk about professional, societal, or personal ethics. Even then, the boundaries are not clear. Personal ethics can cross over to professional ethics and vice versa. Having defined ethics, a person has to decide what is right, in the context of his/her religion, family, and environment. It goes beyond morality, religion, or laws. To illustrate the many facets of personal ethics let me recall a few incidents in my life. After many years of teaching in an American university, I went to Bangalore, India and taught a course in an engineering college for one semester. I was raised in Bangalore and obtained my bachelors degree from one of its colleges, but after teaching for almost 30 years in the US, I found it difficult adjusting to the different culture. As soon as I entered the classroom all the students stood up! Then when I started to write something on the board, it appeared that all the students were talking among themselves. When I turned around there was absolute silence as if a switch had been turned off. A few days into the semester, I told them that during the first two or three minutes I would let them talk but then they should refrain from talking thereafter. With some adjustments, I established a friendly rapport with the students and towards the end of the semester, I posed the question “if there was absolute certainty that you would not be caught, how many of you would refrain from cheating in an examination?” I was astonished at the answer that I got – none. When I asked them why they would cheat, the comment was that they have found that by doing so they get on better in life in terms of getting a well paid job. They then asked me why they should not cheat. It was a difficult one to answer. The only thing that I could think of was that at the end of the day, they could walk with their heads high with the knowledge that they had not done anything that was not right. It is common knowledge that if one wants to build a house in Bangalore, one has to be prepared to pay more than the scheduled fee at every stage – to register the purchased site, to get the khata, to get the plan approved and so on. When the construction of our house in Bangalore was completed, I went to get the sale deed from the Bangalore Development Authority. The clerk told me to get the approved plans. When I took them to him the next day, he told me that it could be done but I had to pay Rs. 8000 for “expenses.” I was shocked as I was not prepared to pay for the “expenses.” I met him the next day and told him that I decided to postpone getting the sale deed. He began to negotiate the amount of the “expenses” but I stood firm and told him that I would wait and walked out of the office. On the corridor of the building stood a middle-aged lady who said that she would come a 100 times to the office but would not pay a single paisa as bribe. What a way to fight corruption! A few days back I went to a store to borrow a DVD of the recently released movie, Rann. The person at the counter showed me a DVD which was clearly a copy of the original DVD. He told me that it was priced slightly higher than renting the movie. Thinking that the copy for rent would be a legal copy of the DVD I told him that I would like to rent the movie. He just gave the same copy of the DVD. I decided to wait until I could get a legal copy. I am sure that many people would be happy to get a DVD priced at between Rs. 45 and 90 when the legal copy could cost many times that price. A friend of mine has an interesting view of avoiding taxes. He says that it has been established that hardly 20% of the money targeted to the welfare of the people reaches them. Therefore, it is better to avoid paying a part of the taxes and use that money for a charity of one’s choice! In the first instance of cheating in an examination the issues are quite clear. In the case of paying for expenses to BDA or BBMP the issue becomes a little more complicated. If one insists on not paying anything more than the legal fees, then one will have to make umpteen number of trips to the offices, which not only is a drain on the available time for the person (particularly difficult for a working person) but also results in an enormous delay with a concomitant increase in the cost of construction. Should one insist on being correct and suffer the consequences or just pay the bribes and get the work done? The case of the DVD is one which many people face on a day-to-day basis in one way or another. And how about accepting an offer of a loan of a not-legal copy of a DVD? Many people do not even think about it being right or wrong. I would like to conclude this with a small incident. I was having a nice chat with my brothers and sisters all of whom are educated and knowledgeable. The topic turned to our venerated statesman, the late Sir M. Visweswaraiah. He is well known for his high standards of ethics. Many of us face the possibility of dual use, an item given for our professional work like a car. Is it ethical to use it for personal use like dropping one’s daughter at school unless it is clear that it can be used for personal work also? Sir MV carried ethics of dual use to its extreme by carrying two pens, one for official work and the other for personal work. When I related this, some of my siblings laughed saying it was ridiculous instead of admiring him for his high standards. This clearly shows that ethical standards have taken deep dive in our society. Yes, it is difficult to be ethically correct in all instances but one can always think about the issues and do the best one can even if it is not always the easiest path. In the practice of ethics, one also has to be cautious and avoid being accused of the arrogance of righteousness.
Chillibreeze's disclaimer: This is a contributed article and was published on Chillibreeze in April, 2010. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of Chillibreeze as a company. Chillibreeze has a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Please contact us to report any copyright issues related to this article. The relevance of the facts and figures cited (if any) could change after a period of time.
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