Professional ethics , Wisdom , Virtues, Ethics , General Studies , UPSC ESE

 Wisdom / Prudence

• It is distinct from intelligence.
• It represent a superior level of knowledge and judgement.
• Wisdom helps individuals to address important and difficult question about the conduct and meaning / life goal of life.
• Baltes and Staudingr (2000) defined wisdom as expertise in the conduct and meaning of life . Thus , the wise person is someone who has expert knowledge about the meaning of life (what really matters) & how to manage and plan a meaningful life.
• Intelligence = job / carrier
• Wisdom = meaningful life

Virtues for ethically responsible engineers

• Expertise 
• Clear and informative communication
• Cooperation
• Willingness to make compromises
• Punctuality
• Objectivity
• Being open to criticism
• Stamina 
• Creativity
• Striving for quality
• Having an eye for detail

Deontological paths

• The word deontological derived from the greek word deon , meaning duty.
• It is concerned with right action based on duty.
• Most people believe that all human being have some duties to other human being.
• Duties can be positive , such as the duty to look after one's children or negative, such as duty not to murder another human being .
• When we speak of duties it implies that the duty is universal to all human being (or at least to all adult human of sound mind).

Duty based ethics

• The foundation of the duty based ethics was laid German philospher , Immanuel Kant.
• Ethical actions are those actions that could be written down on a list of duties : be honest , don't cause harm to others, etc.

Categorical imperative 

• Categorical : true all the times
• Imperative : something a person has to do
• Safety in engineering : true all the times and one had to do it .

Putting public interest over personal interest 

• Core of public service
• Public servants not use public office for personal gain.

Dedicated to service

• Exist for citizens convenience

Procedural fairness

• Ensuring that all persons are treated in the same way or treated consistently.
• It ensures that citizens are not treated arbitrarily discriminated against , or ignored when others are receiving a service.

Fiduciary (trust) responsibility

• Making the best possible use of resources
• Spending resources frugally
• Public servant should seek to be effective and to achieve the greatest accomplishment with the best use of resource available .

Basic duties 

• Be bound by and uphold the law.
• Support democratic process
• Be responsive to the policy goals of political superiors.

Unethical practices

• Bribery
• Scheming with appointments
• Nepotism , favouring friends
• Sexual discrimination
• Harrasment at work
• Withdrawing from responsibility
• Identification with an interest group
• Unnecessary delaying

Utilitarianism / consequentialism : Beginning of the approach (Machiavelli)

• People need to learn "how to use good and bad for beneficial ends"
• Ethicalment of an action should be judged by its consequences. 

Morality is not about pleasing good , nor it is about being faithful to abstract rules .

"morality is about making --- oneself as happy as possible " _______ 'Bentham'

Main thesis 

• The morality of action depends solely on the consequences of the action nothing else matters.

It all about consequences 

Whether a certain action is right or wrong does not depend on what the kind of action it is (whether it is a case of lying or killing ) or with what intention it is performed (whether it is performed with good or bed intention) , its only consequences.

What kind of consequences?

Morally correct actions are not simply all actions with favorable consequences , but the morally correct action in one which produces the best consequences .

Two types of utilitarianism

• Act utilitarianism : JS Mill beleived that rules should be broken if doing so will lead to most good.
• Rule utilitarianism : Believes the moral rules are most important , it holds following moral rule will ultimately lead to the most good.

Advantages

• Utilitarian's  look beyond the act to the consequences of the act in determining whether it is right or wrong.
• It is what one accomplish that is important , rather  than how it  is done.

Disadvantages

• Approach has great potential for abuse in pursuits of results more than often , the means are abused.

Features of professional ethics 

• Codes of particular profession
• Practices of particular profession
• Providing ethical identity to the profession