Ethics in Public Life, Administration and Governance

Introduction

Socialization is the hallmark of human life. Society is a network of human beings. The
inter-personal relationships are the foundation of the society. The existence of the individual as
well as the society is based on each other. None can be imagine without other. Plato considered
individual apart from the state mere an unethical abstraction. No doubt, the human beings are
independent in context of their innate ability to think, develop ideas, and persona yet for living a
meaningful life, they need a social interaction and intermingling. The meaning to the life is
infused by his social interaction and social inter-dependence as one is not capable to perform all
the task solely and for various needs of life, the human beings are mutually dependent upon each
other. Plato pointed out that a just man is not an isolated product. He is not even self-made.
Separation of man from society was not less than suicide as isolation and lack of self-sufficiency
would extinguish the meaningfulness. The social nature of man has its roots in his own
imperfection and human individuality. The society evolved as a complex structure of relationship
between and among individuals which are diverse in nature. The growth of the society as a social
organization happened while keeping man in its control and to address his need for cooperation.
Therefore, Plato held that society must be placed higher than the individual as the society can
enable him to live a perfect life by turning his imperfections into cooperation. He grows up in
perfect society and unconsciously takes on the colour of its customs and laws. The rigor of these
complexities is relaxed by the social norms such as customs, legislations, ethical norms etc. This
module shall discuss the role and significance of ethics in public life.

As discussed in other module titled, administrative ethics in governance, the humanity is at the
crossroads in post pandemic era and COVID-19 catastrophe has exposed the vulnerabilities and
fragility of already fractured global socio-politic order. The vertical penetration of
inter-generational and intra-generational inequities in the humanity despite the call for inclusive
governance since 1992- the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development have
flagged off the trust deficit among the institutions of governance. The digital revolution has
certainly made the man to live two lives- one as a global citizen living above the land and other
as a netizen living in virtual world. Everyone has now two or more identities like one identity
associated with the personality and recognized by the State, and other oneself created in the
virtual world without any limitations. The identities created in the virtual world has added a list
of the challenges before governance in the form of online frauds, and long list of cybercrimes
covering cyber defamation, cyber stalking, cyber pornography, cyber bullying and so on. The
severity of the cybercrimes in present times can be understood from this fact that a thief can steal
much more by mere a click of mouse than a group of robbers in a bank. These challenges makes
it clear that undoubtedly the man’s significant cognitive and rational faculty distinguish him from
other living creatures but his animal instincts, in other words, animal origin prevents him to be
perfectly rational. Consequently, irrational actions need to be addressed through controlling
mechanism of the society.
The challenges being faced by the humanity not only in a nation specific but across the
jurisdictions despite a cobweb of laws are perplexing. Number of scams, inequities in
distribution of material resources of the community, deaths of millions due to lack of access to
health care, nutrition, racial discrimination are the defining attributes of life in present times and
underline an ethical demand to revisit on the structural framework, institutional mechanism and
operational output. Against this backdrop, ethical orientation and conditioning of public support
system is the top priority.

In a rapidly changing environment, the public servants have to carry out their tasks with limited
resources, increased demands from citizens and greater public scrutiny. These reforms have an
impact on the prevailing traditional public service values and standards. Thus, the ethical values
need to be adjusted to ensure accountability and excellence in public service delivery. Ethics is
gaining importance today because though most of the laws are grounded on ethical principles,
for most organizations, following ethical practices is simply good for their effective functioning.
A demonstrated public service culture that supports and provides appropriate norms and
initiatives for professional and responsible behaviour is essential for good governance.

Movement towards Ethical Renaissance

Ethical renaissance connecting to converge the diverse cultural approaches towards ethics in the
age of digital revolution can certainly be a generational opportunity. The post pandemic era
demands a new social contract within and among the nations where the ethics should govern
every aspect of life- be it private, public, emotional, intellectual, physical, spiritual,
environmental, business, social, political or digital to plug the evil of trust deficit. The prefatory
statement of the United Nations Conference on Human Environment (UNCHE), 1972 can be
aptly referred here, ‘Man is both creator and moulder of the environment’. Part III of the
preamble to the UNCHE, 1972 reminds of the solution to tackle the existing threats in the form
of classically crafted advisory, to quote:

Man has constantly to sum up experience and go on discovering, inventing,

Though these words of wisdom were expressed in context of environment pollution yet these are
relevant with regard to every threat before the governance. Because these threats owe their origin
and strength not to the absence of laws but decline in the ethical values. Deterioration in ethical
values resulted in poor decision making on the part of electorate itself and elected representatives
which consistently influence the public administration, dampens the spirits of those in
implementing mechanism and ultimately the electorate has to bear the brunt. To quote Joseph De
Mastire, ‘In a democracy, the people get the leaders they deserve’.
Ethics in Public Life, Administration and Governance:

Ethics are meant as a structure of accepted beliefs, a values system and conduct rules to regulate
the activities of human beings. The combined set of values and moral principles deriving their
legitimacy from social approval impact the functioning of the government. The positive
interaction between the governance and people is considered as virtue. In case of negative
interaction, the relationship of governance with people becomes vicious. Colonial legacy of
skepticism adds to the complexities across the jurisdictions and India is not immune to the
tendency of the people to look at the government and institutions of governance with skepticism.
In such an atmosphere, the liberties guaranteed under the Constitution and human rights
recognized under the different charters and international covenants become the subject of
misinterpretation and wrong constructions. Such wrong constructions are the outcome of
mischievous anti-government and anti-establishment agenda being operated by the people with
narrow and subtle visions of meaning of liberties and human rights. Liberties and human rights
are certainly the guarantees. No State can afford a better governance without providing an
atmosphere where the people enjoy their liberties. Looking at Indian context, fundamental rights
guaranteed under Part III of the Indian Constitution are negative prohibitions on the power of the
State and the State has been restricted from taking away or abridging the fundamental rights of
the citizens. Besides, the Part IV of the Constitution spells out a list of directive principles of
State policy in the form of guidelines for the institutions of governance. These guidelines need to
be given respect and paramount importance at the time of utilizing the resources of the
community. The public functionaries – be the elected representatives or the public servants are
repositories of public trust and they owe an obligation towards their posts, and the people at large
to serve them.

Furthermore, the conjoint reading of the fundamental rights and directive principles and
deconstruction of spirit underlying the constitutional script clearly demonstrates that these two
parts of the Constitution i.e. part III and part IV are pillars to realize the goals of constitutional
governance. The concept of justice specified in Preamble as a first promise of Indian republic
having made to itself cannot be realized without affording fundamental rights to the stakeholders.
It is through fundamental rights that an individual can realize his potential to the best possible
extent and live his life in a dignified way. Life without availing these rights would amount to
more an animal existence. No doubt, the fundamental rights have been recognized within the
limits. These limits are indispensable in a civil society. Because no civil society recognizes
absolute rights. Besides, the goal of liberty, equality and fraternity can be realized with an ethical
framework and making ethics a pre-requisite of public administration. It cannot be ignored that
the people in the government are also product of the society and its environment. In
contemporary world, irrespective of the functioning of the mechanism of the State such as laissez
faire, capitalism, socialism, welfare or mix- the government has a direct or indirect intervention
in the life of people- from cradle to the grave. The interaction of the individual with state occurs
through the domain of health care, education, water, electricity, housing, transport, public
infrastructure, land, market, culture, entertainment, science, research, intellectual property,
quality of products etc. The decisions, policy and performance of the government and institutions
of governance impact every individual. The government and citizens interaction is vital aspect of
governance. It can bear the positive fruits only if there is an ethical backup to the constitutional
and legal set up. The goals of the constitutional governance can be attained only with an ethical
implementing workforce.

The need for integration of ethics to realize the goals of constitutional governance lies in the
concept of powers especially discretionary powers. Ethics enable the authority to make the
rational decisions. Besides, significance of ethics in public administration has been underline by
Ethical and Compliance Initiative (ECI) as under:

●​ The decisions, choices, and actions (behaviors) we make that reflect and enact our
values.
●​ The study of what we understand to be good and right behavior and how people
make those judgments.
●​ A set of standards of conduct that guide decisions and actions based on duties
derived from core values.

The rational decisions are based on personal beliefs, orientation, upbringing, socio-cultural
environment. There are many ethical traits which form the personal beliefs of a person such as
honesty, fairness, leadership, integrity, compassion, respect, responsibility, loyalty, law-abiding,
transparency, and environmental concerns. These traits are common for every human being and
lead them towards a meaningful and contented life. With ethical orientation and conditioning of
mind, the stakeholders contribute in a better and equitable world through the fair, equitable,
harmonious and peaceful performance of their deeds and face the challenges together without
intruding upon the liberties of one another in day-to-day family life, social life and professional
life. So far as relevance of ethics at work place is concerned, at every level of public
administration and public dealing across the institutions, ethics enable stakeholders to tackle
ethical dilemmas while exercising discretion. The basket of challenges carries with it financial
conflicts of interest and impartiality, use of government position and resources for private gains
and advantages, gifts and payments, outside employment and activities for self or family
members, post service employment etc. Therefore, understanding and imbibing ethical values
among the public servants especially, help to transform the governance trustworthy, enjoys
public trust, accountability, transparency, efficiency and effectiveness, respect and equity, and
judicial and optimum utilization of resources.

Sources of Ethics

The transcultural history is full of textual reference of ethics in the form of Karamyog, Gyanyog
in Shrimad Bhagvat Gita, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Buddha’s philosophy, Kautilya’s
Arthshashtra and different Shrutis, Smritis apart from the contribution of Greek, Roman and
Chinese thinkers Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Lao Tsu, Confucius, Aquinas, Kant,
Rousseau, J.S.Mill, Bentham and many more. The classical wisdom of above thinkers and
philosophers has become more relevant in contemporary context than ever in human history.
This view finds it support from the numerous international code of ethics prevailing across the
disciplines like International Code of Ethics of International Bar Associations, Global Code of
Ethics for Tourism, International Code of Medical Ethics by World Medical Association,
International Code of Ethics for Museums, International Code of Ethics for Midwives,
International Code of Ethics for Coaching, International Code of Ethics for Professional
Accountants, Nurses, International Code of Ethics for Journalists, International Code of Ethics
for Engineers, Code of Ethics for Schools and Universities, Code of Ethics for Librarians of
International Federation of Librarians and Other Information Workers, Global Principles of
Ethical Practice in Public Relations and Communication Management, Global Internal Code
Auditing Code of Ethics and so on.

Besides, in modern times, the standards of ethics have also been codified. Different Code of
Ethics are in existence from different sectors such as All India Civil Services (Conduct) Rules for
Civil and Public Servants, Bar Council of India Standards of Professional Conduct and Ethics for
Lawyers, Indian Medical Council (Professional conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations for
Medical Practitioners, National Society of Professional Engineer’s Code of Ethics for Engineers,
Restatement of Values of Judicial Life, Code of Conduct for Members of Lok Sabha, Code of
Conduct for Members of Rajya Sabha, Code of Conduct for Indian Audit and Accounts
Department, Norms of Journalist Conduct, Code of Pharmaceutical Ethics, Code of Ethics for
Indian Industries, National Guidelines for Responsible Business Conduct in addition to the
Institutional Codes of Ethics across the fields. Ethical hacking etc.

Conclusion:​
The upshot of aforesaid discussion is that the kind of ethics are ever evolving corresponding to
the role of ethics in public life. It carries an idea of high moral values from societal perspectives
wherein stakeholders or public functionaries can be held liable. It is practically impossible to
provide rule in law book for every situation or visualize exigencies, in such a situation, the public
official has an obligation to take ethical decision. Governance is not only about the government
office, it is how the practical problems of the people are solved in a complex world. In view of
the obligation of accountability and preserving the trust of the people, the code of ethics play a
significant role. Since they have discretionary powers, ethical support may infuse the rationality
and legitimacy in the performance of an act. Such challenges are faced with the help of code of
ethics. Therefore, most of the governments in order to ensure their commitment to guarantee and
protect human rights of the citizens devise code of ethical conducts. Being trustee of the public
faith in the institutions of governance, the government as well as the persons in authority owe an
obligation to the people to preserve the faith of the people intact. Democracy is an anti-thesis of
the oligarchy, aristocracy, nepotism, discrimination, self-aggrandizement and inefficiency. In
present times, it focuses upon not only the Lincoln’s principle of …of the people, by the people
and for the people, but no voice, however, small goes unheard. It is only through ethical purity
that discretionary powers attached to the public posts can contribute in establishing an egalitarian
order where the welfare of all, as encapsulated by Shri Guru Nanak, Welfare of the whole
universe, Sarbat Ka Bhala, Benthamite notion of Maximum happiness of the maximum number
of people, Roscoe Pound’s Social Engineering by minimizing friction and maximizing balancing
of interests, and above all- the ideal situation envisioned in Vedic Culture- Sarve Bhavantu
Sukhinah, Sarve Santu Niramaya, Sarve Bhadrani Pashyantu, Maa Kaschit Dukh Bhaag Bhavet,
Om Peace, Peace Peace, meaning let all be happy, let all be free from debilitation, let all see
goodness, let there be no victim of sorrow, peace be prevailed everywhere, can be realized. In
other words, the governance can be such where no miseries- physical, mental or materialistic
occur. To quote, ancient Indian wisdom:
ॐ सर्वेषां स्वस्तिर्भवत।ु सर्वेषां शान्तिर्भवतु ! सर्वेषां पर्णं
ू भवतु । सर्वेषां मङ्गलंभवतु ।
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥​
Meaning: May there be Well-Being in All, May there be Peace in All, May there be Fulfilment in
All, May there be Auspiciousness in All, Om Peace, Peace, Peace.
Everyone should have affectionate and cordial relationship with others and obey laws like in
Ramrajya, to quote:
दै हिक दै विक भौतिक तापा। राम राज नहिं काहु हि ब्यापा
सब नर करहिं परस्पर प्रीती। चलहिं स्वधर्म निरत श्रति
ु
नीती।​