Ethics and morals of a person are defined by the actions and values with which one lives in the society. Most of the times the morals are build based on the lessons learnt from the society. Morals are the guidelines which one follows in professional as well as personal life whereas ethics take care of the needs of the group within the society to which one belongs.
India, in the earlier times had people like Mother Teresa and Swami Vivekananda who later became the epitome for moral citizens. But during the last few years there has been a great decline in the weightage given to ethics and morals leading to an increase in the corruption, crime rate, rapes, etc. Recent examples would include the attacks on Taj Hotel in Mumbai and the Nirbhaya gang rape case in Delhi. People are now developing at such a fast pace that they have forgotten the importance of morals and ethics and have become greedy and materialistic.
Nowadays, a lot of attention and focus is being been shifted to these terms, ethics and morals, and many educational institutes have included them in their course curriculum as well. But, as one must get into to pool to learn how to swim no matter how many courses he or she has done; similarly one must have the feelings from within which would help him build his own morals and ethics. Merely knowing the definitions of the terms and having an actual hands-on-experience creates a huge difference especially in this case when individual’s feeling are involved. One might be having the knowledge of the rights and wrongs but they are of no use when he is unable to act accordingly when the situation demands, for instance – one knowing that he should extend his help to the needy is of no use to the society if he sees a person lying on the road and prefers to avoid the situation.
The trend is now shifting again and the people have now started paying heed to ethics and morals. Many management institutes have realized the importance of ethics even in business and have added practical exercises in the curriculum which requires one to be morally and ethically sound while working in the society. They teach them to be responsible for the environment, plant more trees and create awareness among the people about various ongoing issues, diseases and career paths in addition to making them masters of business. Many multi-national companies have taken up Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) as an integral part of their business policy as a symbol of their responsibility towards the society.
It is thus safe to infer that ethics and morals are important in a person’s life both professional and personal. It is his morals and ethics which define his persona. It can only be learnt from the lessons of the society and mere knowledge of the topics won’t suffice. There was a time when India witnessed the presence of many great moral citizens but it all vanished in the greedy race for power and money. Today, a time has come when educational institutes and corporates have again started realizing the importance of these and are taking steps for its empowerment. Ours ethics and moral values play an important role in making us more humane towards the sufferings of our fellow human beings and adhering to the ideals of morality.
anurodh2008 