Today,
while crossing the foot over bridge, I came across an incident that brought my
vehement concern over the minute cognizance of mine which regards the basic
human values. I saw an old lady, may be around 80's, crossing the road. It was
peak hour time and the traffic was all over the road. She was trying to cross
the road, probably because she didn't had the will to step up and down off the
giant bridge. With all her ability, she tried to keel across the road but
wasn't able to take the steps ahead. As whenever she took one, some vehicle
came and she kept on vacillating to and fro. She kept on struggling the best
she could. But soon, I saw three boys who parked their car and went to the
lady, halted the spurting traffic and helped her to cross road patiently. An
instant twitching smile came on my face, as the boys really did a great job.
Many a
times, we find ourselves in such a situation where one has to go out of the way
to help others. Those who can and does, reflect their moral and ethical values.
By helping the old lady, the boys clearly demonstrated the concrete base of
morality and the way they stopped the traffic to let her cross, defines the ethical
ground.
'Morality'
simply means the principle which tells us the distinction between right or
wrong and good or bad. It is something which depends upon one's knowledge of
understanding and ability to interpret. As Mahatma Gandhiji says,
"Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all
morality". The one's basis of moral values may differ from culture to
culture or society to society or community to community, but at the end essence
of it remains the same. I date back when I was a toddler, my family
continuously taught me to regard others by "Namaste", saying
"Thank you", and so on. This is the very beginning construction of
one's moral base. As we enter into the age when we start adapting the
intellectual teaching of our family, we get bind to the moral thinking of the
society which we have been taught for long, since born. One's moral values are
deeply linked with the cultural and religious background. It is not necessary
or essential that the moral values will be ethical in the view of different
cultures, religion or society. This is where the distinction comes within the
society. Ethics on the other part are set of common realized values of the
entire society. It may or may not be based on moral values. Ethics is an
outcome of one's self-reasoning ability to the practice, behavior, intention,
action, even in one's thought also. These are the codified or normative version
of do's and dont's. According to the great philosopher of times Immanuel Kant
writes," In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In
ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so". In short, having
adhered to certain moral values does not make you ethical, but being ethical
does make you moral.
Often
certain questions keeps on embarking me like why being moral and ethical is
necessary for us? How does it matter and affect, if one doesn't adhere to it?
Moral values starts building as said above from the family, society or
community and school. We learn as we grow. It construe that moral values are intrinsic,
they are bounded within a specific culture. But it doesn't mean that they don't
have extrinsic value. To understand it, consider a 5 year old boy Rahul. He has
never been taught anything by parents or relatives. The very first day he goes
school, he learns to greet teacher or in fact taught to do so. So every time
the teacher comes, he makes his habit to greet teacher. Similarly, now think
that if the parent teaches Rahul to wish relatives, worship in temple, eating
vegetarian food, and so on. He will too make it his habit and soon it becomes a
moral code for him. While in school, Rahul learns to share his belongings with
his friends and helping schoolmates in their work. While playing with them, he
learns how the combined effort of his team wins and so on. The whole idea and
approach towards the community builds up. Now to understand how moral values
and teaching differ between societies, consider Rahul's classmate Imran. Imran
on the other hand has been told to greet with "Assalamu Alaikum" to
his relatives, being non-vegetarian, worshipping in Mosque and so on. The
difference in moral conduct clearly reflects, but while we get into the essence
it will be the same. While in school or away, both of them will help each other
and playing together. So, it clearly tells us that the moral values differ
among different cultures, society etc. Despite of this difference, they still
are coherent with each other in one or another way.
On the
other hand, ethics goes parallel with the moral values. But if in conflict, the
ethical values will always overcome as these are higher version of the former.
Coming back to Rahul and Imran, albeit of their different cultures, they have
to follow the norms specified by the school. They have to adhere with the dress
code, prayers, teachings and everything that is codified by the school. In the
much broader prospect of one, if working in a company has to follow the company
norms, if doing business has to follow the management norms, and as a whole
living in a country has to strictly adhere to the Constitution. So, in a place
where the people of variant cultures meet, work, and or come together for
specific cause. We seldom have choice to consider the validation of one's
decision or choice on moral principles. That is why in formal world, we use the
word ethical. It is always taken that the person with the ethical values will
always have high moral values.
Everywhere
we may go, we'll find the importance of culture, religion, society or community
and where these all co-exist, we find moral values and ethics. It's hard to
separate one from these values, as they make up the basis of our everyday
chores, and makes us suitable to live in society with so diversified and
enormous rich culture, especially in country like India.