Values, morals and ethics are three words that we get to hear all the time. "These are the values I have been brought up with". " You have to stick to your morals". " One should always be high on ethics". They sound very familiar. Don't they? Yes. We have been hearing same or similar lines from the days of our childhood in all walks of life. At home, in school, at the workplace,and on various social and religious forums. And over a period of time, I have been pondering a lot over them. What got me into thinking about them has got much to do with my own life experiences. Be it a situation in my own life or a scenario staring at someone whom you care for, I observed the impact of these words and its consequences which ranged from short duration to a very long term. And this has been playing on my mind very hard these days and is the very reason to put down my perspective here.
When I started exploring the meaning of these words, I found various interpretations in the different online as well as offline / printed resources. Looking at dictionaries gave a very similar meaning to all the tree words. Value - " principles or standards of behavior; one's judgement of what is important in life". Morals - "standards of behavior; principles of right and wrong". Ethics - " moral principles that govern a person's behavior or the conducting of an activity". So if you look closely, the common word here is "principle" or a "standard" of behavior.
I also got view points from people belonging to different age groups, gender, professions, level of intellect. I also got some inputs from people who were not necessarily the ones whom I admired. Nevertheless, the views were still there and it was important to consider them. Talking to these people also did not yield very different results as to what is their understanding of a value, moral or ethics. They all felt that these words ultimately mean some kind of a principle or a guideline to lead your life in a socially acceptable manner or the "right" conduct. At this point, I got fairly convinced that these words mean some kind of a principle that one needs to adhere to. So I wanted to go a step further and find out what is this principle or set of principles or standards, who set them and how they impact the life. This is the point where the whole problem started ...
One of the principles that is common is "being honest". This word means being truthful, sincere and free of deceit. Take a real life scenario. I find a 100 rupee note on a street and I try to find the owner and hand over the money to him. I exercised honesty. He felt happy. Simple? Yes indeed! Now come to the next scenario.I see my close friend stealing a book from a store. And I report to the store owner and tell him the truth. I exercised honesty yet again. Result? This makes the store owner happy and I lose a friend. Simple? Not quite! At this point, you may have a different view perhaps. You may want me to attempt convincing my friend to keep the book back in store. Why? Can I not keep things very simple here and report the incident? What would be your views, if the person stealing the book was not my friend? In this case, perhaps you may give me the liberty to go ahead and report! So here comes in a realization. A principle can not be an absolute standalone guideline. There are pre-conditions. If they are met, you can practice them straight away. Else, take a different path. So you need to first assess the impact of following the principle on your acquaintances, society, nation or anything else that you may feel more important than the principle itself !!! But this was never told to me explicitly either by the books or the people who defined what are ethics, moral and values. I came to know of the associated riders only out of experience. I also came to know, that these are very flexible terms. Flexible to the convenience of the user :-)
Okay now look at it from different perspective. Moral values and ethics keep changing with times. They keep changing with place. And they also keep changing to suit the occasion. What is considered sin from a moral perspective may not be against the law. Why the society shuns two people in an intimate relationship outside the wedlock when the law of the land is perfectly ok to treat it as a relation between two consenting adults? So where does values, moral and ethics stand even legally? Is this not quite confusing and misleading? We expect laws to identify and protect the right from what is wrong. So does this mean that there is a lack of overlap between the legal standards and the ethical standards. This gets me into a quagmire of thoughts every single living day of my life.
There is a lot more on this yet to come. The answers are not yet there. And they won't come easy. And they may not be pleasant as well. But for me, they are worth exploring. Would you agree?
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