Preface

This book tells IAS aspirants what Essay and Ethics (GS-4) papers are about and how to score high in both the papers. The previous years’ questions are listed topic-wise. The student gets to know what topics are important. This book provides the essential framework for exam preparation in Essay and Ethics.

I hope you make the best use of this.

Wish you all the best,

Venkata Mohan

Director, Feynman IAS

Suggested Sources

1. Ethical Thought by Venkata Mohan

2. Case Studies in Ethics, Integrity and Apitude by Rajagopalan

3. Niti Ayog on best practices

4. Any book on administrative ethics such as

- Public Service Ethics by Bowman and West

- Public Sector Ethics by Steven G Coven

- Responsible Administrator by Terry L Cooper

Read The Hindu, The Wire. Watch You Tube videos.

Books by Venkata Mohan

1. Sociological Thought: In the Light of J. Krishnamurti’s Philosophy (2009)
2. Ethical Thought – Buddha to Damasio (2014)
3. Anthropological Thought (2017)
4. Cultural Anthropology (2020)
5. Marriage of a Monk: a Story of My Ideas and Life (2015)

All are available at www.amazon.in

You can also listen to his lectures posted to You Tube on

(1) Ethical Thought ( 30 videos)

(2) Moksha, Afterlife and Meditation (27 videos)

Also read

IAS Sociology : Previous Questions Classified

IAS Anthropology: Previous Questions Classified

What Is Ethics Paper (GS-4) About?

Certain actions are called ethical or unethical, and sometimes, moral or immoral – what do we mean by these words? Take a hunting-gathering society. People are moving in bands. A person is very sick, not able to walk. When a band is moving to a different place, should one carry him or should he be discarded? If a family member wants to carry him, the other band members might say, "No, that would not be proper, that would not be ethical, because this person is too sick and we should drop him here itself."

In another case, there could be two clans within a tribe, fighting with each other. Your brother is killed by a member of the rival clan, should you go and kill his brother? If you don’t kill him, it may not be considered right. You are not doing justice to your brother who is killed. Or take a polyandrous society where brothers marry one or more than one woman. If one brother refuses to share his wife with the other brothers, then he may be considered very unethical.

Ethical or unethical refers to right or wrong, and I gave some instances where we don’t regard ethical what other people regard ethical. What is ethical to a hunting-gathering society is different from what is ethical to a pastoralist society or a polyandrous society. What it means is that what is ethical keeps changing with the society.

What is ethical keeps changing. Why does it change? Because whether something is right or wrong depends upon certain values. Values are many, whereas ethical and unethical is only one. Something is called ethical when sufficient number of values are realized, or when some important values are realized. These values keep changing with the times.

The values keep changing. So what is regarded as ethical keeps changing. Why do values change? Values are a product of the economy, the political system, the level of technology. When economic and political systems change, values change. But across these changes, there may be certain values, and indeed there are certain values, which are not context-specific. Deception hurts, independent of the type of economy. The extent to which it hurts may vary according to the economy, but it does hurt. Ethics is actually moral philosophy, a part of philosophy. It studies how values are changing and what values do not change.

How are these values conveyed to the members of the society? They are conveyed mostly through socialization. These values are inculcated. Whatever be the kind of economy or polity, the values are usually inculcated through the socialization process. If values are realized, then reward. If the values are not realized, then punishment. When the deviation from the values is much more than what the society can tolerate, the society, through its institutions, will choose to punish. That’s called law. Legality is not ethicality. Legality is when the institutions of the society enter the scene to punish the violators.

Values come through religion, tradition, general parenting, education, and media. Religion is a source of values, education is a source of values, and then media and the parenting, these are all sources of values. This is how normally values are inculcated. Those who are following those values are respected, rewarded, and those who are not following those values are punished or not respected.

Ethics education

If values are being inculcated through a variety of sources, why should there be education of ethics? In the recent years, there is a proposal that issues of ethics cannot be left only to the philosophers, but many people should study ethics. Why is it so? If you are studying ethics, you are studying the emergence of various values. So far, values are unconsciously, unthinkingly internalized in the population, without questioning. Religion links them to sin, heaven and hell. Tradition simply links them to good and bad. There is not so much reflection. Now many universities in many countries are going for ethics education. Why is it so?