Pundit Jaidath Maharaj M.Ed. (dist.); EMBA (dist.)
President, SWAHA Inc.
As we continue with our Leadership series, we focus our attention on ethics. Throughout our lives, especially in religious, professional and educational settings, we have heard the terms ‘ethics and morals’. They are usually associated with a notion of good and bad, right and wrong. Therefore, in order to understand the salience of the terms and hence build a foundation upon which we can apply the concepts to Hinduism, we must appreciate the differences between both notions.
Ethics is the study of what is right or wrong in human conduct. It is a branch of philosophy which studies moral principles. Hence, ethics is also known as moral philosophy. For such a discussion, in the context of leadership, a distinction must be made between ethics and morals. The differences are summarized in the table below:
| Ethics | Morals |
| Involves reasoning | Adheres to what is described |
| Beyond rules | Hard and fast rules |
| Usually considered universal | Relative to society / culture |
| For the survival of the society | For the survival of the individual |
In many instances, ethics and morality are used interchangeably. There is, however, a difference between both. Based on the table above, a simple formula could be used to represent the difference between ethics and morals as follows:
Ethics = Morals + Reasoning
To have an ethical viewpoint, you should be able to give some reason for it. This is because ethics is moral philosophy, and philosophy is based on reasoning. To give a simple example, as Hindus we believe that life is valuable and therefore the taking of any life is morally wrong. We may however have an ethical viewpoint on it versus a moral stance. This ethical viewpoint should be based on some set of arguments and analysis about why it would be wrong to take a life as well as whether there are any circumstances in which taking a life is justified. Globally there are many issues that are based on ethical viewpoints and moral stances, for example, abortion, euthanasia and the death penalty. Our views on the issue are based on whether we take a morally absolutist view where “right is right regardless of circumstances” or we adopt a relativist approach where right and wrong is contextual.
Let us consider the discussions using the case of the leadership of Shri Krishna. As an Avatar, he bore the responsibility to uphold the precepts of Sanatan Dharma. Two such principles are ahimsa or non-aggression and satyam or truthfulness.
If the above be the case, then how do we resolve the perceived misalignment between the principles of Sanatan Dharma and the actions of Shri Krishna where he called for war and for Arjun to decimate the Kauravas while at the same time engaging in actions on the battlefield that were considered unethical in warfare?
Such issues go very deep and are based on the ethical stance of the individual. There are various types of ethics and thus our leadership choices are guided by our ethical and moral stance. As we continue our discussions, we would delve deeper into the issues of ethics and leadership and we would analyse the case of Shri Krishna against these frameworks.
SWAHA Inc. invites you to join in discussions on such issues and we invite experts in the field to contribute to our articles and to share their expertise on any of our programmes on SWAHA ieTV.
