Western thinkers

The first principle

A thinker is useful in this paper only when one of their ideas can settle a point in a real decision. The six schools of ethics are covered in the note on schools of normative ethics; this note takes eight Western thinkers and gives each one idea that an officer can carry into a file, a field visit or a meeting. Learn the idea and its use together, because a name without an application earns nothing.

The core

• Socrates held that no one does wrong knowingly, so wrongdoing is at root a failure of understanding. His method of patient questioning teaches an officer to ask what a rule is for before applying it to a hard case.
• Plato asked, through the myth of the Ring of Gyges told in the Republic, whether anyone would stay just if they could act unseen. He also kept his guardians, the rulers of the ideal city, away from private property, so that private gain could not pull against public duty.
• Aristotle saw virtue as a mean between two extremes, found by practical wisdom rather than by a formula, and saw justice as treating equals equally and unequals in proportion to their relevant difference.
• Kant and the utilitarians give the two tests most used in case studies: whether a rule could bind every officer, and which option causes the least total harm. They often agree on the answer, as the second visual shows.
• Rawls and Singer are the two modern voices. Rawls asks for rules chosen without knowing one's own place, and Singer argues that helping those in grave need, at little cost to oneself, is a duty and not a favour.

Dimensions

• Kant's two formulas matter in administration: act only on a rule you could will as a universal law, and treat people always as ends, never merely as means. Deceiving citizens "for their own good" fails both.
• Bentham offered a calculus of pleasure and pain, while Mill added that pleasures differ in quality. In On Liberty (1859), Mill's harm principle allows the state to restrain a person only to prevent harm to others, which is a useful limit on paternalism.
• Rawls builds two principles behind the veil of ignorance: equal basic liberties and fair equality of opportunity first, and then the difference principle, which allows inequality only if it benefits the least advantaged.

In practice

• Rawls in the Constitution's spirit: Article 46 directs the state to promote the interests of the weaker sections with special care, which is the difference principle written as a directive.
• Aristotle's proportional justice underlies reasonable classification under Article 14, where equals are treated alike and unequals may be treated differently for a lawful purpose.
• Kant's publicity: a decision an officer would be ashamed to explain openly usually treats someone as a means, which is why the Right to Information Act, 2005 works as a moral check as well as a legal one.

Peter Singer's essay of 1972 argued that the line we draw between duty and charity is in the wrong place. If we can prevent something very bad without giving up anything of comparable moral importance, we ought to do it, and distance makes no moral difference. For an officer, the parallel is spare discretion: time, a flexible fund or a quick referral that costs little but saves a family from ruin.

Issues and way forward

• Thinkers are dropped in as decoration, because students memorise names and not arguments. Use one principle to settle one point of the case, and say how it settles it.
• Western theories can sound foreign to Indian cases, because their examples are distant. Pair each with an Indian echo, such as Rawls with antyodaya or Aristotle's mean with the Buddha's middle way.
• Singer's demand can seem unlimited, which invites dismissal. State his moderate version, that one should help where the cost is morally insignificant, and the argument becomes hard to reject.

Common confusions

• Kant and rule following. Kant's rule must pass the test of reason and respect for persons. Following a departmental rule because it exists is not Kantian at all.
• Utilitarianism and the majority's wish. Utility counts everyone's welfare, including the minority's. Doing what most people want is majoritarianism.
• Duty and charity in Singer. Charity is praised when done and excused when skipped. Singer argues that where the need is grave and the cost small, failing to help is wrong.

For the exam

• Keyword bank: Socratic questioning, Ring of Gyges, guardians, golden mean, practical wisdom, proportional justice, categorical imperative, ends not means, felicific calculus, harm principle, veil of ignorance, difference principle, drowning child, duty and charity.
• Previous year questions: Practise the previous year questions on this topic →
• Introduction lines:
  • Article 46 asks the state to promote the interests of the weaker sections with special care, which is close to Rawls's difference principle.
  • Peter Singer argued in 1972 that if we can prevent something very bad at little cost to ourselves, we ought to do it.
• Conclusion lines:
  • Kant tells the officer what never to do, Mill what to aim at, and Rawls whom to think of first.
  • A thinker earns a place in an answer only when the idea decides something in the case.