Deliberate human conduct
Ethics is scrutiny of human conduct i.e. human action is scrutinized as right or wrong.
Deliberate human conduct : Human action should be deliberate
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- Knowledge / Awareness about your action
- Voluntariness / Control on self while doing that action / act of willingness or intention (Internal freedom)
- Free will /choice (External freedom)
Since ethics is the scrutiny of human action, it scrutinizes only deliberate human action. A deliberate human action should confirm 3 parameters of Knowledge, Voluntariness & free will.
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- Knowledge means that a person should be aware of his/her action.
- Voluntariness is willingness.
- Free will is related to choice.
i.e. When a human did some action, whether he has control over his action, he knows his action & whether he has choice.
There are some factors which affects deliberateness of human action
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- If a person is not in good health
- If a person is intoxicated
- Short temperament of a person
- A challenging situation
Deliberate human action helps us to make rational decisions. Among civil servants, even if action is not deliberate- they are subjected to ethical scrutiny because they hold important positions & therefore are required to behave responsibly ( Fiduciary responsibility).
Purpose of human action
Purpose of human action should be nobel/right. In general, people do have nobel purpose behind their actions. However, still there can be difference between purpose of action & the consequence of action i.e. Human action at times has unintended consequences.
For ex: Road accidents. The purpose of the person who was in the driver’s seat is to save oneself rather than cause an accident, that’s why if there is death in any such accidents- it’s considered accidental death rather than act of murder.
Consequence of human action
The Consequence of human action should be right, good or positive. In teleological philosophy, there is a principle which analyzes human action on the basis of consequences / outcome of human action. If the outcome is good, human action is also considered good.
For ex: If there is a crowd which is protesting & it becomes violent, the administration will have to resort to application of force to maintain law & order. In the process, some people may get injured however the overall outcome should be peace, order & stability. If more injuries are caused, then the loss may be more than the benefits. In that case, the consequence of administered action will not be considered good i.e. Consequence of human action brings cost-benefit analysis of human action.
Circumstances
Any human action has its own context & situation but some situations are very compelling & demanding in such a way that human action is more driven by situation rather than what he intends to do.
For ex: Mahatma Gandhi preached truth & non violence but he also went for Do or Die in Quit India Movement. Some considered it as a violation of non violence but it was largely due to situational factors. Hence, circumstances also play an important role in human action.
Nature of object
Object means everything in this world be it human, living/non living entities & all the objects can be classified as positive/ negative/neutral.
The word ‘duty’ has a positive connotation & so the truth, compassion, honesty et cetera. But words like ugly, harshness, ego have a negative connotation.
For example, ideally it’s expected that people should speak truth & those who are truthful are considered good & those who speak lies are considered bad. Hence, there is a general level of expectation that people should prefer objects with positive nature over objects having negative nature. The nature of an object has its inherent quality which an object has acquired with evolution of society.
Due to circumstances, people may be forced to act as per objects which have a negative nature but if human actions fulfills the conditions of
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- Challenging Circumstances
- Right Purpose
- Good Consequences
then, human action can still be considered ethical even if nature of the object is negative.
To scrutinize human action ethical/unethical, there are several factors which should be taken into consideration including determinants of ethics & normative theories. It means there is a set of standards which becomes the basis for scrutiny of human conduct and there may not necessarily be one view rather multiple views & at times people can have lack of consensus/right view. However, that doesn’t mean the principles of ethics are vague, subjective or they aren’t clear in themselves. Rather, one should understand that there is a set of universal standards but not one universal standard.
