Module 1
CONTENTS
• BASIC CONCEPTS TO UNDERSTAND PROFESSIONAL ETHICS
• SOCIETY
• SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND DISORGANIZATION
• TRADITION VS MODERNIZATION
• POWER AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
• HUMAN VALUES, MORALS, MORAL JUDGEMENT
• ETHICS & HUMAN ACTIONS
• ETHICAL RELATIVISM
Society: Meaning and Concept
• A society is group of people living together for the purpose of safety, security, and reproduction.
• Society is viewed by sociologists as a chain of social relationships
• A relationship is social, when it is determined by mutual awareness, that is, the behavior of one
individual influences the behavior of another.
• For example, when a teacher enters the classroom, students stop making noise and stand up as a mark
of respect for their teacher.
• This behavior signifies the social relationship between the teacher and the students.
• Thus., social relationships exist only when individuals behave towards one another in ways
determined by their recognition of each other.
• This is why society is called a relational concept.
Social Darwinism by Herbert Spencer
• Just like Human Being, Society evolved from simple to complex society.
• Just like various organs of an organism work in harmony, various parts of the
society must work in harmony.
• Law of natural selection
• Survival of the fittest.
Types of Society
• Hunters and Gatherers
• Pastoral
• Agrarian
• Industrial
• Post-Industrial
Characteristics of Industrial Society
• Origin in Industrial Revolution in mid-18th century in Europe, also called as age of
enlightenment
• Developed around industrial centers such as London, Berlin etc.
• Use of large-scale production and mass-production techniques
• Profit and market oriented.
• Rapid economic growth followed by infrastructure growth
• Division of Labour
• Rapid population growth
Characteristics of post-industrial society
• Also called as ‘information society’
• The post-industrial society is largely due to the shift in the kinds of work and the
processing of information technology.
• Advent of internet
• Growth in service sector
• Transformation of working class to professional middle class
• Emergence of knowledge elites
• Divide in society
• Control of knowledge and information.
Social Organization and Disorganization
• A social organization is a pattern of relationships between and among
individuals and social groups.
• Social organizations within society are constantly changing.
• Smaller scale social organizations in society include groups forming from
common interests and conversations.
• Social organizations are created constantly and with time change.
• Ex. Caste, Religion, Marriage, Rural Social Structure accommodating people
from various caste-communities during cultural functions, etc.
Social Organization and Disorganization
• Social disorganisation is the process opposed to social organisation.
• When the parts of social structure do not perform their functions efficiently and
effectively or perform them badly, there occurs an imbalance in society.
• The social equilibrium is disturbed and society gets out of gear.
• Examples
Divorce
Nuclear Family System
Caste System
War
Communalism
Tradition vs Modernism
• Political system in ancient period vs political system in modern period.
• Autocracy vs Democracy
• Family Lineage, Nepotism vs Merit base
• Traditional values vs Modern values
• Ex. Joint Family and Nuclear Family
• “Traditional” refers to those societies or elements of societies that are small-scale, are
derived from indigenous and often ancient cultural practices.
• “Modern” refers to those practices that relate to the industrial mode of production or
the development of large-scale often colonial societies.
Power vs Social Justice
• Power: Ability to make change/ influence the lives of others
• It can be constructive as well as destructive.
• According to Max Weber, Power is ‘the probability that one actor within a social
relationship will be in a position to carry out his will despite resistances’
• Talcott Parsons define Power as a ‘mechanism operating to bring about
changes… in the process of social interaction’’.
• According to Foucault, ‘Power as such does not exist’ but power ‘needs to be
considered as a productive network which runs through the whole social body’
Power vs Social Justice
Power is composed of three components:
• Authority: The ability to exercise power through decision making, giving orders, or
the ability of others to comply with demands
• Legitimacy: When citizens recognise a leader's right to exercise power over them
(when citizens recognise state authority)
• Sovereignty: Refers to the highest level of power that cannot be overruled (when a
state government/individual has legitimacy and authority)
Power vs Social Justice
• Social Justice: Equality.
• A thought or view that everyone deserves equal economic, political, and social rights
and opportunities.
• Division of resources, opportunities and privileges in the ratio of their population.
• Ex. Reservation system, Tax system.
• Laws and Justice
Challenges to Social Justice
• Climate Change: Maldives and other island countries.
• Refugee Crisis
• Hunger and Food Security
• All forms of Discrimination
• Public Health: E.g. COVID Vaccines
Human Values
• Values are the virtues which influences human behaviour while interacting with
other human beings in society.
• Values may be defined as the criteria and moral judgement or certain subjective
standards through which individuals distinguish between good or bad, true or
false and between ought to be or not to be etc.
• It shapes individual personality, social morality and guides individuals to be a
part of or function within distinctive socio-cultural system.
Some Basic Human Values
• Love
• Kindness
• Compassion
• Honesty
• Truthfulness
• Non-violence
• Adaptability
Human values should be
• Universal
• Rational
• Natural and verifiable
• Multidimensional
• Leading to harmony
Morals and Ethics
• Generally, the terms ethics and morality are used interchangeably.
• Both morality and ethics loosely have to do with distinguishing the difference
between “good and bad” or “right and wrong.”
• Morality as something that’s personal and normative, whereas ethics is the
standards of “good and bad” distinguished by a certain community or social
setting.
• Both, morals and ethics influences the human actions.
Moral Judgement
• Judgments involve our intuitions and/or our capacity to reach decisions through
reasoning.
• Moral judgments refer to judgments that have moral content; they are used to
evaluate situations, courses of action, persons, behavior, etc.
• Judgements on the basics of morality i.e. ability to distinguish between good and
bad, correct and incorrect.
Ethics
• Moral principles that govern a person's behavior and decision making in social sphere.
• Ethics word is derived from the Greek word “ethos” which means customs, habit, character,
etc.
• Ethics influences the way people make decisions which impact their lives.
• Ethics are not the same as feelings
• Ethics is not religion.
• Ethics do not necessarily follow culturally accepted norms
• Ethics do not necessarily follow the law of the land.
• So, ethics refers to well-founded standards of right and wrong.
Human Actions
• The ethical theories of human actions are divided into two types: one is based on
human actions itself, called deontological approach to ethics.
• While the other is based on the consequences of human actions, called
teleological approaches to ethics.
• Both these theories define ethics in two different ways.
• Therefore, the definition of ethics arises from various theories having their roots
in the two basic philosophies of realism and idealism.
Approaches to ethics
• Ethics influences the human actions
• On the basis of human actions, there are two approaches to ethics.
• One is Deontological Approach or Objectivism or realism.
• Another is Teleological Approach or Interpretivism or idealism.
Deontological Teleological
Approach Approach
Based on
Based on human consequences of
actions human actions
Some acts are
morally obligatory Outcome is all that
regardless of matters
consequences
Means justify the End justify the
end means
Ex. Karna, Gautam Ex. Krishna etc.
Buddha
Ethical relativism
• Ethical relativism is the theory that holds that morality is relative to the norms of one's
culture.
• That is, whether an action is right or wrong depends on the moral norms of the society
in which it is practiced.
• The same action may be morally right in one society but be morally wrong in another.
• For the ethical relativist, there are no universal moral standards.
• Most ethicists reject the theory of ethical relativism.
• Some claim that while the moral practices of societies may differ, the
fundamental moral principles underlying these practices do not.
• Other philosophers criticize ethical relativism because of its implications for
individual moral beliefs.
• The practice of slavery in pre-Civil war U.S. society or the practice of apartheid
in South Africa is wrong despite the beliefs of those societies.
• The treatment of the Jews in Nazi society is morally reprehensible regardless of
the moral beliefs of Nazi society.
Examples
• Racism
• Festivals
• Religion
• Customs