Revision summary
Values grow by habituation, trusted models, apology, and institutions that reward fairness. Public reason asks a value to be justified beyond the clan. Character is those values become a stable will when unwatched. Strengthening helps character only when the act meets cost and the office does not punish honesty. A drilled honour that refuses fact is rigidity, not republican character.
Model answer
Introduction
Moral values are lasting standards of worthy choice. They are strengthened by repeated right acts, trusted example, and public reason — and that same process is how character is built, not by a single pledge.
Body
Process of strengthening moral values
- Aristotle’s habituation is the first process: a value grows when a person does the fitting act again, not when the wall carries a slogan.
- Family and school supply models; Bandura’s social learning says children copy what elders reward, fear, and repeat.
- Conscience is trained by confession, apology, and a speaking inner review — Gandhi’s experiments with truth treated the diary as a workshop, not a display.
- Institutions strengthen values when they reward fairness: a mid-day meal shared, a queue honoured, a file that records dissent, a classroom that will not humiliate.
- Public reason, in Kohlberg’s move from home loyalty to principle, asks that a value be justified to a stranger; Article 51A duties give that civic overlay.
- Ritual without conduct weakens values; so does a society that laughs at the honest clerk. Strengthening is therefore social, not only private.
Whether this helps character-building
- Character is the stable tendency to choose the worthy act when unwatched; it is values become habit, which is why strengthening values is the ordinary road to character.
- A child who practises truth-telling, sharing, and restraint is already building character; later LBSNAA-type training overlays professional ethics on that first map.
- Strengthening helps only if the value is practised under cost: integrity that never meets a bribe or a threat is still untested, and may remain a speech.
- Character also needs institutions that do not punish the honest; Second ARC linked ethics training to tenure and appraisal so that character is not career suicide.
- Limits: a drilled value can become rigidity or communal honour; character in a republic must stay open to correction by law and fact.
- Case-ready: NCC, NSS, and a truthful noting under oral pressure are character-building because they join value to a costly act.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD H[Habit and example] --> V[Strengthened values] I[Just institutions] --> V V --> K[Character as stable will] C[Costly test] --> K
Conclusion
Moral values are strengthened by habit, example, institutions, and public reason. That process does help character-building, because character is a value that has become a stable will. It fails when slogans replace costly practice, or when the office punishes the honest.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
Write short notes on:
(A) Ethical responsibilities of public servant.
(B) Public interest and the right to information.
Next question in the 2019 paper (Q3). View answer →
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Can a training camp build character in a week?
It can start a habit and a peer map. Character still needs repeated costly acts after the camp.
-
Is a religious person automatically of good character?
No. Ritual can sit beside cruelty. Character is the unwatched choice, not the identity label.
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More from this paper
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