You are an honest and responsible civil servant. You often observe the following: (A) There is a general perception that adhering to ethical conduct may face difficulties to yourself and cause problem for the family, whereas unfair practices may help to reach the career goals. (B) When the number of people adopting unfair means is large, a small minority having a preference towards ethical means make no difference. Examine the above statements with their merits and demerits.

Statement (A): ethics costs; unfairness pays

• Merit of the perception: the cost is real. A truthful noting can stall a posting, a refused envelope can isolate a family at the colony club, and a whistle-blower’s kin have been threatened — Bandura’s observed rewards teach juniors what ‘works’.
• Merit: career systems that prize ‘delivery without noise’ and oral orders can, in Merton’s anomie, make unfair means look like the only efficient path.
• Demerit: the perception treats a corrupt career as success. PCA cases, vigilance traps, and a cancelled service are also careers; the ‘help’ is often a loan against a future ruin.
• Demerit: family hardship is not a moral permission slip. Kant’s duty and the oath to the Constitution do not pause because a spouse wants a better quarter. The ethical answer is lawful protection — tenure, transfer rules, a documented dissent — not a secret share in the loot.
• Demerit: inner peace and the child’s map of honour are also family goods. A house built on unfair postings teaches the next generation that love is a price, which is a longer harm than a delayed promotion.
• Officer’s use: acknowledge the cost, insure the family through legal channels and peer allies, and refuse the false bargain that the only love is a dishonest chair.

Statement (B): a minority of ethics makes no difference

• Merit of the perception: diffusion of responsibility is real. A single honest clerk in a collusive ring can be bypassed; ‘everyone does it’ is how bystanders sleep, as in Darley and Latané’s crowding of duty.
• Merit: without institutional backing, one person’s satya can be punished as eccentricity, which Second ARC feared when it linked ethics to tenure and appraisal.
• Demerit: historically, minorities start every reform. Seshan’s rolls, a district that publishes a clean relief list, Armstrong Pame’s road, and Gandhi’s claim that one satyagrahi is enough, all deny that number is the only power.
• Demerit: Kant’s categorical imperative asks what would happen if the maxim were universal; ‘my honesty is useless’ is a maxim that, if universal, ends the republic’s file.
• Demerit: citizens and courts still use the one honest noting as a hook; RTI and a speaking dissent can move a machine that a silent majority will not. Difference is often delayed, not absent.
• Demerit: the statement is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the ethical minority also defects, the number of the unfair becomes complete. Remaining is how a culture of integrity is even possible.

Joint examination

• Both statements smuggle a utilitarian excuse: save the family, save the effort, because the world is dirty. Public service ethics answers with a role duty: the officer is not a private investor in a corrupt market.
• The responsible act is to record, to find the second honest person, to use RTI and vigilance as sunlight, and to recuse or exit rather than become the ring. Hardship is a fact; it is not the last word.