Revision summary
(A) has merit: ethics can cost posting and family ease; unfairness can look efficient. It demerits when it calls a corrupt chair success and treats family as a licence to loot. (B) has merit: one honest person can be bypassed without institutional cover. It demerits because minorities start reform, and ‘no difference’ is a self-fulfilling defection. Duty is a signed noting, allies, sunlight, and lawful protection — not the corridor’s bargain.
Model answer
Introduction
An honest officer meets these two sentences in the corridor more often than in a textbook. Each has a sociological half-truth. Examined as ethics, both are incomplete maps: they describe a cost, then quietly cancel duty. The chair still answers the Constitution, not the corridor.
Body
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.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD A[Perceived cost to family] --> C[Excuse to defect] B[Everyone is unfair] --> C D[Duty on file] --> L[Lawful noting] P[Peer and tenure cover] --> L
Conclusion
Statement (A) merits a warning about real costs, and fails when it baptises unfair careerism as family love. Statement (B) merits a warning about isolation, and fails when it denies that a minority of integrity is how every clean file begins. An honest civil servant admits the corridor’s pressure and still signs the lawful noting.
Quick related
Students also ask
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"Religious bigotry has always been an obstacle for progress in any democratic country." Discuss.
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If my child’s school will suffer, may I take a ‘small’ cut?
No. The child’s longer good is a parent who is not for sale. Seek lawful hardship help; do not tax the citizen to pay the fees.
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If the whole desk is colluding, is staying honest pointless?
It is costly, not pointless. Record, report through channels, seek transfer, and do not sign the lie. One noting is often the court’s later hook.
Same topic · past papers
UPPSC has asked this before
These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
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2019 · Q7 · UPGS4 · 8 marks
Explain the merits and demerits of persuasion in relation to public protest.
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Ethics is systematic reflection on right, duty, and the good life, distinct from mere custom or statute. Aristotle, Kant, dharma, and Gandhi supply maps of habit, respect, role, and means. It guides choice when interest and fear pull apart, and it makes queues and contracts possible. In public life it appears as truthful noting and a speaking order. It also forbids imposing a private creed on a citizen.
Q2 · UPSC Mains 2019 · UPGS4 · 8 marks · Solution
What is the process of strengthening the moral values? Whether strengthening of moral values helps in character-building? Discuss.
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Q3 · UPSC Mains 2019 · UPGS4 · 8 marks · Solution
Write short notes on: (A) Ethical responsibilities of public servant. (B) Public interest and the right to information.
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Ethical responsibility is fidelity to the Constitution, truthful files, neutrality, and citizen-centric delivery. Illegal oral orders are answered on file, not in secret obedience. Public interest is the open community’s welfare, not office comfort. RTI 2005 makes information the rule; Section 4 and speaking orders serve that rule. Exemptions protect privacy and security; vendetta is not public interest.