Revision summary
Stewart separates permission from justification; legality is the first test, not the last. Public power to transfer, demolish or dismiss can be legal and still fail dignity. Kalam places anti-corruption in parents and teachers who refuse to sell a grade or a file. Statutes punish late; the dining table and the classroom teach early. The Dalai Lama measures success by the duties sacrificed; a posting or a GDP number bought with silence or a river is a loss.
Model answer
Introduction
Three sentences test a republic of legal powers, family classrooms and public ambition. Each quote is a present work-rule, not a life sketch of the speaker.
Body
(a) Potter Stewart: the right to do versus the right thing
- Stewart is separating legal permission from moral justification.
- A public servant often has the legal right to transfer, to attach property, to refuse a meeting, or to leak nothing and also to hide behind a technicality.
- Ethics asks whether that permitted act is still the right act toward the person it will hit.
- In the present context, a demolition with notice on paper but no real hearing may be defensible as power and still fail as justice.
- A company may have the right to dismiss a whistle-blower on a pretext; it is not right to do so.
- Free speech may give a leader the right to mock a minority; constitutional fraternity says it is not the right thing to do.
- For the civil servant the line is daily: do not confuse “I can” under the manual with “I should” under Articles 14 and 21.
- The quote does not invite lawlessness. It invites a second test after legality: dignity, necessity and the weakest person affected.
(b) Kalam: father, mother, teacher and a corruption-free nation
- Kalam is locating the first anti-corruption machinery in the home and the school, not only in the Lokpal.
- A child who sees a parent buy a mark-sheet or a teacher sell a grade learns that the State is a shop.
- Beautiful minds here are curious, honest and unafraid — not merely high ranks.
- In the present context, coaching factories that teach only how to clear a paper, and families that celebrate a bribe as “getting the work done”, manufacture the next corrupt counter.
- The Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 can jail an adult. It cannot install the habit that Kalam wanted at the dining table.
- Teachers who take attendance honestly, refuse a gift for a seat, and treat a first-generation learner with respect are public ethics in a classroom.
- Parents who do not pay for a leak, and who shame a stolen rupee, do more for a clean republic than a once-a-year integrity pledge.
- The quote is not a claim that law is useless. It is a claim that law arrives too late if the first three teachers have already sold the child.
(c) Dalai Lama: success judged by what you gave up
- The line asks for the price of a win, not only the trophy.
- A posting gained by silence on a fraud is success only on a salary slip.
- In the present context, growth that gives up clean air, a river, or a forest for a quarterly number is the same false success.
- An officer who gives up family entirely for every fake-urgent file has not succeeded; the organisation has extracted a person.
- An election won by giving up truth, or a tender won by giving up a fair bid, fails the Dalai Lama’s test even if the crowd cheers.
- The ethical use of the quote is not self-punishment. It is asking whether what was sacrificed was a vice (greed, hate, a bribe) or a duty (honesty, a child’s care, another people’s land).
- Public success that required the giving up of constitutional morality is not success. It is a cost that the next riot will invoice.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD PS[Legal right] --> ETH[Is it the right act] KAL[Father mother teacher] --> HAB[Habit of honesty] HAB --> CF[Corruption-free minds] SUC[Apparent success] --> COST[What was given up] COST --> TEST[Duty kept or sold]
Conclusion
Stewart tells the officer that a lawful power can still be the wrong act. Kalam tells the republic that a clean State is grown at home and at school. The Dalai Lama tells ambition to count what it destroyed on the way to the photograph.
Quick related
Students also ask
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(a) What do you understand by term 'good governance'? How far recent initiatives in terms of e-Governance steps taken by the State have helped the beneficiaries? Discuss with suitable examples. (b) Online methodology is being used for day-to-day meetings, institutional approvals in the administration and for teaching and learning in education sector to the extent telemedicine in the health sector is getting popular with the approvals of the competent authority. No doubt it has advantages and disadvantages for both the beneficiaries and system at large. Describe and discuss the ethical issues involved in the use of online method particularly to vulnerable section of society.
Next question on this syllabus topic (2022 · Q4). View answer →
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If an act is legal, why do we still need Stewart’s second test?
Because manuals cannot list every cruelty. Ethics asks whether the permitted act was necessary, fair and fit for a republic of equals.
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Is Kalam blaming only families and ignoring politicians?
No. He is saying the supply of honest adults begins before the first posting. Law and example at the top remain necessary.
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