Q4 · UPSC Civil Services Mains 2023 · GS IV · 10 marks · 3 min read

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(a) "What really matters for success, character, happiness, and lifelong achievements is a definite set of emotional skills -your EQ- not just purely cognitive abilities that are measured by conventional IQ tests." Do you agree with the view? Give reasons in support of your answer. (b) Differentiate 'moral intuition" from 'moral reasoning' with suitable examples.

Topic: Ethics and Human Interface. Syllabus: Ethics and Human Interface: Essence, determinants and consequences of Ethics in-human actions; dimensions of ethics; ethics — in private and public relationships. Human Values — lessons from the lives and teachings of great leaders, reformers and administrators; role of family, society and educational institutions in inculcating values. Same official PYQ from year-wise 2023 and Ethics and Human Interface.

Revision summary

IQ measures cognitive skill; EQ is regulation of self and response to others. Success, character and happiness need EQ; IQ alone can produce a clever and unsafe person. IQ remains a floor for hard files; it is not the whole of achievement. Moral intuition is a fast sense of right and wrong; moral reasoning is slower testing by duty, consequence and consistency. Use intuition as an alarm and reasoning as the public justification, especially against group prejudice.

Model answer

Introduction

Part (a) asks whether emotional skill outruns a test score in a full life and in public office. Part (b) asks how a first moral feeling differs from a reasoned moral argument.

Body

(a) EQ and success: agreement with reasons

  • Intelligence quotient (IQ) measures cognitive abilities such as pattern, memory and verbal reasoning that conventional tests capture.
  • Emotional intelligence, often called EQ, is the ability to notice, name and regulate one’s own emotions and to read and respond to others without losing the task.
  • The statement is largely right: high IQ without self-control, empathy and teamwork produces a clever person who fails in family, office and public trust.
  • Character is a habit of the will. A person who cannot delay anger or greed will not keep integrity even if the person can solve a puzzle.
  • Happiness in adult life tracks relationships and meaning more than a college rank. Daniel Goleman’s work popularised this for workplaces; the ethical point is older: Aristotle’s phronesis is practical wisdom, not only cleverness.
  • Lifelong achievement in a civil service is delivery with people: a District Magistrate who reads a riot and calms it uses EQ; a brilliant note that humiliates every subordinate uses IQ and destroys the office.
  • Agreement is not a claim that IQ is useless. Complex files, science and law need cognitive power. The claim is that IQ is not sufficient for success, character or happiness.
  • Training that only ranks marks and ignores listening, conflict and grief will keep producing officers who are sharp and unsafe.
  • Therefore EQ should be selected for, trained and assessed in leadership, while IQ remains a floor for the work, not the whole score.

(b) Moral intuition and moral reasoning

  • Moral intuition is a fast, often wordless sense that an act is right or wrong, arriving before a full argument.
  • Moral reasoning is the slower work of giving reasons, testing consistency, weighing consequences and checking duties.
  • Jonathan Haidt’s social-intuitionist account says people often feel first and justify later; that describes much of daily life, including communal panic.
  • Example of intuition: seeing a child shoved in a queue and stepping in before any theory is named.
  • Example of reasoning: deciding a demolition after reading the statute, the notice period, the alternative shelter and the proportionality test in a speaking order.
  • Intuition is useful as an alarm: disgust at cruelty, unease at a gift, reluctance to hide a file.
  • Intuition is unreliable when it is only caste disgust, gendered honour, or loyalty to one’s own group. Those feelings also arrive fast.
  • Reasoning without any intuition can become cold calculation that treats a person as a number.
  • A sound ethical decision uses intuition as a flag and reasoning as the court: name the feeling, then test it against the Constitution, the facts and the weakest person affected.
  • In office, record the reasons even when the first feeling was correct, because the public is owed a speaking order, not a private hunch.

Flow diagram

flowchart TD
  IQ[IQ cognition] --> FLOOR[Necessary floor]
  EQ[EQ self and other] --> CHAR[Character and delivery]
  FLOOR --> LIFE[Success with people]
  CHAR --> LIFE
  MI[Moral intuition] --> FLAG[Fast alarm]
  MR[Moral reasoning] --> TEST[Reasons and law]
  FLAG --> DEC[Ethical decision]
  TEST --> DEC

Conclusion

EQ is necessary for character, working success and a livable life; IQ is necessary but not enough. Moral intuition is the fast alarm. Moral reasoning is the test that makes the alarm fit for a public file. Use both, and write the reasons.

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