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Ethics, Morality and Spirituality
Technical Session - Law vis-à-vis Ethics and Morality
Title of the Paper- “Integrity and not Law shall guide them.”
Name of Author: Mr. Manav Bhargava
Designation: Student, Semester-V
Organization: Institute of Law, Nirma University, Ahmedabad
Address: 101, Bima Vihar, Lakhanpur, Kanpur, U.P.,
E-mail ID [email protected]
Registration No. - 2011/07/PI/520
Abstract:
Purpose – Laying too much emphasis on a small thing gives it a big shadow; same is the case
with law. It is high time that we accept the fact that law is not all pervasive. The principles of law
themselves accept the preexistence of ethics and morality. For e.g. the principle "When the
reason of a rule ceases, so should the rule itself" presupposes reason behind a law, this reason is
nothing but norm which is ethically and morally correct. We need to understand that, we cannot
rectify everything that goes wrong in the society, for that matter it may be increasing crime rate
or the birth of a new kind of a crime every day, by resorting to a remedy available under law.
The purpose behind the research is to draw attention towards the importance of developing ethics
and morals within people and to acknowledge that law is not the only way to maintain peace in
the society.
Design/methodology/approach – The research methodology adopted is Doctrinal i.e. library
resources and available databases have been used to conduct the research.
Findings – The research has revealed a lot of legal principles which presuppose the existence of
ethics and morality for law. These principles would be used in the paper to develop and explain
the concept.
Research limitations/implications – The research has been conducted accepting the general
definitions and general understanding of the terms Ethics, Morality and Law.
Practical implications – The research would help to bring a change in the existing legal system
and help academicians to bring a reform in the education system which lays stress on ethics and
morals.
Originality/value – The research would significantly change the approach to tackle the
contemporary problems in the society.
Keywords – all pervasive, contemporary, rectify, presupposes.
Paper type – Research paper
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"Integrity and not Law shall guide them”
Law is not all pervasive.
It is said that the best gift parents can give to their children is the gift of
conscience. The saying lays stress on the person’s ability to differentiate
between right or wrong. The norms or standards which help people to
differentiate between right and wrong are ethics and morals. At the dawn of
civilization it was these ethics and morals which helped to maintain peace in
the society. Then with the birth of the concept of property (i.e. when the man
wanted to use the property at the exclusion of others) the classless society
remained no more classless and fragmentation of society began on the basis of
the amount of property a person owned. With advent of concept of property
their came greed and man began to submit to his selfish interests ignoring the
difference between good and bad. Thus law saw its evolution when the man
was no more god fearing and ignored even the basic moral and ethical
standards. Hence law was made to fight the most serious wrongs which the
whole society thought should be condemned. Due to this law only condemned
grievous wrongs and there was no sanction for acts which were not of serious
nature but were still ethically and morally incorrect. Moreover the standards of
morality were different for different classes of society and hence laws could be
made to condemn only those acts which all the classes looked down upon like
murder, theft and rape. So, it becomes clear from the beginning law as a
concept was not all pervasive. This can also be understood by a universally
accepted legal maxim "The law disregards trifles". The maxim itself accepts that
law does not take care of trifling acts which may thou
morally for e.g. law does not punish one if one tells a lie or breaks his/her
promise.
As law is not at all pervasive
for severe wrongs even which it cannot solve satisfactorily.
evolved and as the lawyers and judges put it is a dynamic concept, it has failed
to tackle the very severe of crimes may it be murder, burglary, kidnapping etc.
Year
Total cog.
crimes
under IPC
Murder
1953 6,01,964 9,802
2006 18,78,293 32,481
% Change
in 2006
over 1953
212.0 231.0
accepted legal maxim "The law disregards trifles". The maxim itself accepts that
law does not take care of trifling acts which may though be wrong ethically and
morally for e.g. law does not punish one if one tells a lie or breaks his/her
pervasive, the society can only depend on it to seek remedy
wrongs even which it cannot solve satisfactorily. Though the law has
evolved and as the lawyers and judges put it is a dynamic concept, it has failed
to tackle the very severe of crimes may it be murder, burglary, kidnapping etc.
Murder Kidnapping Robbery Burglary
9,802 5,261 8,407 147,379
32,481 23,991 18,456 91,666
231.0 356.0 120.0 -38.0
accepted legal maxim "The law disregards trifles". The maxim itself accepts that
gh be wrong ethically and
morally for e.g. law does not punish one if one tells a lie or breaks his/her
the society can only depend on it to seek remedy
hough the law has
evolved and as the lawyers and judges put it is a dynamic concept, it has failed
to tackle the very severe of crimes may it be murder, burglary, kidnapping etc.
Burglary Riots
147,379 20,529
91,666 56,641
38.0 176.0
The above table and the diagram shows that there has been an average 200%
increase in the above mentioned cognizable offences though, all of us know
that the sanction for the above mentioned offences have been made more
stringent and a law is modified or a new law is born everyday to tackle to a new
kind of a crime. Firstly, when the crimes of a certain kind increases the
punishment for the crime is made more stringent, this is what we have been
doing for the past fifty years, but as it is easy to observe the crime rate has not
decreased. Secondly when a new kind of a crime comes up there is a law made
for it. When there came in the use of computers, to tackle to crimes related to
it, there came the Information Technology Act, 2000, but still people are being
robbed in case of E-transactions. When came up the problem of stealing of
Intellectual property the legislature came up with the ‘The Copyright Act and
Trade Marks Act, 1999’, then the legislature to tackle the problem of man
degrading the environment for his selfish interests there came in the
Environment Protection Act to stop the degradation of environment and to
make the citizens aware of the fact that they need to preserve the planet for the
future generations, and there are still a lot of wrongs that are being
committed and the law has still not addressed those issues. In such
circumstances the question that arises is why even after so many existing
legislations we don’t have a crime free society
What is the problem?
To begin with like all the critics of the existing concept of punishment, we could
blame the Deterrent Theory and say that it’s not useful as an eye for an eye
makes the whole world blind and we need to fight the crime and not the
criminal and we need to resort to the reformative theory. If it is so then the
reformative theory was adopted in the late ninety’s and still the crime rate is
increasing.
Following the beaten path.
The problem is that whenever the crime rate increases we mechanically
seek its solution in law and the extent is that the law is now regulating
every sphere of mans life. It has now begun to tell one how to treat his
kids, how to behave within ones household the law now not only
regulates ones public life but also regulates ones private life. Seeing such
legislations which regulates even a man’s private life gives us the
impression that the man has no morals and ethics left which
necessitates such legislations, but the question that we don’t ask is
whether that man was given a chance to learn ethics and morals.
We assume that these ethics and morals will be taught to the children by
their parents but the problem is that in the modern society to runs ones
household both the parents need to work and they have hardly any time
for their children. The little time the parents have they generally spend in
getting their home work done or in recreational activities leaving no time
for moral education.
Though the reformative theory was a good step which actually deals with
the problem at the root level by trying to change a person and make him
fit for the society, but the problem with this theory is that it fails to
recognize the fact that after a certain age its very difficult for a person to
change and ethics and morals are things which a person has to learn at
the very beginning of his life.
Present Educational System
Earlier if not the father then the mother had the time to teach the
children the values may it be the cultural values, universal values,
personal values or the social values and prior to that if we talk about the
Indian civilizations the children were sent to the gurukuls to learn morals
and values. In the contemporary times where the parents have little time
for their children it was the educational organizations who needed to
take up the task of developing morals and values in the children.
Instead the present educational system has become more mechanical
and education is no longer seen as a service but it is now an industry.
The private schools and colleges have become a good source of income
for their owners. Since the school and colleges today charge a handsome
amount as their fee they target only on bringing results making their
students competitive and not responsible citizens. It is also not the fault
of the institutions they give the students what students and their parents
expect from them.
Today people are ignoring the very essence of education. We assess the
value of education in the same manner as we assess the value of a land
or of shares in the stock market. We only want to provide only such
education as would enable the student to earn more. We hardly give any
thought to the improvement of the character of the educated? As long as
we don’t change the way we look at education there is no chance that we
can understand the true essence of education which is building a strong
character and maintaining Integrity.
Now committing crimes is no longer the prerogative of the uneducated
and illiterate, it is now the educated class which is seen committing the
most heinous of crimes out of greed and to achieve their selfish motives.
Now one cannot relate to a person’s conduct to his educational
qualifications, this is because students today do not receive any moral or
value education from their schools.
Importance of value education
In today's fast paced competitive world, man seems to have compromised on
his values, integrity and character, in a bid to earn, use and possess more and
more of material wealth, as a result, we see rampant corruption, unlawful
activities, inhuman behaviour and immoral consumption, which is slowly
breaking the very structure of our society, nation and the world.1The saddest
part is that though some of the people who are compromising with values
integrity and character know what the terms mean the others don’t even know
the meaning of the terms. This is because they never got the opportunity to
learn the true meanings of the terms. Therefore, there is an urgent need to re-
introduce value education at the elementary level. This would be exact opposite
of the reformative theory which tries to teach values to the person after he has
committed the wrong. Moreover a child's mind is like soft clay and can be
moulded to any desired shape moreover teaching him values at the very
beginning also leaves no scope for him to commit mistakes. Teaching children
morals and values at the initial stage would leave lasting impressions on the
child mind and would help him to take correct decisions throughout his life.
If he is not taught these values and morals he would have nothing to
base his decisions on and the difference between a responsible citizen and a
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criminal is just some wrong decisions. These morals and values are nothing
but dos and don’ts and standards to judge right and wrong. Moreover teaching
values at school is better because a child spends a considerable time of his day
in the school and its interactive environment the teaching does not remain
theoretical but he can learn it by experience too. For e.g. if one lies to much in
school one would at a very early age learn one’s lesson by loosing the trust of
one’s friends. Moreover a person needs to learn the difference between right
and wrong at an early age as it can cause great problems in future. A person
who just tells a lie at the age of four or takes out money from his dad wallet as
the age of ten may commit an offence like breach of trust or pick pocketing at
the age of twenty five.
Though it is essential to give value education at the primary level it does
not mean stressing on value based education is not important after that,
recognizing the importance of reinforcing value education after primary school.
Acknowledging the above fact, Special Subject Group on Policy Framework for
Private Investment in Education, Health, and Rural Development in India
stated, "Unfortunately, training of young minds on values has taken a back
seat in Indian society, given its obsession with material pursuits. Compounding
this is the fact that there are hardly any role models in public life. Today there
is a crisis of character in Indian society. To build a society with good character
and citizenship, it is important that value education is introduced in preschool
and reinforced in primary, secondary, and higher education."2
Even if a person does not commit serious offences it is very important for a
states progress that its citizens are honest, diligent and sincere and to develop
these qualities in the citizens it is important to give them value based
education. Further it is this value based education which tells a person what
are his rights and what his duties towards the society are and also how to
exercise his rights and how to perform his duties. It is value based education
and value based education only which can give our citizens a fair opportunity
to go and perform on the global platform.
Today we need value based education more than ever before keeping in view
the corruption in our country. We just went through “season of scams” it
includes the alleged theft of billions by officials behind last year’s
Commonwealth games in Delhi; $40 billion in revenues lost from the crooked
sale of 2G telecoms licenses; and over $40 billion stolen in Uttar Pradesh alone
from schemes subsidizing food and fuel for the poor.3 This tells us that the
corruption is everywhere politicians are corrupt; the bureaucrats are corrupt,
corporate are corrupt and even the normal individual are corrupt. Though the
problem of corruption is a serious one though it can be solved if our citizens
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have a strong character and they do not compromise with their integrity. The
citizens of our country need to learn that “ values are priceless, while valuables
have a price”.
Suggestive Measures
We need to stop following the beaten path and stop seeking remedy in
law for everything that goes wrong in the society. We need to understand
that law is a ‘cure’ and not ‘prevention’; that it comes into picture once
the wrong has been done and damage been caused while developing and
conscience and ethics in a person is ‘prevention.’ The legislature needs to
understand that making a new law to tackle new kind of a crime is not a
solution as then it would keep making laws and it would be difficult for it
to properly implement it. While if it develops a character in a person and
for e.g. tells him that he should not steal then it does not need to tell him
that he should not steal intellectual property; he should not try to evade
from paying income tax; he should not steal while he is selling food stuff
(adulteration) etc.
The best thing about developing integrity in a person is that whatever
happens and in whatever form it may be he would never compromise
with his principles. Such a person abides by his own principles and not
by the law i.e. he does not conduct himself properly because he is afraid
of the sanction which may be imposed by the law but, because his own
principles do not allow him to conduct himself in an inappropriate
manner.�
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Change in the existing educational system��
It is high time that there is a change brought in the educational system
at the elementary, secondary and the higher level and moral and value
education is included in the syllabi of the students. It is said that if
wealth is lost nothing is lost, if health is lost something is lost, if
character is lost everything is lost. Keeping in mind the proverb we need
to change are present educational system and re-introduce value
education at the elementary level and reinforce it at the secondary and
higher level. This would make sure that a student develops a strong and
a good character. The value based educational system should not only
make students learn about the universal values but cultural and
national values a well. So that the very essence of education is achieved
ad a citizen knows oneself and be himself instead of losing his identity in
becoming while trying to be somebody else. By learning cultural and
national values students would be able to learn who they actually are.
. moreover what is also to be insured that value education if taught as a
subject should not be taught as others and should not include only
crude cramming. The teaching method of value education as a subject
needs to interactive so that the student learn the true importance of
values in a practical sense. This could be done by giving situations and
asking students what would be their stand in a situation this would help
the teachers to know whether the student ha actually developed values.
value education at the higher and secondary level can be reinforced by
making students to take part in activities like ‘ each one teach one’,
‘share with the needy’ etc. college student can also be encouraged to form
societies which bring awareness in the people about the importance of
developing values in their children etc.