Topic: 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.
6) ‘The civil servant who is not feared is not respected and so are his decisions’. Critically analyse.(250 words)
Ethics by Lexicon publications
Why this question:
The question is based on the work culture that a civil servant is expected to profess.
Key demand of the question:
The answer must discuss in what way the working of the civil servant and work culture of the organization depend more on the nature of the employees. If in the organization, work is inherently distasteful
to most people, and they attempt to avoid work whenever possible, then administrator needs to be more authoritarian and actively intervene to get things done.
Directive:
Critically analyze – When asked to analyse, you have to examine methodically the structure or nature of the topic by separating it into component parts and present them as a whole in a summary. When ‘critically’ is suffixed or prefixed to a directive, one needs to look at the good and bad of the topic and give a fair judgement.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
Discuss in brief the context of the question first.
Body:
In governance and administration, role of fear and respect both are important. If an administrator is weak, malleable, palpable, permissive and compromising on all issues, he/ she loses the element of fear among those who do not comply with laws and directives. But use of force to generate a reasonable amount of fear should be used scrupulously and with a human approach marked by a sense of proportionality with respect of the gravity of no conformation or compliance. The primitive societies, the nascent democracies or failing states which have weak institutions and which lack people’s trust; it becomes inevitable to use brute power for compliance of law and order.
However, the statement that the civil servant who is not feared is not respected and so are his decisions, denotes a coercive approach of governance. This does not work well in the medium and long term and there are boomerang effects, protests, and resistance and finally, it may lead to distrust, disorder, and anarchy.
Conclusion:
Conclude by reasserting need for a balanced approach.
