Essay on Values Are Not What Humanity Is, but What Humanity Ought to Be

“Values are not what humanity is, but what humanity ought to be” appeared as Topic 2 of Section A in the UPSC Civil Services Mains Essay paper held on 20 September 2019. Six lines on a question paper. One hundred and twenty-five marks if you handle it well. A wasted hour if you do not. This guide breaks the topic down the way it should be tackled in the hall — first the meaning, then the angles, then the time map, then the paragraph-by-paragraph plan, and finally a complete 1,200-word model essay you can study, dissect and adapt.

When this was asked and what UPSC is really testing

The topic was set in UPSC CSE Mains 2019, Essay paper, Section A. Three hours, two essays, one from each section, roughly 1,000 to 1,200 words each, 125 marks per essay. “Values are not what humanity is, but what humanity ought to be” is a philosophical-ethical prompt — the kind of quote that hides a famous philosophical distinction inside ordinary words. There is no policy hook, no current-affairs anchor, no GS overlap to lean on. The page is yours to fill, and that is exactly the test.

UPSC is checking four things at once. One, can you spot the is-ought distinction inside the quote and name it without parading the jargon. Two, can you move comfortably between philosophy, the Constitution, Indian tradition and administrative ethics without sounding like a textbook on any of them. Three, can you handle a topic that will tempt you into sermonising and stay analytical instead. Four, can you close a 1,200-word essay by bridging the gap between the is and the ought, rather than only lamenting it. Aspirants who manage all four score in the 130s. Those who only declare values rather than examine them score in the 90s.

Five angles that unlock “Values are not what humanity is, but what humanity ought to be”

The trap with abstract quotes is to pick one obvious meaning and ride it for 1,200 words. The mark-pulling answer instead identifies several lenses, names them clearly, and weaves them. Here are the five most defensible readings of the quote. You do not need all five in your essay — three, treated well, is the sweet spot. But you should know all five so your choice is conscious.

1. Values as the is-ought distinction — the philosophical core. David Hume warned that no description of how things are can by itself yield a claim about how they ought to be. Kant’s categorical imperative goes the other way: act only on principles you could will to be universal. Values live in that gap between description and prescription. Used well, this opens the essay at a philosophical altitude without sounding pretentious.
2. Values as constitutional aspiration — the Preamble’s promise of Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity is not a description of India in 1950 or 2026. It is a declaration of what India ought to become. The Constitution itself was drafted as an ought, knowing that the is would resist for generations. Article 17’s abolition of untouchability, Article 14’s equality before law, the Directive Principles — each names a value still being chased.
3. Values in Indian tradition — Indian thought has always distinguished satya (what is the case) from rta (the cosmic order things ought to follow). Dharma is not a description of behaviour but a measure against which behaviour is judged. The four Purusharthas — dharma, artha, kama, moksha — order human pursuits hierarchically by what they ought to serve. Gandhi’s Eleven Vows at Sabarmati Ashram named values that the inmates were not yet living, but had committed to grow into.
4. Values in public ethics — the Nolan Principles of public life (selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, leadership), the All India Services oath, the Civil Services Conduct Rules. Each codifies what an officer ought to be. The gap between the code on paper and the conduct in the file is exactly the gap the quote points to.
5. The counter — when ought becomes hypocrisy — values that ignore reality become sanctimony. A constitution that promises equality but cannot prevent honour killing, a code of conduct enforced selectively, a public discourse that preaches one ethic and practises another — these are values uncoupled from the is. The mature reading is that the gap is not to be denied or worshipped, but bridged.

A strong essay picks angles 1, 2 and 3 as its backbone (philosophy, Constitution, Indian tradition), uses 4 for concrete ground (public ethics) and 5 as the counter that earns it intellectual honesty. That gives the essay rhythm — meaning, anchor, complication, resolution — instead of a single straight line.

A time map for the 1,500-second window

One essay deserves about 75 to 90 minutes inside the three-hour paper. Spending more on Essay 1 starves Essay 2. The single biggest source of below-100 essay scores is poor time discipline — beautiful introductions, panicked conclusions. Use a rough breakdown like this:

Notice what is not on the list: rewriting the introduction halfway, hunting for the perfect quote, fancy diagrams, decorative underlining. None of that earns marks. Discipline does.

What to add — and what to avoid at all costs

The essay paper rewards what most aspirants under-do and punishes what most aspirants over-do. Memorise this list before you walk into the hall.

Add liberally

• One precise thesis, stated by the end of paragraph two and not abandoned. “Values are descriptions of the human we are not yet, kept alive so that the human we might become has somewhere to walk towards.”
• Concrete examples across three or four domains — one philosophical (Hume’s guillotine, Kant’s imperative), one Indian (the Preamble, dharma, Gandhi’s Eleven Vows), one legal (Article 17, the RTE Act, the abolition of sati) and one administrative (Nolan Principles, the IAS oath).
• Two or three short, named quotes — Hume on is and ought, Ambedkar on constitutional morality, Vinoba Bhave on the discipline of bhoodan. One per major section is enough.
• One Indian philosophical anchor. Rta from the Rig Veda, the four Purusharthas, Satyameva Jayate from the Mundaka Upanishad. Examiners read 300 essays a day; an Indian anchor in an essay full of Western names stands out.
• A counter-argument handled briefly. “It might be argued that values divorced from reality become hypocrisy…” — then resolved in two lines. Acknowledging the other side earns more marks than ignoring it.
• A clean conclusion that returns to the opening image — not a fresh argument, not a new example.

Avoid — even when tempted

• Restating the topic in the first sentence. “Values are indeed not what humanity is…” — this signals that you have nothing to add. Open with a scene or a paradox.
• Drifting into a single domain. A 1,200-word essay only on Kant, or only on Indian society, looks like a GS answer. Range matters.
• Moralising. “We must all live by our values” reads like a school assembly. The essay paper rewards examination, not exhortation.
• Hot-button political examples. The Essay paper is graded by humans across the ideological spectrum. Naming current parties, leaders or judgments by name introduces avoidable risk. Use the institution, not the personality.
• Decorative scholar-dropping. Citing Hume, Kant, Foucault and Rawls in one paragraph to look serious. One scholar, used well, beats four named in passing.
• Treating values as obvious. “Honesty, integrity, courage — these are the values” lists virtues without examining them. The whole point of the topic is that values are contested, and a good essay shows it.

A paragraph-by-paragraph blueprint

Twelve paragraphs at roughly 95 words each gets you to 1,140. Thirteen at 90 each gets you to 1,170. Either works. What follows is a 13-paragraph plan that maps cleanly onto the model essay below. Each line is what that paragraph is doing, not what it is saying.

1. Opening image — a courtroom, an oath-taking, a Sabarmati morning. A physical scene where a value is being declared, not lived. No mention of the topic yet.
2. The pivot to thesis — name the topic, then state the thesis in one sentence about the gap between is and ought.
3. Define the terms — what “values” means here (normative standards), and the Humean is-ought distinction that the quote rests on.
4. Angle 1 — Philosophy — Hume’s guillotine, Kant’s categorical imperative. Values as prescriptions, never derivable from description alone.
5. Indian anchor — rta, dharma, the four Purusharthas. Indian thought as an ought-tradition, not a description of behaviour.
6. Angle 2 — Constitution — the Preamble, Article 17, Directive Principles. The Constitution as a values declaration about a future India.
7. Historical proof — abolition of sati, untouchability ban, RTE, NREGA. Each shows the ought dragging the is forward over generations.
8. Angle 3 — Public ethics — Nolan Principles, the All India Services oath, the gap between the code and the conduct.
9. The contemporary crisis — values erosion in public discourse, whataboutism, situational ethics, the corrosive habit of comparing two wrongs.
10. Counter-argument handled — without realism, values become hypocrisy; the gap has to be bridged, not just declared.
11. Way forward — individual and educational — values education in schools, ethics modules in administrative training, Gandhi’s Eleven Vows as a method.
12. Way forward — institutional — independent press, civil society watchdogs, internal accountability machinery. Institutions as the bridge between code and conduct.
13. Closing image — return to the opening scene, close with one resonant line about values as the human we walk towards.

How to make an examiner stop and read

An essay examiner reads several hundred scripts in a sitting. The first paragraph decides whether they read the second with attention or with autopilot. Four small habits separate the essays that get attention from the ones that get skimmed.

• Open with a scene, not a statement. A young officer taking the oath, the inmates at Sabarmati at dawn, a Constituent Assembly debate at midnight. Concrete images cost no marks and earn attention.
• Use the topic phrase itself two or three times across the essay. Once in the thesis, once at the turn, once at the close. It signals discipline and prevents drift.
• Vary sentence length. A short sentence after three long ones lands. Examiners feel rhythm before they parse meaning.
• End paragraphs with the takeaway, not with examples. Place the example mid-paragraph. Let the last sentence be the thought, so the reader carries it into the next paragraph.

The complete essay — “Values are not what humanity is, but what humanity ought to be”

What follows is a 1,200-word model essay built on the blueprint above. Read it twice — once for the argument, once for the moves. The moves are what you can carry into your own essay; the argument is one of many you could make.

At dawn in Sabarmati, in the years before independence, a small group of men and women would rise to take eleven vows — truth, non-violence, non-stealing, chastity, non-possession, bread-labour, control of the palate, fearlessness, equal regard for all religions, the use of indigenous goods, and the removal of untouchability. None of them claimed to have arrived. They had merely agreed that these were the standards against which their failures would be measured each day. The vow was not a description of who they were. It was a description of who they had decided to become.

“Values are not what humanity is, but what humanity ought to be” begins from that simple act of vow-taking. The phrase rests on one of philosophy’s oldest insights — that there is a logical gap between the world as it stands and the world as it should stand, and that values live in that gap. The thesis of this essay is straightforward: values are descriptions of the human we are not yet, kept alive so that the human we might become has somewhere to walk towards. Take them as accurate descriptions of present conduct and they collapse into self-congratulation. Take them as aspirations to be steadily bridged, and they pull a civilisation forward.

Some careful definitions help. By “values” the topic means the normative standards a society sets for itself — honesty, justice, compassion, equality. By the contrast between “is” and “ought” it points to what David Hume named in the eighteenth century as the unbridgeable logical leap from describing the world to prescribing it. You cannot derive an ought from an is; no inventory of human behaviour produces, by itself, a rule about how humans should behave. Values are precisely the rules we add to that inventory, knowing that they describe nothing yet and demand a great deal.

Western moral philosophy has wrestled with this gap for three centuries. Kant’s categorical imperative — act only on principles you could will to be universal — is openly prescriptive and proudly indifferent to whether anyone actually so acts. Utilitarianism, contractarianism, virtue ethics each propose different bridges from is to ought, but none denies that the bridge has to be built. Values, in this tradition, are not facts about human nature. They are commitments made against the grain of human nature, defensible only by the argument that without them, civilisation loses direction.

Indian thought reached the same conclusion long before, in a different vocabulary. The Rig Veda distinguishes satya, what is the case, from rta, the cosmic order things ought to follow. Dharma is not a description of how anyone behaves; it is the standard against which behaviour is judged. The four Purusharthas — dharma, artha, kama, moksha — order human pursuits hierarchically, with dharma placed first not because most lives obey it but because lives that ignore it are held to be incomplete. The Indian tradition has always read values as oughts, not as inventories.

The most ambitious modern statement of this insight is the Indian Constitution. The Preamble names Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity not as 1950’s reality, nor as today’s, but as the destination towards which the republic has bound itself. Article 17 abolished untouchability in a country where its practice was still widespread; Article 14 promised equality before law in a society stratified by caste, gender and faith; the Directive Principles asked the state to chase social and economic justice across generations. The Constitution-makers knew the gap between the is and the ought would be vast. They wrote the ought down anyway, precisely because writing it down is how the gap eventually narrows.

The historical record vindicates the wager. The abolition of sati in 1829 began as a value held by a small reformist minority and ended as common conscience. Untouchability went from social orthodoxy to constitutional offence within a generation. The Right to Education Act and rural employment guarantee schemes translated abstract Directive Principles into enforceable entitlements decades after the Constitution declared them. None of these is fully realised. All have moved the is measurably closer to the ought. The pattern is consistent: a value is named while the world contradicts it, then institutions are built around the value, then the world slowly bends.

The same logic underwrites professional ethics. The Nolan Principles of public life — selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, leadership — were drafted in 1990s Britain after a series of scandals, not as a description of how officials behaved but of how they ought to. The All India Services oath and the Civil Services Conduct Rules play the same role for the Indian administration. The gap between the code on paper and the conduct in the file is where corruption, favouritism and capture grow. It is also where reform begins, because the code provides the language in which the gap can even be named.

The contemporary danger is not the absence of values but their cynical inversion. Public discourse increasingly treats values as rhetorical weapons rather than personal disciplines. Whataboutism — the habit of meeting any criticism with a louder counter-accusation — drains values of their meaning by reducing them to scorekeeping. Situational ethics, where the same act is wrong when done by an opponent and acceptable when done by an ally, finishes the job. When values become tribal markers rather than personal commitments, the gap between the is and the ought is no longer being bridged. It is being mocked.

It might be objected that values entirely uncoupled from reality become hypocrisy; that a Constitution promising equality while honour killings continue, or a code of conduct enforced selectively, does more harm than no code at all. The objection is partly right and entirely insufficient. The remedy for the gap is not to lower the ought to the level of the is, which would surrender the future to the worst of the present. The remedy is to keep the ought in place and build, brick by brick, the institutions, habits and accountability mechanisms that drag the is upward.

For an individual, this points to small disciplines: ethics modules taken seriously in school and in administrative training, the habit of stating one’s commitments aloud as Sabarmati did each morning, the willingness to be judged by the standards one proclaims. Vinoba Bhave’s bhoodan movement worked precisely because it asked donors to act on a value before the law required them to. For institutions, the list is familiar — an independent press that refuses to confuse access with truth, a civil society that watches the watchers, internal accountability machinery that catches the breach before the headline does, courts that enforce the gap between the is and the ought with patience.

Return for a moment to that Sabarmati dawn. Eleven vows, taken by people who knew they had not yet kept any of them. The vow was not dishonest because it failed to describe their lives; it was honest because it described the lives they were trying to grow into. Values are precisely that kind of vow, scaled up from a small ashram to a civilisation. They are not what humanity is. They are what humanity ought to be — and that ought, named and rehearsed and defended generation after generation, is the only reason the is has ever moved at all.

Word count: approximately 1,200.

How to use this model essay

Do not memorise it. Memorised essays read like memorised essays, and examiners spot them in two paragraphs. Use the model the way a chess student uses a master game: study the opening move, the pivot, the way each paragraph hands the reader to the next, the placement of the Indian anchor, the way the counter-argument is brought up and then closed. Then take a different ethics-flavoured essay topic — try “Courage is grace under pressure” or “Wisdom finds truth” — and write your own essay using the same blueprint. Repeat that exercise eight to ten times and the structure becomes muscle memory. On the day of the exam, the only thing you should have to think about is the topic itself.