Bring out the relevance of Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean and Kant’s categorical imperative for a public servant deciding on a contentious environmental clearance.

Definition: Aristotle's doctrine of the mean places virtue between deficiency and excess, located by phronesis or practical wisdom; Kant's categorical imperative requires acting only on those maxims that one can rationally will to become universal law.

Illustration: A public servant deciding a contentious environmental clearance — say, a coal-block in Hasdeo Aranya — confronts deficiency (rubber-stamping the clearance) and excess (blanket refusal that paralyses development). Aristotelian phronesis prescribes the mean: site-specific cumulative-impact assessment with conditional, monitored clearance. Kant then asks whether the clearance maxim — 'override consent of forest-dwellers for growth' — could be universalised across all such projects; it cannot, because it instrumentalises the affected community as mere means. The Lafarge Umiam 2011 Supreme Court ruling embodied both lenses, compelling regulators to balance ecological use with principled procedure.

Application: The EIA Notification 2006 read with the precautionary principle (Vellore Citizens 1996) encodes the Aristotelian-Kantian synthesis for contemporary Indian regulators.