Distinguish between ‘consequences of ethics’ for an individual and for society. Why does a single act of administrative dishonesty cascade beyond the office that committed it?
Subtopic: Section A · Ethics and Human Interface · Consequences of ethics
How to structure your answer
Define: consequences of ethics at three levels — agent, immediate stakeholders, institutional trust.
Illustrate: a Tehsildar accepting bribe for a mutation entry, downstream loss to public confidence.
Apply: 2nd ARC on cost of corruption; Putnam's social-capital framework.
Conclude: ethical action produces compounding public goods; unethical action produces compounding public bads.
Written within the word limit
147 words · target 150 words · 9 min
Definition: Consequences of ethics for an individual are habituated character, credibility and self-respect; for society, they are aggregate trust, institutional legitimacy and the rule-of-law dividend that lowers transaction costs in every public interaction.
Illustration: A single act of administrative dishonesty cascades beyond the office that committed it. The Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh (2013) involved a few examiners but eroded faith in every government recruitment exam in the state. The 2010 Commonwealth Games procurement irregularities tarnished India's international reputation. Conversely, Vinod Rai's CAG reports on 2G allocation strengthened audit credibility for a decade. The 2nd ARC's Ethics in Governance Report notes that corruption operates as a 'reputational tax' — every dishonest act raises the cost of the next honest interaction. Ashok Khemka's persistent integrity acts as a counter-cascade.
Application: Probity-protective design — RTI Section 4 disclosures, asset declarations and Whistleblowers Protection — is the structural recognition that dishonesty's externalities exceed its private gain.
What an examiner expects to see
- Individual: integrity, self-respect, mental peace
- Institutional: predictability, trust, lower transaction cost (North's institutional economics)
- Societal: rule of law, civic trust, willingness to pay tax
- World Bank: corruption costs developing economies 1-2 per cent of GDP
- 2nd ARC 4th Report — corruption as transaction cost on the poor
- Broken-windows logic — small breaches normalise larger ones
Concrete cases, schemes and judgments
- Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana onboarding stalled by KYC bribe demands in early phase
- Karnataka Lokayukta sting on PWD officials 2010 — service-quality collapse
- PRAGATI platform 2015 monthly stocktake by PM — trust-restoration tool