VAISHALI GILL
The terms ethics and morality are closely related. It is now common to refer to ethical judgments or to ethical principles where it once would have been more accurate to speak of moral judgments or moral principles. These applications are an extension of the meaning of ethics. In earlier usage, the term referred not to morality itself but to the field of study, or branch of inquiry, that has morality as its subject matter. In this sense, ethics is equivalent to moral philosophy. Etymologically the term “Ethics” correspond to the Greek word “Ethos” which mean Character, Habit, Customs or Way of behaviour, etc. Hence, Ethics, defined as Systematic study of human actions from the point of view of their rightfulness or wrongfulness. Simply it’s “A set of principles which guides us what to do and what not to do the way acceptable to the society.” The social importance of ethics doesn’t simply extend to addressing major social problems and reforming society, however. The study of morality is important because morality itself is important. In fact, without morality, human society itself would not be possible. Imagine, for instance, what it would be like if everyone constantly ignored their moral duty to tell the truth.There are five important virtues of Ethics: Prudence, Courage, Temperance, Justice and Benevolence.The Indian term for morality and ethics is ‘dharma’. Dharma comes from the root ‘dhr’, which means ‘to hold together’. And thus, the function of dharma is to hold the human society together for its stability and growth. Right conduct is essential if the human society is to survive. Human values and professional ethics are complementary to each other. Whereas human values convey personal conviction, ethics describe the accepted principles and standards of conduct about moral duties and virtues as applied to an organization. Codes of professional ethics guide the stakeholders of an organization about the desirable and undesirable acts related to the profession. The underlying philosophy of having professional ethics is to make people follow a sound uniform ethical conduct. The success of an institution’s mission and vision is driven by value-based ethical behaviour of its committed faculty members, officers, staff and students.