Law & Ethics (Another assignment of mine for Engineering Ethics Course)

In a Healthy Society, the law of the land and ethics of the people play significant role in defining the Health of the society and Social life in the society. As the saying goes, “A chain is no stronger than its weakest link” if either of law or ethics is lax then it leads to the debasing of the health of the society. The “Book of the law” grows bigger as the basic ethics of people deteriorates. In fact, if people themselves are ethical then there would not have been a requirement for the law of the land. Unlike law that is enforced on individual Ethics cannot be forced. This calls for a need for law. This Writing mentions some of the key differences between Ethics and Law.

Ethics are the basic principle of an individual. It doesn’t depend on the legality involved in a matter. Of course, there can be dilemma or conflict of interest in some special cases that involves contradictory arguments. That is because of the complexity of the matter and non-obvious arguments involved. One such example is “Using animals to perform experiments and see how they react for poisons.” Although legally there exist, no conflict in this scenario a philosopher wouldn’t definitely see a conflict of interest involved. A morally ethical person would perhaps deny using animals in such a scenario. He would in fact use human beings, who are on death bed, who volunteers for such an experiment. Thus, Ethics are always a hand higher than law of the land. In fact, the law is always a derivative of Ethics.

On the other hand, Laws cannot handle all conflicting situations, unlike ethics that answers most if not all. Law is a set of rules that must be obeyed. A famous story of paradox, “When once two persons, a senior lawyer and a junior practicing lawyer get into an agreement stating that the practicing lawyer would pay the fee to the Senior lawyer once the practicing lawyer wins his first case”. Everything goes well until when the senior lawyer becomes indignant because the practicing lawyer didn’t pay him his fee for many years and so appeals in the Court. The practicing lawyer argues against senior lawyer defending that he doesn’t have to pay as he hasn’t won any case until then. Now the paradoxical situation arises if the practicing lawyer wins (i.e., he doesn’t have to pay senior lawyer as per court) this case, as this is his first case and ends up having has to pay senior lawyer his fee as per their agreement. Should the Junior Lawyer, then pay his Senior Lawyer or not ? Had it been an ethical issue this could have been solved easily, rather than being a Law issue. Thus, Ethics is the superset of Law and plays significant role in defining the law of the land.

Three Types of Ethics ( Engineering ) (This was an assignment for Engineering Ethics Subject during Master's Course)

Apparently, all the three ethics viz., Conceptual (or De-Ontology), Material (or Utilitarianism) and Virtue ethics looks like as though they have independent existence of their own. But a careful observation will make it obvious that the Conceptual and Utilitarian Ethics are the derivatives of the later. i.e., Virtue Ethics. In fact, a culture that doesn’t embrace virtue ethics whole heartedly has already booted the other two ethics knowingly or unknowingly. In a sense utilitarian and conceptual ethics are the results of virtuous thinking of virtuous people who bother to care about the process that is followed and the end result of their action. If Love and Integrity are most important ( most important of all for that matter) basic ethical values of a virtuous person he ensures that his every action would result in making things a little more beautiful if not otherwise, unless it takes a great vision and intelligence that is beyond his human limit. So in essence, a real loving/caring person will also care about other things like nature and not just his/her coworker, because a care for the nature is the care for the next generation, and it is the celebration of a virtuous man if he keeping this world a little beautiful for the coming generation.

In certain cases, conceptual ethics appear to be much more relevant than virtue ethics, although it is not true. Conceptual Ethics may appear superior only in a society or social structure that lacks virtue ethics. In such cases the head of the organization or the society (group of concerned people) has to make certain rules and regulations as to how one is supposed to live and let other in the society live decently. Even here the rules/regulations that make a major portion of conceptual ethics are a result of virtuous thinking of the law maker to keep the society in healthy conditions.

In Utilitarianism too, if a law binds people to ensure the resultant of their action should be ethical, the law is an obvious outcome of virtuous quality of the law maker. Even here, one can make people ensure that the material at the end of certain action is ethical through law, but none can make them really virtuous by enforcing a law. i.e., People can’t be made Virtuous, i.e., loving and caring by enforcing laws, rules and regulations. At the most they can pretend, but can’t love if they don’t wish to be. On the other hand, Even if People are not virtuous they can be made to follow certain protocol, when they carry out certain action. Thus, it can be seen that Conceptual and Utilitarian Ethics are the derivatives of Virtue ethics, which is the most significant of all kinds of ethics.