Ethics

4 Pages 1070 Words

Ethics, Culture, and Hinduism

Ethics is a study of moral issues in the fields of individual and collective interaction. The term is also sometimes used more generally to describe issues in arts and sciences, religious beliefs and cultural priorities. The professional fields that deal with ethical issues and include medicine, trading, business, law, and etc.

Modern Culture and its Influence on Ethics

Modern science has positively influenced general attitudes and beliefs in ethical and moral social code. However, all is not well as far as the health of ethics is concerned. Ethics has not produced the desired effect in eradicating material disparity between haves and have-nots. The plight of vast majority of people in South East Asia, Latin America, and Africa is most pathetic, to say the least. The dollar is now nothing less but 'adored deity' and consequent hankering after materialistic gains has pushed the nobility of ethics and morality into disrepute. Materialistic influence has also led to the general belief that gratification of senses is the only way of enjoyment. This has produced highly selfish mentality without spiritual concept of life.

The question of unethical trends cannot be put directly on one individual scientist, but there is no doubt that 'scientific culture' has led to this disparity and discrepancy in making the scarce resources available to all. How to reconcile such diverse trends in ethics? Are they related to prevailing culture? To answer these questions we must know something about culture and civilization.

Culture may be defined as a particular stage in civilization associated with certain tastes in art and manners, and also all the knowledge and values, shared and favored by a society or a social group. Civilization means societal norms and aspects of human interrelationship that have advanced and reached a particular state of fossilization based on a given culture. Thus we can talk of Ve...