It is often said that ‘politics’ and ‘ethics’ do not go together. What is your opinion in this regard? Justify your answer with illustrations.

Ethics in Politics: Positives: i) Idealism - ideal situations. ii) Promotes harmony in society e.g. Gandhi prefers decentralised governance as participatory democracy. iii) Strengthens attitudes of people towards state

Negatives: i) Ethics prevent tough decisions. → Hobbes prefers leviathan even restricting some rights for stability. ii) make society externally vulnerable. → external actors may not follow ethics. iii) Pragmatism e.g International relations follow "might is right".

Reasons for divergence: i) Moral decay of society → complacent attitude towards corruption. ii) Non-desirability due to scarce resources. → optimal utilisation required.

Consequences of divergence: i) Slippery slope → eye for eye ii) Ethical fading → moral myopia iii) Totalitarian regimes e.g Fascism iv) lack of compassion to weaker sections. v) Negative political attitude of people.

(i) Ethical Governance is following of ethical standards in the decision-making of a country. It is ethical absolutism. The universal standards of transparency, accountability, responsibility, compassion and objectivity are to be followed.

(ii) Compassion in Public life : The empathy, sympathy combined with desire to alleviate suffering is compassion. It is needed for trust based governance and fosters respect, acceptability and desirability of administration.

(iii) Selflessness : Ethical altruism so as to place others over oneself is selflessness. It is top most virtue as per Vivekananda. e.g. Kailash Satyarthi for children. It leads to moral strengthening of a society

(iv) Crisis of Conscience : Conscience is moral compass of a human being. The regret of not doing right or guilt of doing wrong makes individual mentally perturbed and prepares them for further positive action e.g witnessing road accident and leaving

(v) Non-Partisanship : Political neutrality of a public servant to provide merit based advice and follow the policy mandates as per law without bias or favour.