Moral and Ethics in Everyday Life.
"Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all."
-Aristotle
"Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil."
-C.S. Lewis
These pearls of wisdom not only highlight the importance of morals and ethics but also portray that an individual who lacks moral and ethics is like a devil in the guise of human. Both morals and ethics are the foundation stones for a healthy and peaceful society that lead to a peaceful and prosperous country and finally make our world a better place to live in.
Before we discuss about the morals and ethics in our daily life, lets first divulge into some details viz; their origin, meanings/definitions and differences. The word Ethics is derived from the Greek word "ethos" meaning "character" whereas Morals is derived from Latin word "mos" meaning "custom". Ethics are governed by professional and legal guidelines relating to a particular time and space, whereas, morals are not governed professionally or legally but are those characteristics of good and bad that evolve from within. Ethics are society based whereas morals relate to individual. Ethics are dependent on morals and they tend to vary between various contexts whereas morals are usually consistent.
Therefore, a person following ethical principles may have no morals at all whereas a person with morals would follow a code of ethics.
It will not be wrong if we state "that morals are not dependant on ethics but ethics are dependent on morals". Sadly, both words morals and ethics are used interchangeably without actually pondering over their proper usage in proper context.
Humans are governed willingly or unwillingly by morals and ethics from birth till death. Since, they (morals and ethics) are building blocks of a healthy society they play an important role in our daily life.
A person cannot be a good human if he has no morals. We have morals and ethics towards ourselves and our family but its absence in today's era is leading to disharmony within our homes. The side effects of such ills are leading to new social evils - prominent among them being admitting one's parents to old age homes. If the parents would have not followed the morals and ethics of parenting, they would have left their kids helpless in their infancy, childhood or adolescence? But they were firm on their instinctual ethics and morals.
Morals and ethics relating to friends and relatives also exist. Evading them is leading to animosity and is harboring unhealthy friendship and relations. Gone are the days when we heard about person going an extra mile for their friends and relatives sacrificing his various resources like time, health, wealth etc. The same morals and ethics apply to our neighbors and acquaintances too, but, lack of morals and ethics with respect to neighbors and acquaintances have deprived us of such relations which were once considered more important than friendship and relations.
We don't tend to follow any of our moral or ethical responsibility towards ourselves, family and friends, neighbors and acquaintances. We are being dishonest and disloyal to ourselves and society. A person who is dishonest and disloyal to himself or society cannot be honest and loyal to his country. The consequences of such behaviors are now visible in our country in form of violence, anarchy, fundamentalism, racism, communalism and terrorism to name a few.
Our beloved country India was once a torch bearer of moral and ethics but sadly the materialism in our society and education system has deprived us of this great heritage to a very large extent.
It's still not too late, let's stand to change ourselves, our family, friends etc, to fulfill the dream of a perfect India. Remember we will be answerable to our future generations for the blunders committed and not taken care of. Change is calling are you listening? Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) said:
"The one without manners is not from us."
To conclude, a person void of moral and ethics (manners) is actually not loyal to his creator - God.
Syed Abbas
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