NOTE: Please remember that following ‘answers’ are NOT ‘model answers’. They are NOT synopsis too if we go by definition of the term. What we are providing is content that both meets demand of the question and at the same time gives you extra points in the form of background information.
Ethics
Q1.What do you understand by social intelligence? How can civil servants use social intelligence for carrying out their duty? 10M
Introduction
Social intelligence is a skill that can be gained through the day-to-day life experiences of understanding people and navigating one’s behaviour to develop social connections.
Body
Social Intelligence
- It is about a person’s ability to communicate effectively and interact with people in an empathetic and assertive manner.
- Social intelligence is a quality that comes from the awareness of one’s inner self and practicing effective emotional management.
- Social Intelligence is closely related and definitely linked to Emotional Intelligence. Work relationships — like all relationships — can be complicated. Being able to understand what’s going on — and respond skillfully —means you’ll be a better team player, a better negotiator, and a better administrator.
How can civil servants use social intelligence for carrying out their duty?
- Conversation skills: SI helps individuals to cultivate conversation skills. Thus Civil servants use these conversation skills to reach a wide variety of people.
- Example – IAS officer in Telangana Divya Devarajan learned the tribal language Gondi to address the health and education problems of tribal people.
- Effective Listening Skills: Socially intelligent persons are great listeners. Thus SI helps civil servants to take the opinions of every section of society before taking any decision.
- For instance: In granting Environmental clearance, Civil servants with SI not just take the opinions of the majority sections who are affected by the project, he/she will also take the opinions of even small tribal groups-whose voices can be neglected otherwise.
- Knowledge of Social Roles, Rules, and Scripts: Social intelligence can be used by civil servants to learn how to play various social roles. It can also be used by them to become well versed in the informal rules, or “norms,” that govern social interaction.
- For instance – A civil servant with an effective high SI will effectively manage allowing different religious festivals at the same time, without giving a chance to raise communal riots.
- Role Playing and Social Self-Efficacy: The socially intelligent person knows how to play different social roles-allowing him or her to feel comfortable with all types of people. As a result, the SI civil servant feels socially self-confident and effective.
- Understanding other people’s emotions: Understanding emotions is part of Emotional Intelligence, and Social Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence are correlated – people who are especially skilled are high on both.
Conclusion
In this era of information and close contact with the public, civil servants need to be socially intelligent to connect and work with them. Civil servants act as a link between the public and the government and social intelligence acts as a bond between the two.
Q2.What do you understand by Environmental ethics? Deliberate issues related to Environmental ethics in India. 10M
Introduction
Environmental ethics is about studying the moral and ethical relationship of human beings to the environment. Environmental ethics helps to define man’s moral and ethical obligations toward the environment.
Body
Issues related to Environmental ethics in India.
- Deforestation: Developmental activities by the government and multinational companies are the major players in the exploitation of forests. However, the effect of deforestation will majorly affect poor people who are dependent on forests for their livelihoods.
- Eg – Data from Global forest watch Shows, that from 2001 to 2021, India lost 2.07Mha of tree cover, equivalent to a 5.3% decrease in tree cover since 2000, and 1.01Gt of CO₂ emissions.
- Environmental pollution: Consequences of environmental pollution do not respect national boundaries. Moreover, the poor and weaker sections of society are disproportionately affected by the negative effects of climate change.
- Eg – Pollution led to more than 2.3 million premature deaths in India in 2019, according to a new Lancet study. Nearly 1.6 million deaths were due to air pollution alone, and more than 500,000 were caused by water pollution.
- Rights of flora and fauna: Nature, Animals and Plants have certain rights as humans have. Recognizing their rights and protecting them is part of environmental ethics. But in recent times, this has been neglected widely not just in India but also over the world.
- For example – India’s biodiversity-rich Western Ghats, Himalayas and the northeast are ‘hotspots’ of human impacts; India ranks 16th in such human impacts, with 35 species impacted on average.
- Absence of equity: People in urban areas and economically advanced areas use greater amounts of energy and resources like water, electricity etc at the cost of people living in rural and resource-deprived regions.
- Preserving resources for future generations: This ethical issue must be considered when we use resources unsustainably. If we overuse and misuse resources and energy from fossil fuels, our future generations will find survival very difficult.
- Environmental education: The most important concern is related to creating an ethos that will support a sustainable lifestyle in society. Valuing nature as a resource is the need of the hour.
- The conservation ethic and traditional value systems of India: During the olden days, people always valued mountains, rivers, forests, trees and several animals. Thus, much of nature was venerated and protected. In modern days, these traditional value systems have been largely neglected causing various issues.
Conclusion
Measures to maintain environmental ethics.
- Sustainable Development is an important aspect of Environmental ethics, that recognizes that all development decisions must simultaneously consider aspects of Economy, Environment, and Equity.
- Awareness about the Environment and the negative impacts of environmental degradation.
- Wise use of resources.
- Implementation of the ‘land ethic’ principle – where land is not just treated as soil but as a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants and animals.
