Ethics Theory, GS 4, TLP-UPSC Mains Answer Writing
3. Compassion is the basis of morality. Elucidate. (15 Marks)
करुणा नैतिकता का आधार है। स्पष्ट करें।
Approach-
Candidates need to elucidate with example by highlighting how Compassion is the basis of morality.
Introduction
Morality is the way we behave towards others and without others morality is inexistent. It’s the unwritten law which we tend to follow in our social interactions and use it to measure other people and other people use it to measure us.
Compassion is the basis of morality
- A man without compassion would fail to understand others as good as one with it, compassion is useful because it helps us predict behaviour of others and it helps us shift our point of view from ourselves to others.
- All humans have power to imagine, by imagining being in the place of the one we interact with we can make sure to act towards them as we would wish them to act towards us.
- Compassion is something most people lack and that is why there is so much injustice, if everyone was compassionate and aware of others open conflicts would cease to exist.
- If a person had others in mind while making all his decisions he would never act so as to do wrong to them because nobody really wants to be wronged, but not everyone puts themselves in the place of others because of factors such as greed, lust, vengeance.
- Compassion is something women understand better than men because the mother-child bond which they have is one of the strongest among all bonds in human interactions.
- It is this kind of selfless care and devotion all of us should strive to achieve towards every other human being, by acting so we make it clear to others that we care.
- Biological purpose of a man is to live, love and reproduce, great majority of people attach to a partner at some point in their life and get to feel love, love is the pure concentrate of selflessness and compassion and if we are all capable to feel love to a single human being, we are capable of feeling love towards all human beings.
- Having in mind that great majority of people do feel love and then act without it in their future decisions towards others makes humans quite hypocritical.
- I wouldn’t pose the question if compassion is necessary for morality because it’s logical that without care for others and their expectations and well-being there is no morale.
Conclusion
Compassion isn’t the sole basis of morality; basis of morality is made both of compassion and rationality because in order to act morally towards others we need sense as much as we need emotions. We need sense to act morally slightly more than we need emotions and although compassion is a useful compass in navigating the seas of social interactions it is not the only navigational tool.
