How Culture Influences Ethics?

Ethics represents a set of moral principles that guides behaviour, and culture is a collective manifestation of a group’s preferences and orientation. Hence, we can see that the two concepts remain closely related and often culture shapes ethical values. Hence, culture is a group phenomenon and ethics is an individual phenomenon. The ethical construct to a large extent depends on our interpretations of truth. Our interpretations of truth are influenced by our own culture.

What is ethical to one group will not be considered so by another group. This is the theory of cultural relativists. According to them, there is no singular truth on which to base ethical or moral behaviour for all time. This approach is in contrast to universalism, which holds the position that moral values are same for everyone. Cultural relativists believe that Universalists thoughts are influenced by their values and believe ethnocentric view makes them less tolerant as they are effectively passing judgements about the other culture.

The choices made by individuals are largely influenced by the circumstances in which he/she lives and is also influenced by community, circle of influence, and to some extent by the macro factors. The modern lifestyle is driven by consumerism. Consumerism believes that happiness is obtained by consuming more and more resources. Since GDP is measured in terms of consumption, there is an incentive for all institutional machineries to promote that as a construct to obtain satisfaction. However, consumerism is subject to inconsistencies because of persistence of older traditions and emergence of new reactions to consumerism.

East and West:

The basic difference between Asian countries and Anglo Saxon countries is Asian countries are family based societies whereas the west is an individualistic society. Individual centric societies tend to be driven by contracts and family based society are driven by social contracts (not necessarily legal). Since family is an economic unit, an individual has more responsibilities apart from accumulating wealth and therefore altruism is developed because of his/her interaction with family members and decision making revolves around maximising welfare and not wealth as individual thinks for the family as a whole and not just the individual. However, it is important for the individuals to increase the circle of influence so as to live life holistically.

Role of religion in Ethics:

Ethics is not only a function of how much wealth does a person possess but also a function of what is the position of wealth in his/her life. Since religions like Hinduism and Buddhism believe in rebirth, their ethical values are derived by individuals requirement of being duty bound and follow righteous path. A person can achieve salvation through right action, knowledge of true nature and spiritual devotion. These religions believe in non-attachment and therefore the ethical quotient among the people who follow these religious path can be expected to be high. The problem that cultures face in today’s times is the intermingling of different cultures creating confusion among the people on the path to take. There is a thin line of difference between following one path and respecting others. Not following other paths is not a sign of disrespect.

Ethics and money:

Ethical principles are put to test when a person is confronted with a situation involving money. Greed is one of the main reasons why a person compromises with his/her outlook towards ethics. Hence, ethical dilemmas are well understood when a person has an opportunity to make gains at the expense of righteousness. Here it becomes very critical to understand the role of spirituality in developing ethical values and hence the importance of culture because if culturally a civilisation has a history of spiritual pursuit/philosophical constructs underlying the people’s behaviour, we can expect the subjects to be more ethical in their daily pursuits of life. It is important to understand that pursuit of spirituality is not against wealth generation but against the methods of wealth generation. When people understand the difference between wealth and illicit wealth, ethical dilemmas will cease to exist.

Ethical situation in India:

Whenever we talk about the Hinduism and the 4 pillars of Sanatana Dharma, we always look at the rich past and how ethical the civilisation and at the same was economically prosperous with less income inequalities. According to me, income equality is a very important outcome of ethical business practices. However, in the current scenario, there appears to be an ethical problem in the country with high levels of corruption and poverty. The greed to become rich at the cost of ethical values has led to this situation. It is important to look at the country’s history to understand the current situation. The invasion of India- first by Moghuls and later by British is a very important event to understand the current situation. Especially during the British rule, we were made to believe that our culture is inferior to the west. This was systematically done by the substitution of indigenous education system with the British model of education. This meant after a generation, people felt superior about the western things, systems as they were only learning about the great things of those nations and when we add the dimension of Industrial revolution we will understand that people started to feel that it is the Hindu way of life which is the reason for this poverty. Hence, the wrong notion of inferiority for the nation’s own culture was created successfully and systematically over the period of British rule. With the degradation of culture, the value for ethics was downplayed and since ethics are learnt primarily through demonstration, the generations to come diluted the meaning of ethics and this resulted in pursuit of business with ethical pollution. Hence, there is a need for the revival of Hindu culture that once existed.

Conclusion: Culture plays a very important role in shaping the economy and ethical values of the nation. The world faces a leadership crisis today and India can provide a direction on how to lead an ethical life since it is one of the oldest living civilisations of the world. Cultural identity is as important as economic identity for the nation. It results in sustainable economic development. Economic prosperity at the degradation of culture can result in chaos and identity crisis which will increase unethical practices.

Ethics can survive in societies where the cultural beliefs habitat a sense of solidarity for other human beings.