Ethics, integrity, and aptitude are compulsory subjects in the UPSC Civil Services Mains exam, which is part of General Studies Paper 4. Ethics guides us in speaking the truth, keeping our promises, and helping those in need. The inclusion of this paper in the UPSC exam aims to test candidates’ perspectives on issues of honesty and integrity when dealing with real-life situations as civil servants.
In the theoretical portion, candidates are expected to demonstrate an understanding of various concepts and issues related to ethics, integrity, and aptitude. The situational-based questions present candidates with hypothetical scenarios, where they are given a situation and expected to provide a response.
Chapter
- Part A: Ethics and Human Interface
- Human Values
- Dimension Of Ethics
- Ethics in Human Action
- Ethics In Public and Private Relationships
- Part B: Ethics in Public Administration
- Strengthening Ethical Values in Governance
- Accountability and
- Ethical Governance
- Laws, Rules, Regulations, and Conscience As a Source of Ethical Guidance
- Ethical Dilemmas in Administration
- Corporate Governance
- Part C: Probity In Governance
- Information Sharing and Right To Information
- Code of Conduct and Code of Ethics
- Citizen ‘Charter
- Work Culture
- Quality of Service Delivery
- Utilization of Public Funds
- Challenges of Corruption
- Part D: Attitude
- Part E: Emotional Intelligence
- Part F: Moral Thinkers And Philosophers
Values Vs Ethics
- Values guide human behavior while ethics gives ground for reasonable moral beliefs.
- Values can be good or bad while ethics is concerned only with the positive side of values. Thus, all ethics are values but all values are not ethics.
- Our values influence what we will term as ethical, i.e., value is considered as the language of ethics.
- Both are non-universal.
Ethics in Upsc Mains
Ethics and Integrity account for 250 marks in the Mains exam. If prepared in a scientific and objective manner, this paper can be very rewarding for civil service aspirants. The Ethics paper comes in two parts. The first part deals with theoretical understanding of ethical issues and analysis of thinkers who have helped developed thinking and ideas about ethics over centuries. The second part of the paper, deals with real-life case studies with which civil servant or public-minded individuals may have to deal with in real life.
If you want to deal with the ethics paper in the UPSC exam, then you need to have less “book knowledge” and an understanding of the concept and internalizing the issues. Thus you cannot rely on textbooks in a full way to deal with the ethics paper. Instead, you need to internalize.
Ethics Notes by only ias Prahaar book will become a perfect partner for your GS Paper IV preparations. If you wish to add more value then, you should include Mains Mains Test Series. This learning ecosystem will give you a good understanding of topics and will fine-tune your reflection in this paper as per the requirement of UPSC.