Changing Face of Society and Origin of Neo-ethics.

Ethics are system of moral principles rules and guidelines established to ensure the welfare of large section of society. In absence of ethics, social order will break and complete chaos will become prevalent. To avoid the chaos requirement of ethics was felt in the society. Think about a race that started without any well-marked track. After one lap competitors mingled up and created the state of confusion and extreme disorder and this disorder necessitated the need of well marked track. A parallel can be drawn between racecourse and society and between track and set rules and guidelines. Now we have to perform our movements within confinements of those well-marked track of society known as ethics so that large section of society can race without any hindrance or interception.

Changing scenario of society has changed the face of ethics also. For example renaissance changed catholic ethics to protestant ethics. Magnitude of social part in the man’s character is waning with industrialization and mechanization. Man is becoming more and more professional and this increasing professionalism can be compared with mechanization of man. In the wake of changes those set rules are changing and giving way to new ethics .Modernisation, mechanization and technical advancements has increased our knowledge and power .This has enabled us to think more logically and to challenge the established ethics and beliefs.

Professionalism has made us result oriented and for that it is important to do things quickly, effectively and successfully than doing it thoughtfully and ethically. Professional ethics is special rule of conduct followed by those engaged in common pursuit. Essence of professional ethics is to do nothing that will compromise the integration of profession. Generally ethics rules tell us what we cannot do and professionalism deals with what we should do. Many things which may be unethical by general perspective are genuine when professional view is taken into account.

Technical advancements are happening at breakneck speed and faster than the ability of society to develop social norms that contribute to its moral compass. It takes time to develop a pattern of behavior that makes up social norms because society is multidimensional and made up of many components and to establish something in society as a norm requires that all components and domains of society should be aligned unidirectional to accept it as a norm and this is time taking process, but technology is not waiting .Think about the use of world wide web and internet which is a byword for technical advancement. People download and copy music software and many other things without paying for them. For project presentations, students cut and paste entire matter from research papers available on net and pass it as their own work. For them it is OK, it never questioned their ethics and they do it without a bit of bother. But, seeing this by social perspective it is like stealing of ideas and creative works of other people which is unethical.

Rapid change and transformation of society, technical advancement, scientific progress, hike in cognizance level of people, professionalism and enhanced logical thinking has spawned new debate over ethics and now whether something is ethical or unethical is to be decided in the light of all these factors and various other circumstances. At prima facie something looking unethical may be the budding new ethics for society which will instill in it with time and society will accept it.