Abstract
The Sardar Sarovar Project, the CPCSEA guidelines on animal experimentation and the reservation policy in India represent contemporary governance challenges that necessitate ethical reflection. In this chapter, we analyze these cases by using the ethical toolbox developed in the earlier chapters. Policy decisions are subject to the contexts they are taken in, including the philosophical, more specifically, the ethical debates that surround them. The attempt in this chapter is to shed light on the ethical underpinnings of decisions taken in the public interest by applying an expanded set of ethical tools and values some of which have been conventionally sidelined but are very valuable as we shall see. It also affords an opportunity to reflect on the possible ways of enriching policy decisions.
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Notes
- 1.
The Secretary of Gujarat in 1965 saw the potential of irrigation in dry Kutch for sustaining a larger agricultural population as a wider military strategy for the otherwise sparsely populated border regions with Pakistan.
- 2.
The contents of this table are neither exhaustive nor the most accurate because of wide disagreements on the most correct formulation of costs and benefits of the project. However, it is indicative of the kinds of costs and benefits that the planners had to weigh to arrive at the most ethically defensible policy alternatives.
- 3.
This component ran into major technical and financial bottlenecks as it was included in the project long after the project’s design and plan had been approved.
- 4.
The NWDT was appointed to allocate the benefits and costs of the project among stakeholder, i.e., Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. For more information on its role, refer to Chap. 3.
- 5.
The referred case study has been described in detail in Chap. 3, and discussed in detail in this chapter.
- 6.
The planners of SSP “saw a temporary trauma of displacement as a necessary sacrifice for the greater common good” (Aandahl 2010, 201). The planners saw the “assimilation of PAFs [Project Affected Families] into the mainstream of the society (Government of Gujarat 2000)” as their goal (Aandahl 2010, 201).
- 7.
Refer to Chap. 7 for an account of the ethical systems that emphasize community, nature, compassion, care, interdependence and virtue.
- 8.
Hindus make up about 80% of India’s population, according to the 2011 census. Chapter 7 outlines relevant Hindu ethical principles.
- 9.
For discussion on Utilitarianism, refer to Chap. 4.
- 10.
Chapter 7 of this book.
- 11.
As mentioned in Chap. 3, OBCs, STs and SCs are classified as historically disadvantaged social groups in India. They are Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Scheduled Castes (SCs).
- 12.
A term used by the British colonial rulers to refer to present-day SCs and STs.
- 13.
The NBA and scholars supporting the movement have, primarily, argued for lowering the dam’s height. In 2006, Joy and Paranjape had prepared an alternative plan for SSP which significantly minimized damages caused by it by reducing the height of the dam. The alternative was not heeded by the planners.
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Motilal, S., Maitra, K., Prajapati, P. (2021). Revisiting the Cases: The Ethical Toolbox in Praxis. In: The Ethics of Governance. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4043-8_8
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