Time for a New Avatar? Revitalising the Debate on Ethics for a New Global Vision

Abstract

“For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked and for the establishment of righteousness, I am born in every age,” says the Holy Geetha (Chinmayananda, 1996). The world is going through a series of crises unprecedented in the 'modern' times. The current scenario of economic and political instability in many regions questions many paradigms of development which were reigning supreme for decades: economic development over human development, growth based economy over sustainability, and capitalism over collectivism are to name a few. This paper argues how the erosion and compromises in organisational and professional ethics is an antecedent to these global phenomena and therefore raises the question if this is the time for a major revision of the fundamental premises upon which our world order is based that precipitated into the period of uncertainty we are in. In other words, is this the time for a new 'avatar' to set right the world order? Looking for answers to these questions in the Indian spiritual tradition, the paper espouses the relevance of the Vedantic philosophy to bring in a paradigm shift in the way ethics is discussed and followed in the business world. Ethics is a process and is of significance irrespective of the results (Suriyaprakash, 2011). Inspired by the six paradigm shifts proposed by de Graff and Levy (2011), the paper explores the need for a shift from the end result to the process of how business is managed. It propounds the need to integrate the spirit of dharma-karma paradigm into the ethical
discussions in business in order to draw a new sustainable global vision. Drawing from the Upanishads, Geetha and Chanakya Sutra, the urgent need to revive and revitalize the Indian spiritual tradition in the global economic domain for such a global vision is emphasized. The paper also argues for the need to find a balance between the western and eastern economic paradigms that influence our organisational and professional ethics and not for substituting one with the other.