An ethical approach for social progress: Gandhian perspective

Social progress is the idea that societies can or do improve in terms of their social, political, and economic structures etc. A good society is defined as one that balances two values like social order and autonomy, rather than maximizing individual's benefits. But, we are facing so many social problems due to ignorance of ethical values. In present we are achieving new goal of physical development at the price of ethical values. In the era of ethical crisis we need a strategy to make a proper balance between the development and ethical values for a real and durable social progress. Auguste Comte advocated social progress with corrective manners. His concept of progress rests on social re-construction work that is capable of making a new system. Comte mentions two types of progress-moral progress and material progress. He assumes that while both are the necessary practices of social progress but in long term perspective the material progress should not be dominating on moral practice. Gandhian philosophy presents a model of balanced social progress in frame of five values i.e. Satya (truth), Ahimsa (non-injury), Asteya (non-stealing), Brahmcharya (sexual restraint) and Aparigraha (non-possession). With these values, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi supports harmonious and durable social progress for well-wish of humanity. Let we explain a little bit about Gandhi's experiment with these values: Gandhi got fame for his social and humanist works not only in India but across the world. Gandhi himself made an experiment with these values and after that he found the relevance of these qualities for the conduct of every person of society for genuine social progress. Radhakrishnan explains the conduct of Gandhi in these words, “His name is familiar to such a degree that there is scarcely a peasant or a factory worker who does not consider him to be a friend of human kind. ”¹ He believed in universal values for the real social progress. He advocated psycho-spiritual process of progress instead of development. Here, we took the word progress because progress reflects the integral enhancement of every class of society, but development reflects mere physical and economical enrichment, which has a short term approach of benefits. Gandhi opposed such type of social development. Thus, we should obtain the Gandhian approach as self-implemented discipline of ethical values for healthy social progress in present scenario, consequently; we should have a proper understanding of it.

In this paper, we shall try to understand how the Gandhian ethical values are applicable for balanced and durable social progress. For the purpose we have divided the whole paper in three segments, firstly we shall try to clarify the notion of social progress with its pyramid and parameters in first section. Secondly, we shall present a brief explanation of the five cardinal vows of Gandhi in second section; thirdly and finally we shall try to make an estimate of practical implications of Gandhian great values as self-implemented psycho-spiritual process of self-purification for the balanced social progress in third section. Let us move toward first section of our paper.