UPSC Mains 2022 GS Paper 4 Q3a: model answer
"Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have the right to do and what is right to do." - Potter Stewart.
What the question wants
Explain what Potter Stewart's line separating legal rights from ethical rightness means to you.
How to structure it
Meaning, examples, today, officer.
- Law vs ethics
- Examples
- Present
- Application
How to think it through
Potter Stewart, US Supreme Court justice. Rights = what law permits; right = what ethics requires. Examples: legal tax avoidance using loopholes; legal but harmful lay-offs; free speech—right to offend vs wisdom; officer's legal discretion to transfer used vindictively; firm's legal pollution within outdated norms. Present: social media speech, corporate conduct. Officer: discretion.
Model answer
A company may legally shift profits to a tax haven. A citizen may legally post an insult online. An officer may legally transfer a junior in mid-session. Each has the right; none is clearly right.
What it means
- Potter Stewart, a judge of the US Supreme Court, separated two questions:
- What am I allowed to do? This is the question of law and rights.
- What should I do? This is the question of ethics.
Examples
- Free speech: Article 19(1)(a) protects much offensive speech, but wisdom asks whether it should be said.
- Business: using legal loopholes to avoid tax.
- Administration: an officer may legally reject an application on a technical error that could easily be corrected.
In the present context
- Corporate responsibility debates, such as India's CSR mandate under the Companies Act, 2013, arose because legal profit-seeking was not enough.
What it means to me
- Before acting, ask two questions, not one: can I? and should I?
For a public servant
- Use discretion for the citizen, not against him; the power to refuse is not a duty to refuse.
Rights tell us where the fence is; ethics tells us where to stand.
Draw: Two circles: a big one 'legal' and a smaller one inside 'ethical', with examples placed in the gap.
Keywords, cases and data to drop in
Potter Stewart, rights vs right, law as minimum, ethics, free speech Article 19(1)(a), tax avoidance, CSR Companies Act 2013, discretion, can I vs should I.
Where most answers lose marks
- Treating law and ethics as the same, or calling all legal acts unethical.
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Fresh examples from current affairs
Supreme Court: no prior approval under Section 17A needed to probe a bribe demand
In a judgment of 16 October 2026, a Supreme Court Bench of Justices S.V.N. Bhatti and N.V. Anjaria held that investigating a bribe demand by a public servant does not need prior approval under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Asking for a bribe, the court said, is not part of discharging official duties.
UPSC angle: Prelims: Sections 7, 7A, 17A and 19 of the PC Act. · Mains GS-II/GS-IV: honest officers versus accountability.
19 Oct 2026Learn the concept
Question text as printed in the official UPSC Civil Services (Main) question paper. The model answer is original Battle IAS work; use it to learn structure, not to memorise.
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