PUBLIC DEBATE WITH PHILOSOPHICAL AND ETHICAL QUESTIONS
We have a number of issues which require our urgent attention. In our country problem is that we are not used to look at the issues from the perspective of moral values, ethics, and philosophy. Every issue has its own philosophical and ethical angles and if our political elite, intellectual elite, corporate elite, media elite tend to avoid or to skip these philosophical and ethical angles we can never have long lasting solutions. In India the most favourite choice of both elite and masses is to express instant comments in response to issues without delving into the philosophical and ethical depths.
Along with rationalism , empiricism is a favourable trend among our intellectual elite but no amount of rationalism or empiricism can address the issues and their solutions without taking philosophical and ethical stand. Even in our ancient scriptures we see despite rationalism and empiricism our sages had habit to evaluate the moral questions in light of their ethical and philosophical stands. Similarly in the western system from Socrates to modern philosophers always promoted this trend universally. If we closely monitor US Presidential debates we find a lot of ethical issues in those debates. But in our education system we have brutally neglected ethical issues and in consequence we have today three generations of people devoid of ethical concerns. If we wish to successfully contest the vexing issues, if we really crave for making a wonderful democratic society with in-built mechanism to deal with problematic issues, we will have to reinvent our tradition of public debates . Only public debates engaging politicians, intellectuals, corporates and professionals with agriculturists with philosophical and ethical questions can enable us to find ways to make this place a better place.