The big idea: The guide's first sentence on Hindu ethics: fulfilling one's role and duties as determined by caste — the varnashramadharma — determines one's moral principles and conduct.
So Hindu ethics is built on duty rather than on a list of prohibitions, and the duty is not the same for everyone.
That last clause is the part students find hardest. A shared moral code says do not do this. A duty-based ethic says do what belongs to you — and what belongs to a person depends on their sva-dharma, shaped by varna, jati and stage of life.
The Bhagavad Gita presses exactly this point: Arjuna's problem is not whether killing is wrong in general but whether this duty is his.
A duty-based ethic
- Asks whose duty this is
- Different obligations at different stages of life
- Right action can differ between two people in the same situation
- Failing your own duty is the transgression
What it is not
- Not "anything goes" — the obligations are specific and demanding
- Not a single universal rulebook
- Not an ethic without shared principles: ahimsa runs across it
- Not uncontested — Hindus argue about all of this
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The guide names two sets that between them describe what a Hindu life is for and what it owes. They have come up in Paper 2 together.
| The Three Objectives | What it means |
|---|---|
| Dharma | Religious and moral duty — and the first objective, because the others are pursued within it |
| Artha | Prosperity and the means of life — wealth and security, legitimately sought |
| Kama | Pleasure, including the pleasures of the senses and of art and love |
Notice what is on that list: Wealth and pleasure are objectives, not concessions.
Hindu tradition places them inside the religious life, pursued within dharma, and moksha stands beyond all three as the fourth and final aim.
The Three Debts
- To learn and recite the Vedas — the debt to the sages
- To give puja to the gods — the debt to the deities
- To have a son — the debt to the ancestors, who depend on the rites the living perform
The third debt, stated honestly: The debt names a son specifically, because traditionally a son performs the funeral rites.
That is what the tradition says. It is also something Hindus discuss and contest, and it sits behind real social consequences — so state it accurately, say what it rests on, and note that it is debated.
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Hinduism has no jurists as Islam does and no magisterium as the Catholic Church does. What it has is a set of overlapping authorities, and knowing which one an argument is appealing to is half the analysis.
Four places a Hindu ethical argument can appeal to. Knowing which is being used is half the analysis.
Interactive diagram
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Theme 5's key question: "Can core ethical teachings in a religion conflict, and if so can they be resolved?"
Hinduism supplies its own example: ahimsa against dharma yuddha in the Gita. Being able to name that tension is worth more than any number of general claims about Hindu ethics.
How this is tested. Paper 2 has asked directly about the Three Objectives and Three Debts, and about varnashramadharma as the determinant of right action.
Discuss the importance for Hindus of the Three Objectives and the Three Debts.
Model answer plan
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