Why Are Ethics Important?

Ethics are important because they allow society to continue to function, helping people to interact and live their daily lives in a functional way. They are important because they can govern a person's code of behavior and prevent moral wrongs from occurring.

Ethics keep people from doing what is wrong. If an individual has no ethics, he will do the wrong thing whenever he believes it will benefit him and that he can get away with it.

Ethics are different than laws and different than doing the right thing as a result of fear of consequences. While something that is unethical might be illegal, there is not necessarily a perfect overlap. Furthermore, in many ways ethics can be even more important than the law, since the law will only deter a person from bad behavior if he fears penalty, while a person with a strong code of ethics will do the right thing just because it is the right thing.  

If a person had no code of ethics, he could steal, as long as no one was watching. He could lie to his loved ones or to strangers, as long as the lie didn't rise to the level of criminal fraud. He could engage in all sorts of things that were "wrong" and "bad" as long as he didn't get caught.

Since the law can't possibly catch everyone each time they do something bad, and the law can't make every "wrong" action illegal, society would quickly fall apart if there were no ethical principles or moral rights or wrongs.

What Are Ethics?

Rushworth Kidder, the founder of the Global Institute of Ethics, said that "Ethics is what you do in the dark when no one's watching." Essentially, this quote is reflective of the dictionary definition of ethics and of the widely accepted ideas as to what ethics means.

Ethics is a moral code, the inner voice that tells a person what is right or wrong. Ethics can come from religion, from the law, from internal values, from learned values, from public opinion or from any number of sources. The whole of a person's ideas about morality and about what is right and wrong - and everything that goes into forming those ideas - determines what is and is not ethical.

The Problem with Ethics

Although it is easy to see why are ethics important, it is also easy to see problems. The major problem stems from determining what is ethical or what is morally right. While you could look to public opinion or personal value codes to determine what is ethical, these things can be skewed if society as a whole or if the person in question views something that is "wrong" as "right."

Many different theories have been postulated to try to define what is right and wrong, moral and immoral, but the reality is that the answers shift and change as society moves forward.

Ethics can even mean dramatically different things in different situations. For example, assume that a person went to another person and said "I have just murdered my wife, will you help me." Your first thought might be that ethics commands the person who heard that statement to promptly call the police... but what if the person who heard that confession was a defense lawyer?

Under the American Bar Association Code of Ethics, a lawyer is ethically forbidden from going to the police and sharing information his client told him in confidence. This system of attorney/client privilege has been established for the protection of justice and to ensure fair representation for all. If an attorney violated the Code of Ethics he would:

• be taking a step that undermines the entire legal system
• violate his ethical, sworn duty to uphold a client's confidentiality
• violate his moral obligation to his client to not break his word

Thus, while ethics remains extremely important in governing behavior so that society can continue to function, it must be remembered that there is not always one clear definition of ethics or what is ethical. The decision must be made in light of all the facts, and in light of what is most "right" in the given situation.