ETHICS, LEGAL
The branch of philosophy that defines what is good
for the individual and for society and establishes
the nature of obligations, or duties, that people owe
themselves and one another. In modern society,
ethics define how individuals, professionals, and
corporations choose to interact with one another.
The word ethics is derived from the Greek
word ethos, which means “character,” and from
the Latin word mores, which means “customs.”
ARISTOTLE was one of the first great philoso-
phers to study ethics. To him, ethics was more
than a moral, religious, or legal concept. He
believed that the most important element in
ethical behavior is knowledge that actions are
accomplished for the betterment of the com-
mon good.He asked whether actions performed
by individuals or groups are good both for an
individual or a group and for society. To deter-
mine what is ethically good for the individual
and for society, Aristotle said, it is necessary to
possess three virtues of practical wisdom: tem-
perance, courage, and justice.
The need to control, regulate, and legislate
ethical conduct at the individual, corporate, and
government levels has ancient roots. For exam-
ple, one of the earliest law codes developed, the
CODE OF HAMMURABI,made BRIBERY a crime in
Babylon during the eighteenth century B.C.
Most societies share certain features in their eth-
ical codes, such as forbidding murder, bodily
injury, and attacks on personal honor and repu-
tation. In modern societies, the systems of law
and public justice are closely related to ethics in
that they determine and enforce definite rights
and duties. They also attempt to repress and
punish deviations from these standards.
Laws can be neutral on ethical issues, or they
can be used to endorse ethics. The prologue to
the U.S. Constitution states that ensuring
domestic tranquility is an objective of govern-
ment, which is an ethically neutral statement.
CIVIL RIGHTS laws, on the other hand, promote
an ethical as well as legal commitment. Often
laws and the courts are required to resolve strong
ethical dilemmas in society, as in the controver-
sial issues of ABORTION (ROE V. WADE, 410 U.S.
113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L. Ed. 2d 147),AFFIRMATIVE
ACTION (UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA V. BAKKE,
438 U.S. 265, 98 S. Ct. 2733, 57 L. Ed. 2d 750),
and SEGREGATION (BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCA-
TION, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S. Ct. 686, 98 L. Ed. 873).
Laws also permit many actions that will not
bear ethical scrutiny. In other words, what the
law permits or requires is not necessarily what is
ethically right. For instance, laws allow disloyalty
toward friends, the breaking of promises that do
not have the stature of legal contracts, and a vari-
ety of deceptions. Laws sometimes require gross
immoralities, as did the FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT OF
1850, which required citizens to return runaway
slaves to their masters, and the U.S. Supreme
Court’s DRED SCOTT decision, which in 1857
declared that slaves were not citizens but prop-
erty (60 U.S. 393, 19 How. 393, 15 L. Ed. 691).
Local, state, and federal regulatory acts influ-
ence the conduct of some professions. Business
executives are faced with two types of ethical
issues in conducting their day-to-day affairs, and
the law holds them accountable for their actions
in these areas.Micromanagement issues include
conflicts of interest, employee rights, fair per-
formance appraisals, SEXUAL HARASSMENT,
proprietary information, discrimination, and ac-
cepting or offering gifts.Macromanagement issues
include corporate social responsibility, PRODUCT
LIABILITY, environmental ethics, COMPARABLE
WORTH, layoffs and downsizings, employee
screening tests, employee rights to privacy in the
workplace, and corporate accountability.
Although the law does influence the conduct
of some professions, many ethical issues cannot
be settled by the courts. The ethics of a particu-
lar act is many times determined independently
of the legality of the conduct. In fact, decisive
