How can we define ethics?

What does ethics mean to you? Many years ago, a psychologist posed this question to a group of business people. To his surprise many of them had a wrong idea or were not sure of their own answers. Nowadays we are faced with a society that hardly knows or understands what this word means. Some people think that ethics has to do with what their feelings tell them is right or wrong, others take ethics as being a religious idea and belief, or something that the law requires. Many others think that it is a standard of behaviors that our society accepts. But what does ethics really mean, and why is it so important for everyone to understand? Due to a lack of ethics many business leaders have failed.
In the year 2000, the nation of Peru faced a terrible fraud with Vladimiro Montesinos, who was the long-standing head of Peru’s intelligence service, under President Alberto Fujimori. Secret videos which he had recorded were televised. These videos showed his bribing an elected congressman to leave the opposition and join the Fujimori’s side of congress. These accusations and scandal caused Montesinos to flee the country and accelerated the resignation of Fujimori. Following investigations revealed Montesinos to be at the center of an enormous net of illegal activities, including embezzlement, graft, gunrunning, and drug trafficking. Montesinos has been tried, convicted and sentenced for numerous charges. “He also had strong connections with the CIA, the United States international Agency, and he was proved to have received over 10 million for his government’s anti-terrorist activities, which he used for his own benefits.”
Many people tend to associate and think that ethics has to do only with what their feelings tell them is right or wrong. But being ethical is clearly not a matter of following one’s feelings. Montesinos said in one of his numerous interviews that one of the reasons why he was very successful in every business that he had or decision that he made, was because his decisions were based on what he had a good feeling about. It is true when we say that Ethics defines a great part of our personality; because it determines our conduct, and moral values. But If we go only by our feelings, for some people what is “wright or wrong” might be different than others.
Also ethics is not exactly what the law requires us to do. Many people and business entities think that by following the law they will always be doing what it is right. According to Lynn Paine, rules have become substitution for the right thing when the distinction between obeying the rule and acting ethically becomes blurred. He stated that, “Some people base their decisions in answers like “if it is legal, it is ethical, or as long as it is not illegal, it is ok”. But as we see, we need to understand that in some cases the law can depart us from what is ethical. William J. Stuntz said “One might suppose that where law is largely absent, behavior is pretty bad. Yet it turns out to be nearly the other way around. The two areas where law is arguably the largest presence in ordinary life-driving cars and paying taxes- are probably the two areas where there is the largest amount of self-conscious cheating.” Many leading officials have been charged by the state and federal authorities in the past several years. Two of the most widely known scandals were Enron and WorldCom which were two of the most intensely regulated industries. These industries had issues with financial and accounting, which are largely rule-based disciplines. Regardless of the many existing regulations, prosecutions, and settlements, the response to the corporate scandals has been primarily ruled based. Due to these problems, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which is mandatory to any small or large organization. The intent of the Sarbanes-Oxley act is to protect investors. This Act was created with new standards for corporate accountability as well as new penalties for acts of wrongdoing. This Act specifies new financial reporting responsibilities, including adherence to new internal controls and procedures designed to ensure the validity of their financial record. As we see many entities now are trying to develop new procedures adopting better standards, and focusing more on ethics. Another wrong idea that people have of ethics, is that it is identified with religion. Most religions, of course, support high ethical standards. Yet if ethics were narrowed to religion, then ethics will only apply to religious people. But ethics is as important and applies the same to atheist people as to religious people. One clear example that ethics is not a religion is when we think of the Muslims. If everyone followed what this religion believes, we could then think that killing for what we think is correct could be acceptable. The leaders of the Muslim religion thought that the tragedy that occurred to the US on September the eleventh was what the American people deserved. Therefore, Religion can set high standards, and can provide intense motivation for ethical behavior. However, it cannot be narrowed to religion, it is not the same as religion.
Finally being ethical is not the same as following what society accepts. In any society most of the people accept and practice standards that are ethical. But standards of behavior in society can depart from what really is being ethical. An entire society can be corrupt. One example of this is the German Nazi society. Another one more recent could be the people that think that gay marriage or abortion is right, and in many states legal. However, if being ethical were based on what society accepts, then to find what is ethical we would have to find what society really thinks. And in order to do this we would need to make some type of survey, which makes it almost impossible for someone to make a survey every time he tries to make an ethical decision.
As we have seen above, ethics is a very complex word, and hardly anyone really knows its true meaning. According to Manuel Velasquez, “ethics refers to well-founded standards of right or wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, or specific virtues.” This means that ethics refers to standards that enforce the reasonable obligations to refrain from stealing, murder, assault, slander, fraud, and rape. It also includes those that practice virtues of honesty, compassion, and loyalty. Ethical standards also consists of rights such us, the right to life, right of freedom, and the right to privacy. All of these standards are suitable because they are supported by consistent and well found reason. But more importantly, we will always find the right answer or decision if we follow biblical values. Proverbs 4:7 says, “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.” And wisdom always comes from God therefore we always need to try to honor God in everything that we do.