Hi,
Good topic to discuss.
I belive there are different types of Ethics. Personal, Professional, Business, Political, Environmental etc.
Lets discuss about Professional Ethics, it concerns one's conduct of behaviour and practice when carrying out professional work. Such work may include consulting, researching, teaching and writing. The institutionalisation of Codes of Conduct and Codes of Practice is common with many professional bodies for their members to observe.
Apart from codes of ethics, professional ethics also concerns matters such as professional indemnity. Furthermore, as will readily be appreciated, no two codes of ethics are identical. They vary by cultural group, by profession and by discipline. The former of these three variations is one of the most interesting, as well as controversial, since it challenges the assumption that universal ethical principles exist. In some cultures, certain behaviours are certainly frowned upon, but in other cultures the opposite may be true. Software piracy is a good case in point, in that attitudes towards software piracy vary from strong opposition to strong support - attitudes that are supportable within a particular culture. At the end of these pages is a section called Cultural Perspectives, where we hope to point you to alternative perspectives of ethical standards, attitudes and behaviours..
A Code of Ethics enables us to:
Set out the ideals and responsibilities of the profession
Exert a de facto regulatory effect, protecting both clients and professionals
Improve the profile of the profession
Motivate and inspire practitioners, by attempting to define their raison d'être (underlying principle).
Provide guidance on acceptable conduct
Raise awareness and consciousness of issues
Improve quality and consistency
On the other hand, we must also consider:
Whether the so-called standards are obligatory, or are merely an aspiration
Whether such a code is desirable or feasible
Whether ethical values are universal or culturally relativistic
The difficulty of providing universal guidance given the heterogeneous nature of the profession
What the point is of specifying responsibilities, given the limited regulatory function of a code.
Let me know if we need some more discussion on this.
Sapana