Ethical standards what is

Definition: Ethical standards are a set of principles established by the founders of the organization to communicate its underlying moral values. This code provides a framework that can be used as a reference for decision making processes. They establish the parameters of behavior that owners and top executives expect from employees and also from suppliers, at least to the extent of their relationship with the organization. Finally, being ethical is not the same as doing "whatever society accepts.

But standards of behavior in society can deviate from what is ethical. An entire society can become ethically corrupt. Nazi Germany is a good example of a morally corrupt society.

Moreover, if being ethical were doing "whatever society accepts," then to find out what is ethical, one would have to find out what society accepts. To decide what I should think about abortion, for example, I would have to take a survey of American society and then conform my beliefs to whatever society accepts.

But no one ever tries to decide an ethical issue by doing a survey. Further, the lack of social consensus on many issues makes it impossible to equate ethics with whatever society accepts. Some people accept abortion but many others do not. If being ethical were doing whatever society accepts, one would have to find an agreement on issues which does not, in fact, exist. What, then, is ethics? Ethics is two things. First, ethics refers to well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues.

Ethics, for example, refers to those standards that impose the reasonable obligations to refrain from rape, stealing, murder, assault, slander, and fraud. Of course, in business, as in life, deciding what is right is not always straightforward, especially when there are competing priorities at work.

The corporate ethical standards in play at your company, along with your personal code of ethics, can guide you in your decisions.

A great deal of society's collective sense of right and wrong is embodied in the laws that guide business activities. Keeping your professional activities within the law represents the minimum ethical requirements for operating your business.

Existing law makes some ethical and moral decision-making rather simple. Discrimination against certain classes of people is illegal, so don't discriminate. Bribery and embezzlement are against the law as well, so don't offer bribes and don't embezzle company funds.

Numerous professional associations publish detailed ethical guidelines for their members. For example, doctors swear to obey the Hippocratic Oath and follow guidelines prepared by state and national medical groups.

The American Medical Association provides a detailed, nine-point Code of Ethics to which it holds its members responsible.