Dear colleague, this is of course a very complex question without one final answer I guess. just for your inspiration, have a look at my approach in this...

Human intentions are sometimes not good and sometimes good people do things with bad consequences. We cannot force anyone to be good or have good intentions. We can however, initiate reflection. We can ask questions both to ourselves and others. Is what I am doing good? Might I be wrong? What do I think is valuable? How can I do more of this? What if I were in the other persons shoes? I have worked a lot with practical ethics and I am often surprised when I experience that professionals are often not used to asking themselves these types of questions.

Patrick hello,

Ethical issues arise (I believe) when there is a clash between one's ethical system and an action he/she is pressed (from above, peer pressure, or below) to engage in.

For me, the presence of an ethical issue is the ultimate test for a person's resolve.

Many people profess that they are ethical, but when push comes to shove, they want to keep or better their current status. Knowing that there will be offended parties who might impact their objectives, suddenly, they back down.

The problem, ergo, is fear - for oneself.

Leaders do not want to be good, but effective, without too many complications involved.

Could you give us an example of an ethical scandal, so that we can provide more precise analysis.

:)

Thank you Valeria for sharing your insight. I specifically like to speak to the point you mentioned - a person's resolve in an ethical climate. Sometimes I even ask the question - where is the "self-identity" that should separate you from others? I see that you employed the phrase "...leader back down when faced with ethical situation to save their status quo..." So, should there be an international business ethics standard that will insulate and protect leaders who want to uphold ethical standards from plausible retaliation from above that may lead to joblessness?

Regarding your request to give example of an ethical scandal, I have provided examples, as follow:

(1) the pharmaceuticals' role in the opioid crisis (J & J to pay $572M; apart from this, there are still about 2,000 more ethical lawsuits out there

(2) sexual harassment crisis in the media sector

(3) privacy breaches at Facebook

(4) allegation of corruption at Nissan

(5) money laundering in the financial sector

I thank you immensely for your current contribution and, I hope this is something we will continue to see

Ethics is about COMMUNITY judgements of individuals and their actions. Without communities passing judgements, there are no ethics. Communities are constantly changing, their judgements are constantly changing. Focussing on individuals is missing the point.

In the Garden of Eden, before God appeared, Adam could not break any of the ten commandments. It was not possible, because every commandment required a community.

Tracy hello: may I disagree with you, please.

Communities are made of individuals. They are also led by individuals and their ethics.

The greatest number may be often wrong, when an individual may be correct in their judgement.

Every individual is an universe into him/ herself and has his/her value, purpose and weight in life.

Patrick hello: I have noticed that hierarchy always wins (just like in a casino - the house always wins) by virtue of the top having more power and access to privileged information than the multitude of administrated individuals.

Historically, there have been several business entities that have aspired to international business ethics standard (in the form of rule charters) to increase compliance, minimize loss and install predictability.

Amongst others, I am talking about the East India company, the Hanseatic league and the Venetian Guilds of tradesmen. Although not in existence anymore, their precepts became the basis of business trade relations today.

(I provide no judgement on how successful these companies were in upholding these standards - I am neither a participant, nor a contemporary of theirs. I believe there was a clash of civilizations/ cultures involved).

The problem with rules is that when you are the one who writes them, you can always break them. If you are the one who has not written them, but follows them, you always doubt the sincerity of those who have written them.

Mistrust gives rise to non-compliance.

:)

Individuals, without community, do not need and cannot create ethics. Ethics do not exist outside of communities. Each community has it's own ethics. Individuals - human individuals - live their lives in many communities, which often have moral values in conflict with other communities. Each community is growing, shrinking, and changing beyond the control of any individual. That's what communities do. Ethical decisions - the enforcement of laws, are made by communities, not by individuals. We might pretend that the ethics come from individuals, but only until election time. Individuals vote. The community decides. If we actually understood the community, predicting the result would be trivial.

Perhaps the simplest community is a marriage, in which both individuals start out with individual morals, but as the plan meets reality, a new set of morals emerges, or perhaps 3, one for each individual - a community is also an individual.

Morality applies to the individual and there is certainly an individual sense of justice. What is not acknowledged is that there is an ontological basis for it, in a universal law of ethics. Physics has the invariant active-reactive law. Ethically, that same law becomes the inexorable law of compensation, which embodies the concept that all activity, both of mind and matter, is consequential. Hindu religion characterizes this as an individual's karma and christianity has its judgement of souls.

A breakdown in morality is usually due to permission given, or practiced by an authoritative class (teachers, writers, entertainers, politicians). For example, the pernicious doctrine of trickle-down economics during the Reagan era lead to the transfer of riches to the already rich. When you steal from someone, it is essential that you create a personal justification for it, for your own wellbeing. Thus the contempt for the victims as lowly and beneath consideration so that you can continue to lie to them and cheat them. Mitt Romney categorized 47% of them as parasites on society. (The actual number on assistance is 21%.)

Its really amazing to come across so much of misunderstanding about the concept of ethics. Ethics, unlike morality, is a universal or granted concept, which will not be different from person to person, place to place or situation to situation. Of course, there are various types of activities that can come under unethical acts. For example, bribery, backstabbing, breaking trust etc.

Every "unethical act" has a transition from ethical to unethical, that is determined not based on any reality of the situation - no independent reality exists. The situation is judged ethical or unethical by different communities. Bribery is an excellent example. Is tipping bribery? In which situations is it bribery? Clearly, in some situations, it can be bribery, in others, it's a genuine concern, in others, it 's just a cultural expectation. Is the social force to encourage tipping and judge those who do not tip extortion? It depends on which person, and which community view we accept. In the USA, not tipping is often considered offensive. In Australia, it is the accepted norm. If you tip a police officer, you can get arrested in either country.

Tipping is not bribery anyway. It is an after service optional reward, which depends upon your satisfaction with the service provided. Tipping a police officer is not only unethical, but it is illegal, unlawful. And therefore, you will be arrested. There are variety of unethical act or scandal, but they will be considered unethical by every individual or community or country. It is morality that can differ from person to person', place to place, depending upon different belief system, value system or accepted culture or practices or moral values of the society. There are certain acts which considered wrong or bad by one and all, such acts are called unethical. Being respectful/caring/courteous/empathetic to an old/needy/ailing man is considered ethical everywhere. While the opposite or backstabbing, for example, is considered unethical/bad everywhere and in any situation.

I suspect your life circumstances are fairly limited. I have not only "tipped" a police officer, I have been advised on how to do it effectively, and how to avoid paying too much as a tip. The tip was clearly expected (and expected to be higher), and clearly communicated to other officers and supervisors (in a language the officer assumed I did not understand), and was accepted as offered. Of course it was not in my country (Canada), not in North America. It was in a country, a culture, a community where police officers - like waiters in North America - are low paid employees who expect to be tipped for services, and the people in that country know you have to tip the police for good service. I could have refused to tip. The consequences would have been similar to not tipping a waiter in the USA. Some would say nothing, others might object loudly. Like many tippers in the USA, I tipped because wanted to avoid a possibly embarrassing situation. So I tipped. My morality? It was not relevant to the situation. There is little difference between the two situations and actions, except that in the country where I tipped the police officer, nobody tips the waiters (except foreigners from North America of course).

We seem to be off subject.

The specific answer to your original question is that the perpetrator believes he can transgress commonly held ethical rules without cost to himself, either because he thinks he will not be found out, or because he feels it is sanctioned by an authoritative class (judges, politicians, etc.) or society in general.