Ethics

"What is ethics? The word itself is sometimes used to refer to the set of rules,
principles, or ways of thinking that guide, or claim authority to guide, the actions
of a particular group,” says John Deigh in Robert Audi (ed), The Cambridge
Dictionary of Philosophy, 1995.
Morality (from the Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behavior") has three principal
meanings.
First, descriptive usage, morality means a code of conduct or belief which is held to be
authoritative in matters of right and wrong. Morals are arbitrarily created and subjectively defined
by society, philosophy, religion, and/or individual conscience.
Second, normative and universal sense, morality refers to an ideal code of belief and conduct,
one which would be espoused in preference to other alternatives by the sane "moral" person,
under specified conditions.

In its third usage, 'morality' is synonymous with ethics. Ethics is the systematic philosophical
study of the moral domain.[2] Ethics seeks to address questions such as how a moral outcome
can be achieved in a specific situation (applied ethics), how moral values should be determined
(normative ethics), what morals people actually abide by (descriptive ethics), what the
fundamental nature of ethics or morality is, including whether it has any objective justification
(meta-ethics), and how moral capacity or moral agency develops and what its nature is (moral
psychology).[3]
Taken from: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Is the law a good foundation for ethics? The simple answer is no, for the
following reasons:

The law is “given” so to speak by those with power and authority, (P&A) to those
without P&A.

The givers of the law are beholden to those who bestow them with power.

This unavoidable, (outside of Plato's Republic) reality means those with P&A will
use it to justify and maintain it for themselves. To this end they will naturally
work to entrench themselves all the while paying tribute, so to speak to their
masters. The effects of these entrenchments will skew and soften the laws for
some, provide cover and contradictory exemptions for others, yet still others will
be exempted entirely. Rules that should apply to all will not apply to the select
few who have paid for that privilege. Since only laws that are universal by
definition can really be just, any laws not so applied are corrupt in spirit if not in
technicality. In terms of a maxim anything which has intrinsic to it that which is
corrupt is unworthy as a edifice as a system for making value choices.
The law is frequently inadequate to deal with the vagaries and exigent
circumstances of real life, it is capricious and inequitable in its application across
the spectrum of a given citizenry.

Ethics only has meaning as it relates to human values and choices. Machines
have no need of ethics, neither plants, nor stones, ideas don't, nor do any
entities outside of those which posses the characteristic of sentience. The
awareness of “self” coupled with the awareness of “others” creates an inevitable
truth, or reality in which choice's must be made. Choices that will have bearing
and impact upon oneself, others, and ones environment. As laws are rooted in,
and dependent on systems, systems that by their very nature are flawed by
myriad limits in comprehension, application, intent, and design such that they
can only attempt to approximate what value is or is not. As such they fail to
comprehend the subtleties that true values comprise.

Additionally the fidelity of the law is dependent upon the system which applies it.
Thus the law is swift for some, delayed for others, this creates further inequities
that disqualify it as a bases for ethics. Say two persons commit a similar crime
and are caught, and that one has means while the other doesn't. It is entirely
possible, if not probable that the person of means will avoid the consequences
proscribed in the law, while the other will likely be hapless as a clam on a beach.
Is a true value intrinsic in the case and outcome of one but not the other, does
having the means to manipulate in the legal system some how change the
quality of the value or act?

This finagle foundation of the law is inherent to itself. It therefore lacks the
integrity needed to define value.

How to chose and set moral values should not be left to anything as dubious as
the law. The idea that some authority outside one’s self can or should be given
such a responsibility is antagonistic and anathema to the very concept of ethical
choice. In fact it is Unethical to accept the law as the derivation of one’s choices,
though obeisance to the law is many times in ones interests, the law has no
moral authority of its own and derives it only when its conception and application
are unsullied by they who make and affect it.