Why Have a Code of Ethics?

"There has been a dramatic increase in the ethical expectations of businesses and professions over the past ten years. Increasingly, customers, clients and employees are deliberately seeking out those who define the basic ground rules of their operations on a day to day...."
(quote from the website of the International Ethical Business Registry

"Why have a Code of Ethics?

• to define accepted/acceptable behaviours;
• to promote high standards of practice;
• to provide a benchmark for members to use for self evaluation;
• to establish a framework for professional behaviour and responsibilities;
• as a vehicle for occupational identity;
• as a mark of occupational maturity;"

"The need for special ethical principles in a scientific society is the same as the need for ethical principles in society as a whole. They are mutually beneficial. They help make our relationships mutually pleasant and productive. A professional society is a voluntary, cooperative organization, and those who must conform to its rules are also those who benefit from the conformity of others. Each has a stake in maintaining general compliance."
(Stuart Altmann, Chair, Ethics Committee, Animal Behavior Society. See the entire text of this column)

"...instruments for persuasion both of members of (a) profession and the public. They enhance the sense of community among members, of belonging to a group with common values and a common mission."
(Kultgen J, 1988. Ethics and Professionalism. Philadelphia; University of Pennsylvania Press. pp.212-213)

"A profession's ethical standards must be compatible with our common morality, but they go beyond our common morality. You could say that they interpret our common morality for the specific details of work of a particular occupational group."
(by Vivian Weil, from her paper "Prospects for International Standards")

"The very exercise of developing a code is in itself worthwhile; it forces a large number of people...to think through in a fresh way their mission and the important obligations they as a group and as individuals have with respect to society as a whole."
(DeGeorge, Richard T. Military Ethics: A Code of Ethics for Officers. Washington: National Defense University Press, 1987.)

Many have attributed the popularity of codes of ethics, in the U.S. at least, to U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines that reward companies for having compliance policies, including codes of ethics, in place.