I want to make a simple point just for the record...
Compliance (a.k.a. “Business Ethics”) is not Ethics.
As far as I'm concerned...
ethics is to compliance as
bunny is to chocolate bunny.
To me, ethics is an exercise in self-restraint. It looks at things that are legal and still asks the question, “Even though I'm allowed, maybe I shouldn't do it anyway?”
By contrast, compliance is an exercise in manifest destiny. Businesses decide they're determined to do something and then assign someone, usually a lawyer or someone they flatter by calling an “ethicist,” to find any rationale, however thin, that explains why the thing they are already bound and determined to do should be seen as legal, so they don't have to slow down or ask permission before proceeding.
These are not the same.
I recommend never using the term “business ethics” when speaking of corporate decision-making. Always say “compliance.”
Additional Thoughts
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There are deep reasons for believing that corporations are not even capable of ethics. To understand those, see my essay Fiduciary Duty vs. The Three Laws of Robotics. Once you've got that foundation, you're well positioned to understand the dance I call Technology's Ethical Two-Step.
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I owe a whole essay on the topic of ethics and ethicists. Since I've not written that yet, I'll just say that to me, ethics is a hygiene, not a credential. I'm not sure anyone should wear the label, but especially not those doing compliance. I'd love to have a job doing real ethics for a company, but I'd have trouble with the title “ethicist.”
I often say of myself “I aspire to be ethical” because saying I am ethical seems a little too much like I'm confused into thinking I'm there. It makes me cringe.
I would make analogy to alcoholism, where people say they are sober, not that they are no longer alcoholic. Or to the Catholic church, where everyone is just assumed to be a sinner who keeps trying, rather than ever declaring themselves to be without sin.
To me, the biggest danger sign of being in ethical danger is believing that one is ethical. And even if I thought I had somehow gotten there, I would insist on starting each day asking “Am I still ethical?”
Author’s Notes:
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For other posts by me on ethics, click here.
The image generated with help from abacus.ai's ChatLLM (Claude Opus 4.8, GPT Image 2.5 and GPT Image 2.5 [Edit], which is apparently not the same). Light post-processing was done in Gimp to crop and optimize the resulting image as a .jpg for faster web download,
