Ethics defines the elements essential to human well-being and proposes principles to be used as guidelines for generating an ethical culture. Ethics also refers to the specific values, standards, rules, and agreements people adopt for conducting their lives. Ethics, most broadly, is the study of human behavior and its consequences in the light of what is ideally possible. For example, ethicists might study a society's mores or morals to determine what effect they would have on humankind if they were used as universal standards. Ethics are not merely social conventions, like table manners.
Ethics define the social conditions necessary for human beings to thrive.
People learn to act ethically for the same reason that they put oil and not sand in their car engines. Edward Kienle 36.