With the current public downward spiral of many a CEO and major corporation on the skids of corruption and lies, one can only wonder what the true story about the American ethical situation really is. Are these trends indicative of an greater erosion of societal morals, or is it a case of a few bad eggs spoiling the bunch? I believe that honor is not dead in our culture, but it has definitely become a lost cause. If we as a society do not embrace it and proclaim it, however, it will soon die.

Other measures are designed to stop the unethical behavior at the decision-point. The Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) has opened its “ethics hotline” to all financial professionals so they can get free, confidential guidance on ethical issues. Until now, only IMA members had access to the service. IMA President Margaret Butler explained the decision: "Recent events in the business world demonstrate the need for more ethical guidance for financial

law or regulations. It is because they felt a variety of other pressures.” I believe it’s more a lack of pressures. The environment in which these lapses occurred was tolerant, so they continued.

The problem with many of the ethics codes and honor codes as they exist right now is that they are two-dimensional. People do not interact with them or invoke them with any frequency. The result is that people forget about what codes represent, the morals have given way to empty words. This is not to say that most people have become devoid of ethics, but that they have become more internalized than they should.

If all of these precautions aren’t working, then how can the situation be rectified? Perhaps legal steps can be taken. President Bush signed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act this summer to set the law of the land for ethics programs. The legislation contained several ethics initiatives for public companies, like reducing penalties for convictions when the company had a working ethics program in place. Then on August 1, the New York Stock Exchange issued a new set of rules for listed companies. Among other changes, listed companies must now adopt a code of business conduct and ethics. Even further, they must also make appropriate compliance standards and procedures to assure their code’s effective operation. Such legislation focuses on precautions and pending laws will stiffen the penalties, but since cheating and lying have always been wrong will this make an appreciable difference?

Many people think that honors codes and ethics simply won’t work anymore. They’re cynical. But it’s because of exactly that attitude these concept don’t work. If we as a society are to raise the standard, we have to do it together. At universities where ethics codes work, it is because the student body has embraced the ethics code. It’s not necessarily that each pupil is the most honest or will police his own actions, but that the student body, the envir

Some topics in this essay:
Margaret Butler, Barbara Toffler, Hotels Resorts, University Virginia, Stock Exchange, Andersen LLP, Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Conveniently Enron’s, Accountants IMA, Mark Belnick, unethical behavior, ethics codes, result people, student body, honors codes, listed companies, ethics programs, past summer, university virginia, ethics code,