The definition of ethics is a very difficult thing to pin down, since
             in the modern world it means so many things to so many people. Of course
             the basic, main meaning of the word is clear enough. Through one's life,
             and especially when growing up, a person learns what ethics are. This
             usually entails that one's parents give guidelines according to which life
             in society should be lived in order to make life as easy as possible for
             every individual person and for society itself. So on the one hand ethics
             come from how a person was raised. This in itself is very individual,
             since some parents do a better job of raising ethical children than others.
             A child could in this way grow up to be either ethical in a social sense,
             or unethical. Either way, an individual set of ethics is formed by every
             person, even though this set of ethics could be negative, or not compatible
             with the general ethics accepted by society.
             An ethical system is also derived by an individual on his or her own.
             Using a parent's guidelines while growing up, a child also uses his or her
             experiences in society to shape personal ethics. When a person is very
             young, for example, it is easy to succumb to peer group pressure in order
             to form ethics that are not really in keeping with what is required by
             general society. Peer group ethics may require a person to steal and to
             murder, and this is not ethical in the general, social sense. This could
             happen even if parents were extremely conscientious and ethical in raising
             In the job situation, ethics are again subjected to the individual
             situation. Business ethics in certain companies are for example not
             necessarily values that would be acceptable when applied to society in
             general. The law profession is an example of this. Lawyers are often
             obliged by professional ethics to keep conversations with their clients
             confidential, even though such a pe...