Ethical PR

When sociologist Raymond Baumhart asked business people, "What does ethics mean to you?" Among their replies were the following:


"Ethics has to do with what my feelings tell me is right or wrong."

"Ethics has to do with my religious beliefs."

"Being ethical is doing what the law requires."

"Ethics consists of the standards of behavior our society accepts."

"I don't know what the word means."

 As can be seen from the answers above, it is a grey area and there are no legal consequences if one were to behave unethically.
Ethics however is very important to an organisation's reputation as Shell found out with the Brent Spar issue and as PR is about managing reputations, it is very important for PR.
Does it simply mean abiding with the codes of conduct of an organisation? As employess do not even know the details of the codes of conducts in most organisations, and it only serves as a guide and as already mentioned has no legal implications, it is not sufficient just to do so.
Ethics refers to well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues. It also means, the continuous effort of studying one's own moral beliefs and  moral conduct, and striving to ensure that the institutions we help to shape, live up to standards that are reasonable and solidly-based.