Ethics aren't always easy to define. Yet definition of what we should do and what we can expect from one another is essential. If there's any doubt about just how important ethics are and how widely the subject is being discussed today, just pick up any newspaper or magazine. There's hardly any publication that doesn't have an article, feature, or editorial about some facet of ethical behavior.
It hasn't always been like this. When there is general agreement on the norms that oversee an activity, the need for a whole lot of discussion about rules doesn't exist. I can remember, for example, that when I was a youngster, pretty clear-cut guidelines governed our behavior toward one another. Certain ethical behavior was a part of even the simplest things we did. If we were playing marbles, for example, no one played "for keeps" unless agreement had been explicitly reached before the game started. Of course we didn't talk about ethics or agreements, per se; we just knew expectations were important.
However, when profound changes begin to take place among people, new understandings often have to be reached. That's a natural part of life. "Going steady" has a different set of rules than marriage. Reneging on an agreement is one thing when you're exchanging baseball cards, arguably something much larger when you're negotiating for a house, a business, or the terms of international trade.
