ethicalness
Ethicalness refers to the quality or degree to which a person, action, policy, or institution conforms to commonly accepted standards of right and wrong. The term is distinct from ethics as a field of study: ethicalness is an evaluative property, whereas ethics comprises theories, methods, and arguments for determining what is right. Because standards of conduct vary across cultures and contexts, judgments of ethicalness are often contingent, contested, and sensitive to perspective, even when people share general moral intuitions.
Normative theories in moral philosophy offer criteria by which ethicalness can be assessed. Consequentialist approaches evaluate
Operational approaches to measuring ethicalness include codes of ethics, compliance programs, stakeholder impact assessments, and processes
In practice, discussions of ethicalness arise in business ethics, professional conduct, medical ethics, and technology, including