Ethics defines a set of moral philosophical standards in which the public is expected to adhere to, to remain civilized. The word "ethics" and term "ethical" represents the theory of performing the right actions in accordance with what is generally observed to be "moral," abstaining from negative consequence.

Several different disciplines of ethics exist. For instance:

• Applied Ethics deals with the application of ethics and ethical codes to real life situations. This topic is generally prevalant in the medical field, especially with controvercial topics such as abortion (i.e. the act of taking a life, that may have been neglected; yet violated of its own right to live)
• Descriptive Ethics involves defining a set of ethics based upon the actual observation of subjects and their behaviors, rather than going by a standard set of rules.
• Meta Ethics is concerned with the actual meaning of ethical judgements and ponders how sources responsible for them are in fact valid, at all.

Business ethics is a popular subject due to the fallout from the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, enforcing corporate responsibility amongst executives, managers and employees alike; as each entity is subject to different situations that may produce particularly unethical results:

• Business Ethics is the utilization of ethics and ethical codes, practices and systems in the workplace so that the risk of adverse behavior is eliminated. It involves code of conduct training, general ethics coursware, conflict of interest training, harassment training, reporting and ethical accounting principles.

• Ethics Training concerns the business ethics training for all levels of employees, to help familiarize them with their company's code of conduct and general behavioral expectations in the workplace.