Codes of ethics are helpful precisely when things are not clearly "bad", but in the gray areas.
Would you care to tell me where I said that? Because I don't see that at all.
Reviewing the bidding, gregwtmtno, a lawyer, said maybe we could use a professional code of ethics like his profession had. SomeStupidPoint suggested that ethics didn't matter to lawyers, and his proof was naming some things lawyers did that he thought were bad.
My point was that one can't say that legal professional ethics is totally worthless just because of when they've failed (or at least failed to prevent things you dislike). You have to look at its successes as well as its failures.
That's how I read this: But what you're ignoring is the great number of bad things that lawyers don't do because either a) they are afraid of the professional consequences, b) they can get their clients to easily back off because they say, "professional ethics!" and people know it's a real thing, or c) they get disbarred and can't act as a lawyer any more.
> My point was that one can't say that legal professional ethics is totally worthless just because of when they've failed (or at least failed to prevent things you dislike). You have to look at its successes as well as its failures.
That's fair enough. I don't think codes of ethics are worthless either.
This is a false dichotomy. Some people are deeply unethical. Some people are deeply ethical. Most people are just getting along in their lives and can be pushed in either direction by the practical and social context. Codes of ethics are helpful for everybody except the ardently unethical.