From the earliest moments of recorded human consciousness, the ethical discipline has entailed four fundamental approaches, often called ethical decision-making frameworks:
- Utilitarian Ethics (outcome based),
- Deontological Ethics (duty based),
- Virtue Ethics (virtue based), and
- Communitarian Ethics (community based).
Professional ethics are a set of values that individuals should strive to follow. These values include kindness, compassion, integrity, responsibility, tact and follow-through. Companies can choose to include their interpretation of professional ethics in the employee handbooks or it can be an implicit expectation. Social responsibility encompasses the responsibilities of individuals to the society at large.