This is indeed what a lot of people mean by ethical behaviour, taking better care of the workers who make your products.

FORBES: Has Apple Become More Ethical Since Steve Jobs' Death A Year Ago?

That ethical behaviour seemingly including raising wages for the workers in China.

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Northern Europeans say that this is precisely why the power of example matters, for they see legal and ethical behaviour as part of a continuum.

ECONOMIST: Charlemagne

She speculates that the reason for this is that feeling morally unclean (ie, disgusted) leads to feelings of moral wrongness and thus triggers increased ethical behaviour by instilling a desire to right the wrong.

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Now, you could, if you wished to, say that rising wages, better working conditions and greater workplace safety are all evidence of an increase in the ethics, or the ethical behaviour, of the employers.

FORBES: Has Apple Become More Ethical Since Steve Jobs' Death A Year Ago?

Those few corporations I have talked to which are serious about enforcing ethical behaviour are regularly impelled by their own guidelines to sack employees who violate ethics policies, never mind claw back their incentive remuneration.

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The white paper backs the idea of a new ethical code to govern the behaviour of Britain's 20, 000 councillors and 2m council staff.

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Climate change is a tough case because it covers two distinct forms of behaviour: legal v illegal (dumping toxic waste, killing whales) and ethical v unethical (not wasting food or energy).

ECONOMIST: Charlemagne

If all this had happened at a company in the US, where boards are more fastidious about the behaviour of executives and where investors are also pretty hot on punishing executives who cross a putative ethical line, this would already be a hot issue.

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