TED Community » Bill Johnston

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• A comment on Conversation: From your point of view, How important is ethics is every day life? Do you think that is a "reference" for most people?

  Jul 5 2011: Ethics are a reference for everyone. They are also individually defined. My ethics are not someone else's reference. May I add a question to the thread? Such as, "SHOULD personal ethics be an expectation for public leaders?" I believe they are - in my lifetime there have been 4 Presidents whose VP's wanted to be President - Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton. Two, Eisenhower and Regan, avoided scandalous personal ethics and their VPs went on to be Presidents. The other two President's VPs could not get elected - and their "boss'es" personal ethics had something to do with their defeats. Right? Wrong? I don't know, but I do think it's anecdotal evidence that, as a society, we not only care about the personal ethics of our public leaders but we do factor it into how we evaluate them.