My son has proved for me the theory of evolution. He’s basically a barbarian with a cuter haircut. Never is that more apparent than when he’s eating.

Fingers in his food. Mouth packed with Cheerios. Spoon banging on the tray. Snout submerged in his bowl. Hands wiped on his shirt. Face encrusted. The floor coated. It’s a sight to see. (My daughters, by the way, eat like queens ... I’m not quite sure how that happens.)

Anyway, my son is essentially an animal in socks. Now, he’s not even 2 years old yet, so I have to remind myself to cut him some slack; however, I must say that the amount of relentless conditioning that it’s taking to get him to eat like a human being is truly staggering.

Of course, my parents tell me that it wasn’t until I was 4 that I stopped cramming fistfuls of mashed carrots into my mouth. Apparently, I used to devour food with such unstoppable ferocity that my grandmother would stand over my high chair screaming, “Breathe, my child, breathe!” So I guess this is normal behavior for kids.

Hoarding and stealing is another particularly beautiful native instinct among young children. My 5-year-old daughter used to creep into her little sister’s room at night to filch the plastic ponies out of her Playmobil Horse Farm. My wife—with her Ph.D. in Psychology—used to tell me not to worry, and would assure me that we weren’t raising an imminent criminal mastermind. “It’s only human nature,” she would say.

And she’s right. Totally normal.

But that’s a key point: It is normal. Not being selfish is actually unnatural. Not stealing is unnatural. Disgusting, selfish behavior is totally normal … it’s built-in to our systems, and it needs to be unwound.

It takes a lot of work to create good ethical people who understand self-restraint, but it can be done.

But it’s not always done under the tenets of “ethics.” The law plays an important role. And so does the notion of “appropriateness.”

Disgusting, But Not Unethical

I started thinking about these things while basking in the glow of my son’s table manners. I mean, really, what’s wrong with eating like a pig? It’s certainly not evil, nor is it unethical. Now, my son isn’t exactly “handsome” after a meal, but he’s also not hurting himself; though unsanitary, he’s not going to get sick from wiping his hands on his shirt. And he’s certainly not hurting anybody else (provided you stay out of his way).

Ethics is primarily concerned with human behavior vis-à-vis

civilization: It’s about how you treat others. So what’s unethical about eating like an animal? Well, nothing, really.

Same with orgies (how’s that for a transition?). What, as a college professor of mine used to argue, is unethical about an orgy? If everyone is single, over the age of 21, and participating on their own volition, then what’s unethical?

Remember, we’re not talking about religious morals here, we’re talking about ethics. And if ethics involves “how you treat others,” then there’s often nothing unethical about behaving like an animal. Which explains how someone like former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski could gorge himself like a pig at the shareholders’ trough and get away scot-free. Is it disgusting? Sure. But after watching my son, I wouldn’t exactly call it “abnormal.”

Is it unethical? Well, that’s a tough case to make. Remember, Kozlowski wasn’t just accused of overpaying himself; he was accused of stealing, which is definitely unethical. But that doesn’t change the fact that the jury was unable to reach a verdict in the case, and that Tyco lawyer Mark Belnick was acquitted. The upshot is the same: It’s difficult to make the case that greed is larceny. Kozlowski said it best when he told Business Week, “... the way I calculate it, while I gained $139 million, I created about $37 billion of wealth for shareholders.”

And he’s right: Greed is tough to litigate, partially because society dictates that greed isn’t necessarily unethical (thank you, Gordon Gekko). Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan may have blamed the 2002 business crisis on “infectious greed,” but W. Michael Hoffman, the executive director of the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College in Waltham, Mass., clarified that statement, telling ABC News that you don’t necessarily have to be a cheater, a criminal or even unethical to be greedy.

That’s partially because “ethics” is impossible to define, and is a constantly moving target. Combine that with the abstract, academic haze that clouds most peoples’ minds once the word is uttered (I can’t think about “ethics” without being reminded of the most boring humanities course ever offered to college freshmen), and you get a roll-the-eyes situation that can degrade—rather than improve—any culture.

Besides the challenges of theoretical academics, ethics is also tied to religion, which further obfuscates comprehension; the training philosophy of the Ethics Resource Center acknowledges that, “There is confusion regarding the boundaries between ethics, morality and religion.”

Ethical Perhaps, But Intolerable

Obviously, though, just because an act may not be deemed “unethical” is not to imply that the act is tolerable. Or put another way: Ethics isn’t enough.

As is the case with my son’s eating habits, the absence of an ethical or legal dilemma creates the demand for another behavioral measure, one of “appropriateness.” It’s actually what ethicists call “The Logic of Appropriateness.” That’s why, in addition to asking whether a particular act is legal or ethical, corporate ethics programs should ask whether an act is “appropriate.”

If for every action—whether it’s an email or a sales call—employees asked themselves the question, “Is this act appropriate?” we’d likely have fewer ethical lapses than if they asked the hazy and elusive question, “Is this act ethical?”

Now, on it’s own, the logic of appropriateness can be outright dangerous. That’s because the society-driven definition of “appropriate” shifts and sways over time; after all, it wasn’t too long ago that society said women can’t vote, and that blacks aren’t equal. Not exactly “appropriate” theories these days.

But when balanced with a system of laws and ethics, appropriateness can play a critical role in setting codes and standards. During the stock market bubble, for example, society considered it appropriate for a CEO to pay himself 400 times the average worker’s compensation. But clearly, that’s changing; William McDonough, the chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, has in numerous speeches called the 400x factor “thoroughly unjustified, economically and morally.”

In other words, it’s not appropriate. Now, that doesn’t mean “appropriateness” is easy to enforce (just watch how hard it is for New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to prove that former NYSE Chairman Richard Grasso’s compensation was “excessive”).

But the notion of “appropriateness,” derived from a multitude of sources, provides an often-overlooked yet critical component of our societal and economic system. Even Adam Smith, the author of The Wealth of Nations who founded modern economic theory, recognized that the “appropriateness” intangible was fundamental to economic stability and trust. “Men could safely be trusted to pursue their own self-interest without undue harm to the community not only because of the restrictions imposed by law,” he wrote in his less-recognized The Theory of Moral Sentiments, “but also because they were subject to built-in restraint derived from morals, religious custom, and education.”

For better or worse, behaving like a pig doesn’t always fall under the categories of illegal or unethical. That’s why asking whether an act is purely ethical or legal isn’t always enough. Whether it’s my son’s eating habits, executive compensation, or that last email you just sent, the logic of appropriateness needs to be added to the mix.

The column solely reflects the views of its author, and should not be regarded as legal advice. It is for general information and discussion only, and is not a full analysis of the matters presented.

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