Where Does Our Ethics Come From? Heritage, Conformism or Convictions – June 2025

Our moral compass can sometimes waver in times of crisis, under social pressure or when facing professional dilemmas. What we once considered “unacceptable” may become “understandable”. And what we believed to be “right” can come into conflict with the complexity of real life. This oscillation raises a fundamental question: Is our ethics a fixed inheritance or a malleable material shaped by experience and self-assertion?

Ethical heritage and contextual pressure

We all grow up within a value system: family, school, culture, and religion. All these influences shape the initial contours of our moral sense. These reference points may first appear unshakeable. But, as soon as we enter professional life, we are confronted with other logics: performance, hierarchy, compromise, and urgency. Ethics then ceases to be a theory and becomes a practice. And like any practice, it adapts to circumstances: contexts, cultures, eras. What is considered ethical in France might not be elsewhere. What seemed moral a century ago might shock today.

L’expérience de Milgram illustre la puissance du contexte sur le comportement moral. Des individus ordinaires, pensant participer à une étude sur la mémoire, ont accepté d’envoyer des chocs électriques potentiellement mortels à un inconnu, simplement parce qu’une figure d’autorité leur en avait donné l’ordre. Elle montre plutôt que dans certaines conditions (cadre scientifique, pression de l’autorité, responsabilité diluée…), les principes personnels peuvent être annihilés. Milgram a révélé une vérité dérangeante : notre éthique n’est pas aussi stable qu’on le croit. Elle dépend du contexte, des rapports de pouvoir et du sentiment de responsabilité.

Choices, ruptures, and inspiring influences

While context influences our decisions, it does not fully determine them. Some people carve out their own path by speaking out, disobeying, or standing by their values despite the risks. This process often involves rupture: burnout, injustice, a loss of meaning. But it also involves influence: mentors, ethical role models, visionary leaders. In this regard, the controversial trajectory of Elon Musk is revealing. He embodies a radical personal ethic based on innovation, mission and the breaking of established norms. By inspiring a new generation of entrepreneurs, he demonstrates how a singular ethic can shape collective practices.

Artificial Intelligence (AI): mirror or moral abdication?

The rise of AI presents a new ethical challenge: can we delegate decisions to machines without abdicating moral responsibility? Behind the apparent neutrality of algorithms lie our human biases, often opaque. The danger? That we stop questioning simply because “the machine said so”. As Milgram showed, delegating to an external authority can weaken our critical thinking. AI thus becomes a mirror of personal ethics: it does not replace humans; it tests their ability to take ownership of their choices.

In the end, personal ethics is neither fixed nor entirely shaped by context. It is built through experience, tensions, influences and moments of awareness. In a world marked by social pressure, technological authority and collective norms, ethics remains above all an individual choice. A trajectory more than a state. And on this path, our ability to think, to question and to decide is our greatest responsibility.

AI, therefore, does not replace our ethics: it puts it to the test, reveals its limits, and sometimes amplifies its flaws. It makes moral dilemmas more visible and highlights the inner struggle between external pressures and personal convictions. In a world where decisions may be made or influenced by machines, ethical vigilance is more necessary than ever, not just to question algorithms but to safeguard our responsibility and decision-making power.

Ultimately, ethics does not reside in what the machine does for us, but in what we choose to do with it, or despite it.

Bénédicte Affo

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