Professional ethics encompass the personal and corporate standards of behaviour expected of professionals.
Professional people and those working in acknowledged professions exercise specialist knowledge and skill. How the use of this knowledge should be governed when providing a service to the public can be considered a moral issue and is termed professional ethics.
Professionals are capable of making judgments, applying their skills and reaching informed decisions in situations that the general public cannot, because they have not received the relevant training. One of the earliest examples of professional ethics is probably the Hippocratic oath to which medical doctors still adhere to this day.
Professional ethics is a set of standards adopted by a professional community. Professional ethics are regulated by standards, which are often referred to as codes of ethics.
The code of ethics is very important because it gives us boundaries that we have to stay within in our professional careers. The one problem with the code of ethics is that we can't always have the answers black and white. Sometimes there are grey areas where the answers aren't so simple. Professional ethics are also known as Ethical Business Practices.