Why is Ethics a boring topic?

Thank you, Kiron, indeed this is my experience as well: theoretically we follow what we know that is socially desirable, the practice however proves to be much harder :) This is why I consider that it is the responsibility of the project manager to keep emphasizing ethics and professional conduct among the team members, so that, when they face a situation, the socially desirable answer to that situation is well rooted in their minds.

To add to my first response, to make it less boring would require focusing less on "apple pie and motherhood" theory and more on pragmatic principles and guidelines which PMs can use to navigate complex ethical situations.

I love when I learn new things: "apple pie and motherhood" is a new idiom for me, thank you :) I perfectly understand your point: probably we need to guide our ethical discussions not towards generally accepted values, but towards concrete situations and/or using ethical tools that are designed for specific situations.

Good point, Sergio.

The PMI code (and those of other organizations like IPMA or APM) look at the how we behave as professionals and not what the projects achieve. As we move more from project to product, the what could also get into the scope of the code.

That is a problem other professions may not see, like doctors, lawyers (though they may bailout criminals ethically) or accountants, journalists.

Would the planner of 911 been able to become a PMP?

The other thing is project management must not be consider a profession. But doctors, lawyers, yes. In the formal and accepted definition that have been stated by governments and others. For example, one of the requirements for a discipline to be consider a profession is to have a legaly actionable code of conduct as a key component of the professional registration. Because it is a real profession a medical doctor (to take an example) can not execute their profession in a different country than she/he obtained her/his professional registration. Just in case she/he like to do that a predefined process to revalidate the credential must be follow. So, the only way people can consider project management a profession is because they are using the boarder definition of profession which is something like "a paid occupation".

You are welcome. But my comment is not about the use of terms. Just to put in the same context for me debating about ethic without the appropiated framework is boring and it has no sence. Ethic is a topic that as you know has been debated from greek. So, as many other things at least in my case, if we have do not take into account the basement and with the knowledge and understanding of the basement to debate on that, in my case, is a waste of time.

I like "comes as a simple remainder". It implies that ethics is much more than a code.