Does being ethical require obedience and adherence to the law? Does being moral mean you never infringe on the rights and safety of others? Does compliance with the law make you an honest person? And if any or all of these questions must be answered in the affirmative, does that mean that each of us should never break the law, for fear of being immoral, dishonest, or unethical?

It is estimated that ten percent of the population will never knowingly break the law, 10% will often attempt to circumvent those same rules, and the remaining 80% will, under the right circumstances, bend or deviate from the law. Three decades ago, a survey in Ontario, Canada, found that almost 82% of citizens would cheat on their taxes if they weren’t taking risks, and 38% admitted that they had already done so. That is an enormous amount of deviation!

But does compliance with the rules make one honest? One individual I know routinely pushes the boundaries of interpreting the law, justifying his mistreatment of others and his habit of maximizing his personal gain at the expense of others by saying, “If the government thought it was wrong, I would create a law against him.” However, he knows that his actions cause suffering to others.

A foreign student from the University of Manitoba approached another student and asked him to write his ethics essay for him. It’s hard not to laugh at this all-too-obvious paradox! Yet in their culture, the political regime tacitly encourages such subterfuge, meddling so aggressively in one’s life that, to maintain a semblance of personal power, people seek creative ways to hide their behaviors from the government. In his opinion, the act of cheating in an ethics course was simply a way of expressing power. He didn’t see it as a moral issue.

Then there is the question of whether there are circumstances in which not breaking the rules is immoral or unethical.

Last week my wife had to be rushed to a nearby hospital. Her condition, as I saw it, was hopeless, as she was dimly clinging to consciousness, her breathing was shallow, she was sweating profusely, she was pale, and she had numbness all over her right side. As I sped down the back roads, exceeding the speed limit, I called 911 from my cell phone. I continued to use the cell phone even after intercepting the ambulance. He needed to notify her immediate family.

Using a cell phone while driving is illegal in our jurisdiction. So is speeding. I potentially put others at risk with my aggressive driving, even if it was within the letter of the law. However, if I had not reacted so quickly, my wife might well have died. If she had succumbed and I had not given the family a chance to find out and react to her emergency, she would have caused them undue suffering.

I determined that even though I was choosing to break the law, the law needed to be broken in this situation. I did not view my actions as immoral or unethical. How do you interpret supposedly necessary infractions of the law? Now give us an honest answer please!