I have in front of me the online “Business Ethics” questionnaire of the defence services contractor QinetiQ. Ethical situations are presented offering three choices. If your choice is not the one favoured by management, the computer flashes up “Incorrect” and stops you going further until you have given the right answer. So, for example, if “Tony the project manager” has excluded “Lisa the top scientist” from a new project because she has mentioned that she is pregnant, the only box you may tick says “Tony is wrong and you should take action”. A similar line is taken about “Pete” (it is always middle-aged white men who do wrong things in Business Ethics) who “arrives at the office looking the worse for wear”. You must shop him too. There is no understanding of the key reality of ethics – that you must consider the actual effects of your actions upon actual people. Mightn’t Tony be right if the project is set to be completed in nine months and he knows that Lisa will be off for six of those? What if Pete has never been drunk at work in his life before: are you going to ruin his career for one slip-up? These “ethics” are all about compliance – to make sure, for instance, that Lisa the top scientist doesn’t sue. They are not about conscience.