unethical
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Adjective[edit]
unethical (comparative more unethical, superlative most unethical)
- Breaching the established standards of conduct or behavior within a particular organization or profession. [20th c.]
- He was sacked for unethical conduct.
- 2009, Nada Kakabadse, Andrew Kakabadse, Chen Yang, “The Chinese Boardroom: Roles, Dynamics and Relationships”, in Global Boards: One Desire, Many Realities, →ISBN, page 100:
- However, occasionally one encounters unethical but not immoral practice, because in China, market regulations are neither sufficient nor regularly updated.
- Immoral, morally wrong. [19th c.]
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:immoral
- 2011 June 2, “The Science And Ethics Of Research On Chimps”, in NPR.org[2], retrieved 12 November 2022:
- The Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research in San Antonio, Texas is one of only a handful of sites around the world that conduct medical research on great apes. Scientists say their research is conducted humanely, but many animal rights groups say testing on chimps is unneeded and unethical.
Usage notes[edit]
- While the two terms are often used interchangeably, unethical is sometimes distinguished from immoral as referring to breaches of specific, collectively agreed social standards, rather than the violation of ultimate and unchanging moral principles implied by immoral.[1] See also the usage note at ethics.
Antonyms[edit]
Coordinate terms[edit]
Collocations[edit]
Collocations
- unethical behavior
- unethical practice
- unethical conduct
- unethical act
- unethical action
- unethical activity
- unethical thing
- unethical way
- unethical business
- unethical research
Translations[edit]
breaching professional standards
immoral — see immoral
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ Singer, Marcus G. (1986), “Ethics, Science and Moral Philosophy”, in New Directions in Ethics: The Challenge of Applied Ethics[1], London: Routledge:
- Note that there is a familiar distinction between judging conduct immoral and judging it unethical. The judgment of conduct as ethical or unethical appeals to a code that is felt to depend somehow on the will and agreement of human beings, whereas the judgment of conduct as moral or immoral does not appeal to a code or set of principles felt to be changeable in this way.
Further reading[edit]
- “unethical”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
- “unethical”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
- “unethical” (US) / “unethical” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.
- “unethical” in the Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- unethical in Britannica Dictionary