Can Ethics Be Learned?

Ethics training has been clearly identified as an important component in countering unethical behavior in organizations. As a result, there has been a widespread and sharp increase in the number of organizations that have developed some form of ethics training as part of their developmental plan. Moreover, training in ethics now occurs in both academic and business settings that offer courses that concentrate on social responsibility and business ethics. Although the content of these courses varies greatly, the best programs seem to focus on ethical awareness and ethical reasoning.

Ethical awareness seminars and workshops tend to focus on increasing sensitivity to ethical dilemmas that are work related; however, ethical reasoning material is more in line with learning strategies for solving ethical dilemmas. Many companies have in-house ethics training programs and although the content varies considerably, as in academic settings, this training often involves statements from the CEO that emphasizes ethical business practices, discussions stemming from the published code of ethics, or procedures for dealing with or reporting unethical behavior.

What proponents of ethics training expect to achieve with these programs differs, depending on the organization and the actual training effort. Ethics trainers include among their goals stimulating moral thought while recognizing specific ethical dilemmas, creating a sense of moral obligation, developing problem-solving and decision-making skills, and tolerating or reducing ambiguity. There is also a lack of agreement among trainers on the objectives of ethics training. These training efforts continue to be problematic, primarily because there are conflicting views on whether or not ethics can be taught and conflicting expectations about whether or not the actual teaching of ethics can lead to more ethical behavior. Many will hypothesize as to whether there can be successful outcomes on teaching people ethics. A more pointed question, however, is whether ethics can actually be learned. Although the answer should be obvious, there are still many who have doubts, and the debate continues on whether or not ethics can be taught.

I think basic ethics are based on your upbringing.
Some finer points of ethics can be learned as these may be things that you either never experienced or never thought could affect people negatively.

The basis of ehtics, I believe, is the Golden rule / Karma.