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I think Plato's idea of incontinence is important here - and it's got nothing to do with being unable to control ones bowel or bladder functions. Simply put, Plato's version of incontinence is doing what we know we shouldn't and not doing what we know we should. It may be just me*, but I find myself, (often, sometimes, on occasion?), doing things which I cannot justify on ethical grounds. This can be anything from stealing an envelope from the office, to exceeding the speed limit, to taking an extra ten minutes for lunch, to other things to which I am not about to confess here. I do this stuff and know that, ethically, I "shouldn't" - behaving in this way is not consistent with my general ethical viewpoint and beliefs, but I do it anyway. If someone starts blathering on to me about how my behaviour is unethical I will construct an argument to show that it's not, or that it's only unethical from their point of view and who's to say that they are right, and we all have our own personal ethics...you know the sort of thing that peppers threads on Mobileread as soon as "Is it legal..." or "Is it ethical..." make an appearance. All of which argumentation don't amount to squat, but I'm dammned if I'm going to have some jumped-up no-mark tell me in a high and mighty way that something I do isn't ethical, when I would be willing to bet my savings that the behaviour in question is no worse than many of the things that the accuser does. All of this doesn't alter the fact that most of us commit minor transgressions every day.
It's not as if what we need do is work out what's ethical and we'll all do it...we often already know, and sometimes choose to act otherwise.
*This is merely a rhetorical point, I don't actually think it really is just me, I think it's most of us. I also think self-reporting is a very unreliable guide to what people actually do.
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