I& #39;ve been reading a book about ethics, and it occurs to me ethics isn& #39;t just about what& #39;s right and wrong, it& #39;s about which issues are treated as ethical issues. Often we& #39;re told either to stop taking something too seriously, or that seeing it ethically is childishly idealistic.

Behavior that& #39;s obviously morally wrong to me—the person harmed—is often dismissed by the person responsible as a joke, or something everyone does, or a trivial failure of courtesy. The person responsible behaves as if it& #39;s ridiculous even to treat it as an ethical issue.

It& #39;s also common to reclassify an ethical issue as a biological issue: we& #39;re told some behaviors are natural, the neutral result of evolution. This places them outside the ethical realm, allowing people to evade the question of whether they are wrong.