An ethic is a living system of principles to which a group of people adheres in order to preserve an ethos.

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An ethic is a living system of principles…

An ethic is holistic. A principle is meaningless and valueless apart from the ethical system to which it belongs.

A single principle cannot be removed from the system and applied individually in disregard of the rest. Each principle is an organ of the whole ethic.

An ethic is not reducible to a list of rules or laws, any more than a living body is reducible to a pile of organs and parts. The whole works together or it dies.

An act which conforms to one principle but contradicts another principle within the same ethic is not ethical. An act answers to every principle of the ethic and supports the ethic, or it violates the ethic and undermines the ethos.

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…to which a group of people adheres…

If you belong to the group and make ethical appeals to (or demands from) others, you must answer to those same principles when others makes an ethical appeal to you. This is the fundamental principle of all ethics and therefore it is the principle of principles: the golden rule.

Adherence means you can be counted on to conform to the ethic, and in return you can count on others. If you are unfaithful to the ethic, you lose your right to make appeals.

Essentially it is an agreement, a shared understanding, a promise. If others feel you are betraying that agreement, it is not enough for you to believe privately that you are righteous. You must justify yourself, or the agreement breaks down.

People who think “sticking to principles” is an excuse to offend their neighbors (other members of the ethos), or who even go as far as to take pleasure at the offense of others as evidence of their “unyielding integrity” are radically wrongheaded and undermine the ethic with their ignorance.

To be ethical means to make appeals to one another, confer and deliberate with one another and come to ethical agreements, and to avoid the use of legalistic coercion.

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…in order to preserve an ethos.

The fulfillment of an ethic is an ethos: a way of being in the world, seeing the world and participating in the life of the world. This ethos is not contrived in any way. It is not consciously interpreted.

The ethos is simply what the world spontaneously is when one lives according to its ethic. It is not a configuration, but a transfiguration.

An ethic is only as good as the ethos it promotes. The ethos is the fruit of the ethic, and it is by the ethos that the ethic should be judged.