Ethical means following what is morally right. An ethical decision, ethical standards, ethically sourced.
In professions it is a defined system: medical ethics, an ethics committee, a professional code of ethics. In consumer language, ethical means produced without exploitation — ethical banking, ethical clothing — and the claim is easy to make and hard to check. Note ethics, which takes a singular verb as a field and a plural one as a set of principles; and unethical, which is a serious accusation in any professional setting.
1adjectiveethicalFollowing what is morally right.
“Is it ethical to test new medicines on animals?”
2adjectiveproducedProduced without exploitation.
“She only buys ethical clothing from brands that pay their workers fairly.”
ethical is a quality of moral rightness.
Greek ethikos comes from ethos, character or custom. Cicero translated it into Latin as moralis, from mos, a custom, so ethics and morals are the same word in two languages and the shades of difference are all English.
Proto-Indo-European
*dʰeh₁-
Ancient Greek
ἠθικός — of or for morals, moral, expressing character
Latin
ethicus — moral, ethical
English, today
ethical
Built from
From ethic + -al, from Latin ethicus (“moral, ethical”), from Ancient Greek ἠθικός (“of or for morals, moral, expressing character”), from ἦθος (“character, moral nature”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA