Subramaniam "Subbu" Vincent is the director of Journalism & Media Ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, and a monthly contributor at Forbes. He tweets from @subbuvincent and @jmethics.

Full disclosure: One of us works—and the other one did—in an applied ethics center. The definition and the role of ethics are, therefore, deeply important to us. We are fully aware, however, of the ...