It's too late for james Traficant and Pete Rose. But if you consider these questions when you're up against a slippery situation, you can maintain your ethical integrity.

Is the action honest?

Does it reflect what you were taught by your parents, your school, your Girl Scout troop leader?

How will it affect others?

Are you doing this only because everyone else is?

Do you feel at all uncomfortable with it?

What kind of message do you send to your children, friends, colleagues?

"Part of our ethical obligations are civic obligations —to build a just society," says ethics columnist Randy Cohen. "We live among other people, and we have to always act with that understanding. That's what ethics is."