Every person in the United States has the right to do as they please, even if there may be negative consequences for doing so. When a person willingly puts what they want to do below what should rightly be done, they will be able to live a morally exemplary and/or ethically exemplary life. The two lives may or may not correspond to each other because there is a distinction between ethics and morality. Both can determine the difference between right and wrong behavior, but ethics refers to the standards imposed by the individual's group (nation, profession, etc.) while morality is imposed by the individual (Source X). Ethically, a scientist testing an experimental drug on a human subject would randomly choose who receives which treatment. Morally, the scientist would choose the most seriously ill subjects to receive what he believes to be the best treatment. Therefore, living a morally exemplary life means following your conscience; living an ethically exemplary life means following the code of conduct of the group to which one belongs, be it all of humanity or all those who practice a particular profession. The difference between ethics and morality, between unethical conduct and immoral behavior, is significant when it comes to the actions of elected officials. Elected officials should be required to live with ethical conduct but with necessary moral behavior. Requiring elected officials to live ethically exemplary lives regarding their profession is appropriate because officials are elected to their government positions by the citizens of the nation or region. These citizens expect their officials to respect the ethics of the region, according to "well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what human beings should do... middle of paper... have a significant impact on the credibility of official". political side. Laws, after all, are established and enforced by the government to all citizens. Therefore, private actions that ignore the law can penetrate the wall between the private life and professional life of any government official. While the potential duality in a government official's life is reason for tolerating most immoral actions, a code of conduct for elected government officials should still be executed. The double life justifies that there is no requirement for elected officials to live morally exemplary lives in private; it does not justify giving unethical lives to elected government officials. As long as the code of conduct revolves around the ethics of professional life and excludes the more immoral actions of private life, the code should be respected.