Knowingly Falsifying Documents for the Greater Good

A reader of this column recently sent this message to me:

"Ethics is such a personal predicament.  The theories, the situations, the "I would NEVER do that" is really not real compared to life, sometimes.  I find that violating "ethics" for the greater good may not be a violation at all except for the person violating it."

"One's theories on ethics may not be the correct one at all. The cultural diversity of it does not make it cut and dry.  Every situation violates some person's ethics, so, whose do we choose? And at what point do we as administrators determine that our ethics are above that of another employee's?  There are obvious ones in which generally speaking, we say never to do--knowingly falsifying documents for one.  But, I'm thinking...you know, there may be a situation in which doing that particular thing would be more ethical than not doing it."

Knowingly falsifying documents for the greater good . . . is this an abstract, throw away argument? Or, is it real? Opinions and comments invited, especially any that might translate this into a real example.