banannaise parent
Outsourcing your morality to politicians past and present is not a particularly useful framework.
I'm not outsourcing my morality. There are plenty of actions that are legal that are immoral.
I don't think the government's job is to enforce morality. The government's job is to set up a framework for society to help people get along.
Ethics are only morality if you spend your entire time in human social contexts. Otherwise morality is a bit larger, and ethics are a special case of group recognized good and bad behaviors.
I don't think "ethics" implies group recognition, though-- I'd call those principles mores.