Ethical governance means that the process of governance and decision-making is based on moral principles such as truth, justice, accountability, caring, and respect. It means leaders decide on certain policies and make decisions which will benefit the entire society differently benefiting all of them. An ethically-governed institution looks at what is possible to do legally as well as what it is right to do.

An example would be the government passing legislation that is intended to protect consumers in dealing with the banking sector over issues to do with usurious credit. That maybe so legally provided the various banking laws but they are surely unethical in that they take advantage of those consumers who have little or no financial literacy to land them into terrible debts they cannot repay on loans they never fully understood. Ethical governance would force the politicians to close such loopholes and curb the procedures which would be detrimental to the poor and middle-class citizens by taking away their money in the name of a bank’s profit. The policies of corporate interests are to be subdued before the people’s values in terms of their moral good and requirement. This can be termed as the moral responsibility and concern for justice within society by the government.