ETHICS? What ethics?

I did a quick search on the definition.. type "define: ethics" on google and you will get:

# ethical motive: motivation based on ideas of right and wrong
# the philosophical study of moral values and rules

The reason I bring this up is because lately I have been listening to a lot of conversation about corporate-ethics, finance-ethics and bio-ethics and all sorts of 'ethic-tists' on NPR [National Public Radio]. It appears that a lot of people are finally realizing that we are in the mess that we are in because our 'lack of ethics' or 'lack of morals'.

So in order to FIX the situation, many universities are trying to incorporate more ethics classes in their curriculum, corporations are holding mandatory ethics awareness....but I just have to go back to the fundamental questions.

1) Exactly how does anyone know what is right and what is wrong? and
2) Who/What defines the moral values and rules?

In this country which have lost its founding value, with leaders who are afraid of invoking the name of God (afraid only for political reason, mind you), how can it possibly answer those two questions? Without moral baseline, how can you EVER define ethics?

It was fun and sad in the same time listening to these shows on NPR; discussing ethics without any baseline. Some of the guests had difficulties answering why it is wrong to torture animals, mutate a chicken for fun or even explaining why these corporate CEOs were wrong! No wonder we are in the mess we are...

And by the way, for those who think that us human can determine the rights and wrongs by how we 'feel', should study the history of humanity.