I'd have to disagree, because I wasn't talking about ethics that come from a sense of social obligation or social acceptance, nor forced onto you legally by a social contract because to me those are not ethics, maybe just "compliance" or lack of choice at best.

That type of ethics would be for the sake of social function ( not social order, there is no such thing because there's no unified power anyway ;P society is made of only individuals after all. )

Ethics must come from you intellectually and volitionally (by your own choices) the way I'm using it here. Not from external obligations or rules that you follow. Otherwise it's of course not real ethics.

For example I treat another individual with courtesy and respect not because I must or because anyone is forcing me to but because of my own choice. No "doctrine of ethics" is involved in the decision making, for me at least - and I don't feel I even really need one.

Even if all my social power was removed, that decision wouldn't change. If I had even more social power ( as in power within a society ) I think my obligation of courtesy towards other types of people would actually increase, not decrease accordingly. Which is the opposite of what you're talking about. There's some assumption in your statement that there has to be a chain of power to inform the ethic. To me that is indeed hollow, but then, I wouldn't call that ethic anyway.

By the way, there's no shame in things that are obviously a "creation of humanity". There are a lot of worthy things that we create and continue to create that are just that - creations of/from ourselves, yet sill worth-while in every respect of the word ( so far as living a better life goes, or a quality of existance, lets say, as the rubric of whats worth it or what isnt ).

Also vise versa if you look at the world minus many creations of mankind without romantisizing your point of view or looking at this through rose colored glasses so to speak I think you'll find that the world without creations of mankind is really very hostile to it, in many respects ( unfortunately ) and it is nothing praise worthy in and of itself.

If you're just saying "reality" doesn't really force us to have ethics by divine imposition or some other natural causation, then duh, of course, ethics doesn't exist until we put it there, but that's not just common sense, that's also the whole point of them. That's why we make such a big deal out of them as a topic in and of itself. ( despite reality not reflecting that. damn hypocrites. ).

I think an important point is that ethics are about choices not about law ( or rules or compliance... ) if you don't have this ( by choice ) then you don't have any, period. That also means if we don't put ethics into our own ways of living, we also probably won't find them there either. At all. Not magically. Not auto-autonomously. It has to be us or nil. That's just the way it is. So in a roundabout way your statement may be right, I just disagree that it follows that they're hollow or fake, because there's a point to them ( which would be the great deal of value living by them begets for us, compared to say, living at each other's throats or not lifting a finger to help anything that isn't also you, or gives you an immediate reward in some sense ).

The fact is many of the things we call ethics also expedite social-function and benefit individuals in ways that make living astronomically better, as opposed to if we just didn't. I don't pretend that society is really built up on genuine ethics, unfortunately. So analogies are sparse.

I see a lot of talk about ethics, I see it in my Christmas specials, the bibles in hotel drawers, political speeches, casual conversations, but if you asked me if I saw it in society and our ways of living, whether that be by law or by choice ( the actions of the individuals ) I'd have to be lying to pretend I saw a huge deal of that anywhere at all.

In the same way people habituatedly comply to easy outs / easy answers, you will probably see it in media a lot ( sales boost GO! ), people using it for their position, and the problem is if and when that's all it is. I can count with the fingers on one hand the number of people I've met in my life time, that any sense of ethics was an intellectual understanding rather then a bunch of cheap words/dogma and understood, for their own reasons, not just "followed" or repeated witlessly.

Rather then thinking that ethics are hollow & artificial creations, I think when ethics are real, they simply represent individual understandings. And that is the only place they can be "real". Also, rather then them being hollow, I see it as people ultimately making them hollow. As in through malpractise and hypocrisy, cheapness/superficiality, also that very lack of understanding. Occasionally you come accross people that are technically willing, but let's be brutally honest, it's not like being willing equates to a depth of understanding or knowing what to do, even in your own life.

Since I don't feel ethics are even an external ( they should not be imposed on you by anyone or anything or else ) I don't think ethics changes with societies or times, if we're not talking about just "conventions". Ethics change with the choices made by the individuals in the present. For an ultra realistic viewpoint.

The fact ethics aren't "autonomous" shouldn't phase anyone, our choices (will always) speak for themselves. I just hope that they will in forsight and not hindsight. XD

I see ethic and intellect as the same thing only separated for convenience by topic.