I don't steal, rape and murder because I don't want those things done to me, isn't that a good enough reason?
But, I don't care if a billion universes are destroyed because there are an infinite number and the one I'm in is always one that is not destroyed.
That's ultimately it. Ethics are out of a developed respect for man, and a natural respect for self-similar life. Naturally, this should include every single human being, because the natural inclination of life is to not extinguish the life of your own species (or that of a species that helps you out in some way), though many walks of life have dangerous competition for social dominance and/or mating purposes, but that's out of the individual's quest to better that around him, sometimes there ends up being an accident/setback.
However, primates evolved with a very competitive tribal instinct, and on some of the branches, including our species specifically, it ended up blossoming into an ugly fever of a very polar and, at the community/civilization level, a very dangerous divide of "with us as friends, or against us as sworn enemies" (ethics addresses granular level fairly well, doesn't entirely curb the behaviors of both mobs and the civilization [civilization/community as a social organism models, massive hive mind ... there are key words, use those in google or archive databases like jstor if you have access, should get something if you so choose...]). It's not always that radical, but it turns into ugly pissing matches and destruction fairly easy in various circumstances.
That, imho, has to be the reason why ethics is even a topic. It tries to address the gap in our behavior at the granular/individual level and that of our tribal level. It's ultimately a question of why we should, and whether we naturally do so, behave cooperatively with each other. It's a question that has no place even being asked, but it must be asked, because we have a natural instinct that remains from our evolutionary chain that ultimately, we all agree would be great to be without.
And ethics further butts its head into the picture when bioengineering has the potential to make inroads into such issues. There is strong evidence suggesting Theistic beliefs are at the core of the "ethical" concerns regarding bioengineering, specifically that of altering our own DNA to solve various natural issues. It'll be easily achieved in time, given the research funding is healthy enough - which at the moment, it is not. It's hard to raise funding on "ethically-controversial" research, and without strong inroads during research, advances do not occur at an optimal rate (imho).
It's nice to say we aren't the worst -- in regards to the aggressive polar tribal mindset -- among the currently living species in the primate family tree; it's easy to crown Chimpanzees for that "achievement." It's safe to argue we are on that podium, and it is not a podium we should grace our presence with... it should be above us, but it's ingrained in our genetics and has permeated our cultures throughout time; hell, we even foster it's growth in many ways.
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