Moral codes are sets of evolved agreements which may or may not have anything to do with ethicality. It is a sin in some circles to eat bacon on certain days, or at all, because it violates agreements that have been established for some groups. But there is nothing ethically flawed about eating bacon, or carrots, or even cats or dogs, in the business of bodily survival. If you can choose a more broadly beneficial way to fuel a body, then, you may find a more ethical formulation, but it has nothing to do with agreements or moral codes.

Choosing right action--whether it fits into some code of agreement or not--is an individual act of consciousness, and as such it can be marred, flawed, or completely inverted depending on the state of awareness of the individual.

Keeping to a moral code is a matter of compliance, or maintaining agreements once made, whether actually ethical or not. The only thing that might be considered unethical about departing from a given moral code is any upset caused to those who expected you to keep it. Among rational beings, of course, this can be remedied by civil communication and mutual respect.

The crutch of using a moral code instead of selecting right action based on one's own sense of good consequences is a popular crutch, indeed, because it saves you from doing all kinds of work, mentally and spiritually.

But that don't make it good! :D

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