The article examines the anti-corruption functionality of ethics in the theoretical and legal dimension. The theoretical basis is the virtuous and deontological traditions (Aristotle, Kant), the secular-rationalist line (Lessing), as well as the Eastern concepts of management ethics (Confucius, al-Farabi, etc.). The study substantiates that the philosophical categories of virtue, duty, responsibility and the limits of power form the normative foundations of incorruptibility, which in the legal The field is expressed in the universality of the rules, the publicity of the reasonableness of decisions and the regimes for avoiding conflicts of interest. Interdisciplinary synthesis is used as a methodological basis as a normative and conceptual reconstruction of the main arguments and a comparative legal analysis of international legal standards of integrity and national regulation. On this basis, the value chain of ethics is formulated, from the ideal to the norm and the legal regime as a condition for the possibility of a stable configuration of institutions. The theoretical result is to clarify the status of professional ethics as an independent source of the validity of anti-corruption requirements and to substantiate the need for their universality, publicity and consistency in the rule of law.