An it harm none, do what thou will.
The last eight words of the Wiccan Rede combined with the Rule of Three pretty much outline Wiccan ethics.
A basic explanation of the Rule of Three follows. First of all, everything you do in life has an effect on everything else around you. When you drop a stone in the water, millions of ripples flow out from the point of impact. This is known as the Ripple effect, and it's omnipresent. Everything in the Universe is connected to everything else by Cosmic Krazy Glue--to paraphrase Jane Wagner. This is related to the Six Degrees of Separation Theory as well. So, whatever you do has Karmic effect on you, too, whether in this life or the next. Three is a Universally significant number---whatever you do will come back to you times three. Times three means it will come back to you either three times strong, or on three levels--mental/emotional, spiritual, and physical. This is also in the Rede.
As for the second part of the Rule, it's pretty self-explanatory. Nothing in life is given freely--you must earn it. For this reason, magick is somewhat complicated at first glance. The mechanics are simple enough on paper, but to actually do them requires effort--quite a bit of effort. Though the Universe is ever-abundant, and there is enough in It for everyone all over, It wants to make sure you really want something before It gives it to you.
"An it harm none, do what thou wilt!" The meaning of this phrase is obvious: Do what you want as long as you harm no one. Witchcraft is a very freeing religion--it allows you to throw off the chains that bind you, as long as you agree to hurt nothing in the process. A Witch must walk in harmony with the earth around him or her, and that means not hurting it or its creatures.
Interfering with the free will of other beings is included in harming. So, you can pretty much guess that love spells have just flown out the window with Eros' wings. Person-specific love spells, that is.
To elaborate: casting a spell on a specific person may work, but it's interfereing with free will, and is therefore causing harm. (We could go into a philosophical debate here, but I don't feel like it.) It's much better to do just a general "I'm ready to accept love" spell, to let the Universe know that you think you're ready to accept love. It usually knows better than we do, but It allows us our illusions.
As said by Brendan Fraser in The Mummy Returns: "There's always a catch."
The catch here? If you're not careful, you're screwed. Do your research. Make sure you know about all possible and probable consequences of your spell before doing it. Or better yet--apply this to your daily life and actions, not just your magickal ones. (I should let it be known here that I do not do this, and am a major hypocrite. But you can't deny that it's good advice.)
Another thing--you must gain permission from a person before casting a spell on him/her. With binding magick, you probably wouldn't do this (I didn't with the ones I used on my boyfriend and my dad), but binding magick isn't for actually binding the person to your will. It's about binding the negative energy and intolerance the person is putting out. For example, the one I used on my dad I did to bind his hate towards my mom. I didn't tell him because he wouldn't have agreed. This isn't an excuse to use with everyone...if you want to do a healing spell for a friend, you must gain his/her permission first. At any rate, I don't recommend binding spells to the beginning Witch or dabbling spellcaster. Only resort to binding when you have tried every other avenue. They can come back to bite you.
To finish up the talk on ethics, I'll talk a bit of healing. To be more specific, harming to heal.
When you heal someone, you're technically 'killing' the negative entities in his or her body--the virus or the hangnail or whatever. So, does that fit with the Wiccan Rede?
Not technically, if you want to get fanatical about it. I just use this helpful loophole: pain is a natural thing. So I send it back to where it came from--the Universe. The Universe will then redistribute it to where it should go. I may be indirectly harming someone else with it, but as it's gone through the Universe first...the blame's kinda off me. Besides, the healing happens because it's needed, and the pain is needed elsewhere at the moment. I'm just helping speed it along. Pain is a necessary thing to our survival. Just not a pleasant one.
One more thing--you should only attempt to gain something through a magickal working after trying all mundane means to get it. If it still doesn't happen after the magickal working, you're probably not meant to have it at this point in time. And I can't stress this enough.
Remember, the Universe is abundant, and there is enough of everything in it for everyone.
These ethics are for the beginning spell-caster. If you are an adept Witch, why are you even reading it? They're based off my experience and opinion. I don't expect people to listen--I merely put them up in case my guidance will be appreciated/heeded. If not, it's no skin off my nose. If you have a quarrel with my ethics, there's a link in the bottom right-hand frame of this page so you can tell me where to shove it.