[bigbadfeline]

> I don't think ethics exists anywhere other than impressionate minds and words on paper.

Same as law. The only difference is enforcement.

> This is a conjecture that ethics emanates from the whole of society and somehow keeps the things from falling apart

If something doesn't emanate from the whole of society and doesn't keep it from falling apart - the society will fall apart and seize to exist as a whole. We may call that "something" ethics just to give a clear meaning to that word and repair some of the immeasurable damage done to it by modern philosophy. Only then ethics can be used as one of the foundations of law.

> and then explains it to have cyclical nature.

The hopes of self-repairing cyclical nature are a coping mechanism that seeks to avoid the reality of self-destructive cycles - the repairs are never complete, destruction accumulates until repairs are no longer possible.