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I think the real answer here is "legal obligation". You may sway some number of sw devs with classes on ethics, but in reality many will throw it all out the wi

I think the real answer here is "legal obligation". You may sway some number of sw devs with classes on ethics, but in reality many will throw it all out the window to save their job unless there's a real and significant consequence in breaking said ethics.

gnulinux 8y ago
You're mostly right. As I said to some other answer below, I think law enforcement is crucial to limit evil people doing evil. But well-intentioned people can do evil too, just because they didn't know any better. Engineers who made Therac-25 probably didn't wanna kill bunch of people, but they did. (Also read Hannah Arendt on how she talks about most Nazi officers thought 'they were just doing their jobs') Understanding that your job may have such implications is why ethics classes are very important. This shouldn't be optional, engineers should have the ability to be able to think about the implications of being an engineer.
- EpicEng 8y ago
  Of course, I wonder if that would result in no-degree-me being out of a job :). I have worked in medical equipment and cancer diagnostics for 14 years now.
  - gnulinux 8y ago
    Well, I didn't mean to be an elitist. My point was that ethics is an important "skill" for engineers and you can train this skill by other means such as reading books. There are tons of books about theoretical ethics, scientific ethics, engineering ethics, bioethics etc. Even reading something as basic as Stallman can be very helpful for software engineers. I'm just pointing out that engineers should think more about ethics.
    - EpicEng 8y ago
      >Well, I didn't mean to be an elitist No no no, I didn't take it that way. I was just remarking that I may find myself out of a job if regulation similar to civil engineering existed in our field due to the fact that I don't hold a degree. Nothing beyond that and it wasn't a response to anything you said. I've argued to (and with) my coworkers on more than one occasion that we _should_ be personally liable in certain situations (we already have the FDA watching over us at a high level.) For example, if I were complicit in fudging the results of an inter-system repeatability test in my current position.

gnulinux 8y ago

You're mostly right. As I said to some other answer below, I think law enforcement is crucial to limit evil people doing evil. But well-intentioned people can do evil too, just because they didn't know any better. Engineers who made Therac-25 probably didn't wanna kill bunch of people, but they did. (Also read Hannah Arendt on how she talks about most Nazi officers thought 'they were just doing their jobs') Understanding that your job may have such implications is why ethics classes are very important. This shouldn't be optional, engineers should have the ability to be able to think about the implications of being an engineer.

EpicEng 8y ago
Of course, I wonder if that would result in no-degree-me being out of a job :). I have worked in medical equipment and cancer diagnostics for 14 years now.
- gnulinux 8y ago
  Well, I didn't mean to be an elitist. My point was that ethics is an important "skill" for engineers and you can train this skill by other means such as reading books. There are tons of books about theoretical ethics, scientific ethics, engineering ethics, bioethics etc. Even reading something as basic as Stallman can be very helpful for software engineers. I'm just pointing out that engineers should think more about ethics.
  - EpicEng 8y ago
    >Well, I didn't mean to be an elitist No no no, I didn't take it that way. I was just remarking that I may find myself out of a job if regulation similar to civil engineering existed in our field due to the fact that I don't hold a degree. Nothing beyond that and it wasn't a response to anything you said. I've argued to (and with) my coworkers on more than one occasion that we _should_ be personally liable in certain situations (we already have the FDA watching over us at a high level.) For example, if I were complicit in fudging the results of an inter-system repeatability test in my current position.