So the BAs and managers know too, and a typical assumption is that they know before they ever talk to a developer. They have every opportunity to reject it them

So the BAs and managers know too, and a typical assumption is that they know before they ever talk to a developer. They have every opportunity to reject it themselves on ethical grounds before they ever talk to a developer. And yet, they still bring this known-ethically-bad feature to the developer and ask them to implement it! If devs are talking and developing customer needs directly (a legitimate thing), then that is a situation where developers are the first ones who should be pushing back. But in companies where there are multiple layers before a feature reaches a developer? Devs should not be the ethical enforcement.