How else do you enforce ethic other than reactively? Until we have minority-report style pre-crime reporting, lawyers decide who is punished on ethical grounds.

How else do you enforce ethic other than reactively? Until we have minority-report style pre-crime reporting, lawyers decide who is punished on ethical grounds. > Now, is it an ethical dilemma if you are asked to write firmware that disables a redundant safety sensor unless the customer pays additional fees? Not for the engineers. They get a spec, they don't write it. Is it unethical to stab someone on the street? yes, but not for the knife manufacturer. Beyond that, it's for lawyers to decide the laws, and how they are enforced e.g. limits of who knifes can be sold to, and punishments for non compliance. It's likely the above scenario doesn't, because it's illegal, not because SWEs refused to do it on any other grounds. If it isn't illegal, they'll just find someone else to do it. > engineer who makes these design choices is not shielded from the legal repercussion of his actions no matter how many times his supervisor told him to even assuming he is willing to be responsible There has to be a law to break. If you are assuming everything unethical is illegal, why bother with ethics - just give engineers training in the law. Or, don't bother, and instead run everything by a lawyer.