Everyone has agency. “Just following orders” is not an excuse.
If someone asks you to implement something that crosses an ethical line for you, you ALWAYS have the agency to refuse. It’s hard, but it’s critical that we never give away our own agency and control of our own actions.
You may not be able to stop an implementation from going forward, but you ALWAYS have the ability to not contribute to such an implementation.
That’s totally fair. If someone doesn’t have the visibility into the decision, and isn’t aware of harm coming from their actions, then they don’t have a moral responsibility.
>Everyone has agency. “Just following orders” is not an excuse.
depends on your safety barrier. In some very high profile cases, depends on your life. I commend people like Snowden but I certainly wouldn't choose to spend my entire life running from the US government in an attempt to be ethical. I have too many selfish personal goals to try and attempt to sway the masses like that.
To be fair, in the context of software refusing to code a feature you morally or ethically disagree with is very different from attempting to blow the whistle against the US military and three letter agencies.
You wouldn't have to flee to Russia for refusing to ship spyware in a mobile app, for example.
Eh. The problem is that people can change software too easily. Say I work on an app as a major contributor and then later on a colleague makes an update to it which makes it do something unethical. Now my name is attached to this unethical app
It's against your benefit in many cases. It has no actual benefit towards your goal of stopping it. Why pay the personal cost for misguided guilt unless it's to add to a personal brand?
Everyone has agency. “Just following orders” is not an excuse.
If someone asks you to implement something that crosses an ethical line for you, you ALWAYS have the agency to refuse. It’s hard, but it’s critical that we never give away our own agency and control of our own actions.
You may not be able to stop an implementation from going forward, but you ALWAYS have the ability to not contribute to such an implementation.