When most people think about ethics, they believe it is in relation to morals and the difference between right and wrong. However, I feel this is a grey area, because although these people are partially correct, ethics might not ultimately be from your full point of view. This means that although ethics stems from your personal morals, another significant part of it are external (influences from others). To me, I believe they are ways to get around or do certain tasks with evidence to back up your claim.
Naturally, every topic is debatable. Anyone can find some way to twist words to put blame on someone else, to excuse yourself from facing your fears of the modern day world. Our task in class was to read “The code I’m still ashamed of” and split up on two sides: ashamed or unashamed. From this “experiment”, I noticed we went from whether the narrator was basing himself off of morals to what ethics truly are and how this 21 year-old developer used it to decide how this incident went. Although clearly the suicide in the story made the “ashamed” side stand out, the “unashamed” side could rebuttal with almost anything, such as the fact that there was a disclaimer about not using the general information from the website to replace a real doctor’s input, or if there was any other data on who benefited, and who’s condition made a turn for the worst (a sample of one person does not count as viable evidence). These are just two of the many examples of ways people change the meaning of ethics for their own benefit, because of their own fears of taking responsibility for their actions (this is where morals integrate into ethics). In this era, as long as you find some way to back up your actions, you can manipulate others into believing that everything you do is “ethical”.
I have a very specific standpoint when it comes to ethics. Call me naive, but I know most people (if not everyone) has a conscience, a sort of guide to determine right from wrong. From this, you can gather that I stand by the fact that your personal morals should affect your choices, and you should know what is truly ethical. Although there are peers who will pressure you into making mistakes, or anyone has a thought on your decision, the final conclusion is ultimately up to you. From my perspective, the whole point of becoming a developer is to create new ideas and thoughts that will benefit the society as a whole, and you have to stand by what you do in order to succeed. There were many arguments in class that they would have programmed the code in that situation anyway, just because of extrinsic motivators such as money and the fact that you even have a job. Some argued that no matter what choice you made, you would be punished either way. So if that is the case, then shouldn’t you take matters into your own hands and decide what you feel is right?