Ética e software?

A obediência foi estudada há muito. E tornou-se mais uma vez notícia quando empresas como o FB (ou os fabricantes de carros) falharam na parte ética:
https://www.infoq.com/articles/ethics-psychological-perspective

Citando:
"Milgram (1963) was interested in researching how far people would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person. He set up his first experiment in July 1961, a year after the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. At first he wanted to investigate whether Germans were particularly obedient to authority figures, as this was a common explanation for the Nazi killings in World War II. But he soon discovered all people responded the same way.

Experiments

In his first experiments, volunteers were introduced to another participant (who was in on the experiment). Their roles were defined by drawing straws (even though this was fixed). The volunteer would always be the teacher and the confederate would always be the learner.

They were then both taken to separate rooms, the learner would then be strapped to an electric chair and ordered to learn a list of word pairs. The teacher, positioned in a room with an electric shock generator,  would then test the learner by naming a word and asking the learner to recall its pair. The learner was primed to give mainly wrong answers. The teacher was instructed to give an electric shock for every mistake and to increase the shock level with each error (note: no real shock were giving, merely the illusion that the teachers were giving shocks). The range of shocks started at 15V and led up to 450V. When the teacher refused to administer a shock, the experimenter was to give a series of orders to ensure they continued."

(...)

"The strongest base to start making a company more ethical is to start with the individual. Companies become ethical one person at a time, one decision at a time. We all want to be seen as good people, known as our moral identity, which comes with the responsibility to have to act like it, even as our memories of our less ethical doings will fade over time.

We have to believe that doing the right thing is the only option. Luckily ethics comes with strong emotions like guilt, fear, regret and pride. Learning to recognise and not ignore these emotions helps build the self-belief to act and strengthen that inner compass.

On Speaking Up

Last but not least, if something needs to change, you need to speak up. If you see something that is going wrong, it is time to be brave and say something. Decide whether you will speak to your boss, your team lead or an advisory function (compliance or human resource). Talk to your personal network for support and guidance. "