In Bill Sourour’s article, “The code I’m still ashamed of,” we see a programmer still struggling with the moral implications of his code years later. At the time, a young Sourour worked for a marketing firm that would make websites for pharmaceutical companies. For the particular client in question, he was asked to make a website with a quiz targeted towards teenage girls, believing that the quiz would then recommend different helpful medications to whoever took the quiz. In reality, the quiz would always direct the user to the client’s drug unless they were allergic to it or already taking it. Sourour knew this but was unphased by it, as it was his job to fill client orders. Later he learned that the drug had directly contributed to the suicide of one of its users, as the side effects included severe depression and suicidal thoughts. Sourour would warn his sister to stop taking the drug, but he did little else past that. He gave the company its website, went to the celebratory dinner, and never warned anyone else. Due to his guilt over this, Sourour would later resign. In this case analysis, I will argue that Ubuntuism shows us that the code was morally problematic because it was created to trick people into taking a drug with side effects of severe depression, and Sourour should have done anything differently because he could have helped to stop the drug from being marketed to so many other people.

The central focus of almost any code of ethics is maintaining the public’s safety and protecting individuals from harm. This is listed in each code of ethics as the first and foremost rule while also being listed as the first and second general moral imperatives of the ACM code of ethics. This puts a clear focus on the health of the public being placed above all else. The issue that arises from the code of ethics is that the ACM code then gives a set of professional ethics, with the first being to apply the highest quality work to the product you have been hired to create. When these codes are taken and applied to Bill Sourour’s case, we can see where the complications that caused him to move forward with the website may have arisen.

On the one hand, the code of ethics tells him that he must do what is best for the public. Without knowing the side effects, he may have believed this was a beneficial drug that may help many people. At the same time, he felt he needed to uphold his professional ethics and deliver a high-quality product precisely as the pharmaceutical company had requested. The problem with Sourour’s decision comes once he learns about the drug’s side effects, having directly contributed to the suicide of one patient. At this point, it seems he has not considered the code of ethics. While it may seem as if Sourour is trying to uphold his professional ethics, he is more obligated to uphold his general moral imperatives as that comes first and foremost as a human. While the codes are not in an order ranking them from most to least important, general ethics would imply that human life is more valuable than the quality of a website made for a pharmaceutical company. This is seen most prominently in Ubuntuism, which is rooted in the belief that “a person is a person through other persons.” Ubuntuism puts its focus on community and society over the individual. Sourour’s issue here is that he did not want to cause any trouble for the company as he believed this could reflect negatively on him and cause him personal trouble in his career or personal life. Through this, we can see that Bill focused on himself as an individual rather than trying to help others by slowing the company somehow. Bill allowing his code to be used even after learning about the suicide of the young woman taking the prescription shows a moral failure to try and protect society. Arguments can, of course, be made that Bill was only doing his job, that the moral shortcomings fall on the pharmaceutical company, or that Bill could no longer access the website after completing it for the company. Still, Ubuntuism shows that there were ways around this that would have helped Bill to make a moral decision. Sourour ended up leaving the company, which is the most disappointing part as he was concerned that he may lose his job by doing something like this, but even after deciding to leave, he still did nothing. Sourour could have warned the public about the drug’s side effects or the website’s deception. He was willing to do this as he convinced his sister to get off the medication but then held onto that knowledge and only used that for personal benefit, another clear disregard for Ubuntu morals. Even when safety has not been involved, these codes of ethics are intended to protect society. Still, Bill had no problem creating a website that would intentionally deceive young women into taking drugs without presenting other real options. With all of this considered, the right steps for Bill to take would have been refusing to create the website and trying to warn people about whatever website they eventually published by trying to check its code or test its quiz. Even if Bill didn’t do this and only became concerned once he learned about the suicide, the next ethical step would have been to spread the information of the false quiz and the negative side effects to as many people as he could and not only his sister. Ubuntu philosophy shows that humans aren’t acting ethically if they’re not helping their fellow humans. While Bill may have helped his sister, his actions only directly helped his life, showing his ethical shortcomings.

Mary Beth Armstrong’s article “Confidentiality: A Comparison across the Professions of Medicine, Engineering and Accounting” highlights the importance of upholding professional confidentiality as a professional ethics requirement. The argument is that breaking professional confidentiality is a slippery slope because you need clients to trust you in fields such as doctors or lawyers. Still, at the same time, if you ever feel you have to bring that confidentiality, even if you feel that you are making the right choice, you may lose that trust in the future, which may cause your community not to want to work with you, potentially costing you your job. Some people may be able to use this logic to justify Sourour’s choice to stay silent about the side effects of the drug and why he completed and gave the website to the pharmaceutical company. However, when considering the concepts of prima facie, that argument quickly falls apart. The four requirements for infringing upon prima facie are a moral objective justifying the breaking of confidentiality, it is a necessary option as there are no morally preferable actions, it must constitute the least infringement possible, and it must seek to minimize the effects of the infringement. Considering these four requirements, it can be concluded that the best course of action for Bill Sourour would have been attempting to tell the pharmaceutical company that their actions were wrong. If that did not work, he would have needed to go into the website’s code and fix the quiz so that it could give a variety of prescriptions instead of the one. The first option would follow the requirements perfectly, as he felt morally obligated to talk to the company, resulting in the least backlash as no one outside the company would need to know. The issue is considering the pharmaceutical company asked for that quiz, they already likely knew they were making a morally corrupt decision in the first place and would not consider what Sourour had to say. While the second option would require much more infringement as he would be breaking the contract between his employer and the pharmaceutical company, the Ubuntu moral philosophy would argue that Sourour was within his right to do this as the pharmaceutical company had already made a morally wrong decision against society. Suppose the pharma group’s decision was already going against Ubuntuism by deceiving and bringing harm to humanity. In that case, they should fall outside the boundaries of professional confidentiality, meaning that whatever choice Bill could have made would have been morally correct as he was looking out for his fellow humans, which means Ubuntu ethics view his choice as the correct one. While this could have resulted in Bill losing his job, he still could have helped countless people. Even still, as he struggles with the moral ramifications of his actions, he refuses to disclose the name of the drug, which could still be on the market and cause people to struggle with severe depression. Sourour’s actions show us that it is not enough to struggle with the moral implications of your actions. You need to do what you can to try and help people. Otherwise, your actions are just as wrong morally.

Sourour was morally wrong in writing the code for the pharmaceutical quiz because it was through his actions and assistance that the company could put a dangerous, life-threatening drug into the hands of young women who likely would not have taken the drug otherwise. He refused to do anything because he feared the legal ramifications of breaking professional confidentiality. However, his actions still weighed on him to the point where he chose to resign from his company and thought about his choices every day. This is proof alone that Sourour should have tried to talk to the pharmaceutical company, and if that didn’t work, he should have tried to inform the public about the deception of the company and the danger of the drug. While it is fair to say this would have ethically been wrong as he had a contract, the most important part of ethics is that it is subjective, meaning that we as a society decide what is most valuable. I agree with Ubuntuism in the belief that humans are the most valuable thing in the world, meaning that it was Sourour’s moral duty to protect human lives over the company’s contract. Sourour’s experiences are an excellent cautionary tale of the ethical dilemmas we may all face one day in the workplace.