Bill Sourour’s article “The Code I’m Still Ashamed Of”, His article is about Sourour’s coding experience. His client was a pharmaceutical company. His coding job was to create a website and quiz questions to survey women, clients wanted to specifically target teenage girls. In-dept, the code was about to quiz a female client and provide them with a result with treatment ideas. The mandatory requirement of his code was to make sure everything leads to the client’s drug, the only exception was if the customer has an allergy. Subsequently one of the female clients killed herself due to the side effects of the medicine. In this Case Analysis on Professional Ethics I will argue that Deontology/Kantianism shows us that the code was morally problematic because the requirement of a pharmaceutical company for the code on a quiz result has been set for only one outcome and that Sourour should be done anything differently because the effects of code were negative and unethical.
In my opinion, the most important central concept from the Codes of Ethics article was to avoid harm to others. According to the Codes of Ethics article “ACM Code,” it describes that “ Harm means injury or negative consequences, such as undesirable loss of information, loss of property, property damage, or unwanted environmental impacts. This principle prohibits the use of computing technology in ways that result in harm to any of the following: users, the general public, employees, employers. Harmful actions include intentional destruction or modification of files and programs leading to serious loss of resources or unnecessary expenditure of human resources such as the time and effort required to purge systems of “computer viruses.” This central concept of avoiding harm to others was relevant to this case analysis because the Sourour code creates a negative effect or impact, which is to cause someone to kill themselves. Although this might not be his fault at all, according to the story he was still young and doesn’t aware of the upcoming issue caused by his code. Also, he tried his best to achieve the requirement of his client and to perfectly complete this job. However, in this central concept and according to the article “ACM Codes”, he should minimize the possibility of indirectly harming others. Also, he must minimize malfunctions by following generally accepted standards for testing and system design. Lastly, it is necessary to assess the social consequences of systems to project the likelihood of any serious harm to others.
Clearly, an Ethical tool to assess the actions taken in the case is Kantianism or Kant. Kantianism is a deontological position that was proposed by Immanuel Kant. Deontology’s concept was to focus on people’s reasons for determining whether an action is right or wrong. Specifically, what one should do in any given situation is the action that is based on the best reasons. Moving on to the Kant concept, the key concept I will use is “Kant held that one could do something that resulted in good things but that was motivated by bad reasons. When this happens, the person has still done something wrong.” First and foremost, Sourour’s client or pharmaceutical company also fits this concept. Although the company has created a website to survey the women and try to help them by providing a suggestion medicine. However, the company itself only focuses on their profit and doesn’t care about society’s benefit and impact, this action is considered to be motivated by bad reasons. Next, Bill Sourour’s action also fits this concept. His motivation was just to get a job done and receive money, this action was also motivated by bad reasons. Even though he did finish the job on time and follow the requirements, which consider being good for his company. Such action is immoral and they should have the responsibility to respect others and act for the sake of their duty to benefit society. Therefore, both Sourour and the pharmaceutical company should be doing the right thing to respect others and not to focus on their own profit or benefit. Action should be motivated by goodwill and duty and the morality of an action is not measured by its consequences. What Sourour should do to avoid unintentional harm is to carefully consider potential impacts on all those affected by decisions made during design and implementation. Also, Sourour should provide his thoughts, idea decision, and question to his client about whether the request was ethical or unethical.
Furthermore, “Heart of the contract is the profession’s service ideal, or promise to act in the public’s interest.” was a central concept from Mary Beth Armstrong. According to her article, “Confidentiality: A Comparison Across the Professions of Medicine, Engineering, and Accounting.” It is important to protect public safety and to establish active society support of individuals who make disclosures. Also, to fulfill their responsibilities to the public interest. In other words, as professional workers, we should focus on the general public and social benefits. Also, be responsible for our actions. According to the article by Bill Sourour, “The code I’m still ashamed of” the most important event in the story was the conversation between him and his project manager. Sourour said, “Before submitting the website to the client, my project manager decided to give it a quick test. She tried the quiz, then came over to my desk:
“The quiz doesn’t work,” she said.
“Oh. What’s broken?” I asked.
“Well, it seems that no matter what I do, the quiz recommends the client’s drug as the
best possible treatment. The only exception is if I say I’m allergic. Or if I say I am already
taking it.”
“Yes. That’s what the requirements say to do. Everything leads to the client’s drug.”
“Oh. Okay. Cool.”
And she was off.”
Even though they know that the code was not acting in the public interest. They decide to not do anything about it. And, only follow the guideline requirement and submit it to the client. This is completely the opposite of Armstrong’s central concept. Sourour and his project manager should be focused on the general public and social benefits, not just client company benefits.
In addition to this, Kantianism or Kant is an ethical tool to assess the actions taken in the case. Additional information from the story was “Nothing that we were doing was illegal. As the youngest developer on my team, I was making good money for my age. And in the end, I understood that the real purpose of the site was to push a particular drug. So, I chalked this tactic up to “marketing.” The client was extremely pleased with the site. So much so that their rep invited me and the entire team out to a fancy steak dinner.” The key idea of Kant that applied to his situation was to always respect others and not use others for your own benefit or profit. It might be true that nothing the company and Sourour did was illegal. However, such actions resulted in someone’s death. In fact, a young girl who had taken the drug from the website killed herself. The reason is that the drug contains side effects, which are depression and suicidal thoughts. This is unethical action for both the company and Sourour. Lastly, Sourour’s action was motivated by bad reasons, which is money. He lacked a sense of morality and a will of professional ethics. Which is to focus on the benefit of society or promise to act in the public’s interest and the impact of his actions. In my opinion, because his action is failing to respect others for the greater good. What he should have done is, to reject or provide an opinion about the code and make it ethical and moral.
In conclusion, I believe everyone has made a mistake. What matters is how you do it next time. Sourour actually resigned from his company because he felt responsible for his actions. He said that: “It’s easy to make an argument that I had no part in it at all. Still, I’ve never felt okay about writing that code.” My personal opinion about this situation is it’s not completely his fault, it’s impossible for him to know that the drug has such an effect, and also he was very young at that time. He was still lacking experience and couldn’t make the right decision at that time. However, the code was morally problematic because it was done for a wrong motivation and the result of the code created a negative impact. According to the story he said, “When I first saw those requirements they bothered me. I wish I could tell you that it felt wrong to code something that was basically designed to trick young girls.” Therefore, what Sourour should have done differently is to either reject the request or provide his thoughts about it. Lastly, after providing his thoughts he should make the website to become more ethical and moral.