Victoria Sanderson
2-21-2025
Pharmaceutical quizzes are a big thing used in the medical industry; they can hold a lot of power as their job is to indicate what drugs are eligible for and for whom. Bill Sourour was a young software engineer who was the creator of one of these quizzes for a pharmaceutical company. He starts off by explaining his troubling experience as a newly founded developer. As a new engineer, he was naive about what some people would do with his work. One of the companies he started with instructed him to create a deceptive pharmaceutical quiz targeted at teenage girls. This quiz was designed to recommend a particular drug to these young ladies even though it was linked to severe side effects, including depression and thoughts of suicide. While Sourour’s work did, in fact, adhere to legal requirements, it was ethically problematic because it exploited vulnerable individuals and prioritized corporate interests over public well-being. The main moral issue lies within the intentional deception embedded in the code and its harmful outcomes on the girls. I will argue that virtue ethics demonstrates that the quiz’s code was morally problematic because it prioritized profit over the societal well-being of the people taking it. Sourour should have opposed coding the quiz as specified, as doing so would have aligned with professional, ethical standards and the personal virtues of honesty, courage, and responsibility.
Organizations should be utilizing a code of ethics to help them to make ethical choices for their employees and for the employees to make for the company. One major code that can be used, for example, is ACM’s Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. ACM (the Association for Computing Machinery) focuses on the ethical responsibilities inside technology’s development and how it’s used. They are able to do this by following three different principles; The first principle, “Contribute to society and human well-being,” mandates that workers prioritize the broader social good in their actions. The second principle, “Avoid harm to others,” takes the first principle further by obligating all workers to actively consider the potential risks or negative consequences of their work. Third and final Principle, “Be honest and trustworthy,” brings about the necessity of transparency to allow for ethical integrity in professional conduct showing open communication can be key to success. Each one of these principles is a good concept to look at, because ACM only seeks to create a foundation for ethical decision-making within the organizations, ensuring that all workers not only comply with legal standards but also uphold moral and ethical values that benefit society as a whole.
If you were to look into the ACM’s Code of Ethics following Sourour’s case, many ethical principles were directly violated by the quiz he coded; the top example was because it intentionally misled its takers. The quiz, which presented itself as a neutral medical tool, broke the third principle of ACM, as it led vulnerable teenage girls to believe they were receiving genuine medical advice, while in reality, it only promoted the client’s drug. This deceptive structure also went against the first and second principles of ACM, as his choice endangered users by recommending a medication linked to severe side effects, including depression and suicide. This choice also contributed nothing to society but only to the company he was hired to work for. By complying with these instructions he was given, Sourour facilitated harm to others. At no point did he even question the client’s “marketing” intent or decline to work on the project. While Sourour later did express regret, his initial actions perpetuated harm and set a troubling precedent for ethical negligence in software development.
There are other perspectives Sourour could have followed to help the ethical choices of this code; for one, there are many ethical virtues that could have been used. It can be seen that Sourour’s decision showed shortcomings in moral character, particularly choices like using virtues such as integrity, courage, and responsibility. Sourour’s failure to challenge unethical practices demonstrated a lack of the virtue of courage. He may have demonstrated compliance by prioritizing fulfilling job requirements over showing responsibility to his employer but failed to safeguard the well-being of others, therefore failing to be morally responsible. His integrity on the situation was low, as he did acknowledge that he knew the app only led to one choice, but instead chose the morally wrong answer. A virtuous developer would have acted with honesty by exposing the deceptive intentions behind the quiz and seeking alternative, ethically sound solutions, even at the risk of facing professional consequences.
There are more concepts that could help support this analysis of this Code, one work is “Confidentiality: A Comparison across the Professions of Medicine, Engineering and Accounting”, by Mary Beth Armstrong. This title holds many concepts as it goes over discussions of professionalism, focusing on the ethical obligations that arise from relationships of trust. Workers, particularly those with specialized knowledge like engineers or developers, possess a lot of power over the clients that will be using the product they make. Armstrong argues that these professionals must protect public trust by prioritizing ethical standards over their corporate dishonest desires to increase their personal gain. This means that these workers should not use their technical expertise to deceive or manipulate those who rely on their professional integrity. Breaching this trust can lead to consequences, may it be their profession being injured or their own morality. It should be known that when working on projects all your work counts, and unethical behavior will not go unnoticed.
Looking into Armstrong’s main Concept that was talked about in her confidentiality article, is how its key role discusses trust when it comes to professional settings. Looking into Sourour’s role as a developer, he was then placed in a position of trust, carrying the responsibility of ensuring transparency and ethical accountability in his work. When he coded this quiz for his pharmaceutical company, he was dishonest with his users, as he deceived them instead of giving them the hell they were actually looking for. Due to this dishonesty he committed, he violated this trust and exploited his technical expertise to mislead vulnerable individuals. Armstrong’s principles go over everything that Sourour’s ethical obligations should have extended too, instead of complying with the client’s demands, as his responsibility was not just with them, but to society as a whole. Now with his past failure to act against unethical practices that resulted in actual harm, reinforcing the idea that ethical responsibility in software development must extend beyond corporate directives to consider broader societal impacts of what your work may cause.
When it comes to Virtue Ethics, assessing points from Armstrong’s perspective was rather easy because she focused on trust and integrity, which are virtues among itself. Sourour’s actions demonstrated a lack of both professional integrity and the user’s trust, as rather than acting as an ethical watchman of his own work, he passively accepted the unethical nature of the quiz, allowing deception to occur. All that Sourour did goes against what a virtuous professional with integrity and trust would have done. They would have taken proactive steps to challenge the unethical requirements, propose ethical alternatives, or, at the very least, refuse to participate. Virtuous action in this scenario would have involved standing firmly in being honest with its users and would have held strong for them. They would have noticed by recognizing that short-term professional consequences should not outweigh long-term moral responsibility, so by his choosing compliance over virtue, Sourour failed to uphold the ethical responsibilities intrinsic to his profession.
When Bill Sourour decided to code a pharmaceutical quiz that deceived young women, he demonstrated a clear ethical failure to show any ethical virtues. His compiling and creating misleading practices for his client prioritized corporate gain over the well-being of vulnerable individuals, violating key ethical principles such as integrity, responsibility, and courage. Throughout the analysis, different codes of ethics were used, such as ACM, then readings like Armstrong’s points on trust, trust being a main virtue to have, which he broke. Following Armstrong’s point, Sourour’s actions show clear reasons why ethical responsibility in software development should extend beyond legal compliance to more moral obligations that protect public trust and safety. But there are a few objections; as the position Sourour was in as a young developer, he had limited power to challenge corporate directives, and refusing the project could have jeopardized his career. While this is a legitimate concern, ethical integrity often requires difficult choices, and professionals have a duty to recognize when their work causes harm. A more experienced developer may have had the confidence to push back, but ethical responsibility does not depend on seniority, but it is an obligation at all levels.
