I don't (btw, I'm a software engineer and scientist with extensive training). So I looked it up.
Did you mean first order or second order kind of like the way physics people mean it (direct linear relationship with strong effect on the unknown variable). Or the way that MBAs mean it (they have their own definition).
I think what you probably mean is a colloquial interpretation, where first order means something is directly causal in an obvious to see way, where second order is more of an indirect effect that occurs through complex dynamics.
Either way, I don't think those terms are well defined, and they're kind of complex enough that using them to argue for morality, and calling people out for not knowing your definitions, makes you look caddish.
I doubt that they could mean causally indirect. I think it must mean something like: not used in accordance to their the engineer's intent, especially when that intent covers a a general affordance (e.g. affords communication over long distances), but is being judged for a more specific affordance (affords communication over long distances to order a terror attack). I dunno. I'd have to be a philosopher to work it out.
I think that's spot on. When people say something is a first/ second/nth, order effect they are really just arbitrarily drawing discrete lines in a continuous chain of causality.
The problem of where to draw those lines is so difficult that legal systems resort to constructing tests based on whether a "reasonable person" could have foreseen the specific consequence of an act.
