The ethics of engineering is also hard. If your employer asks you to implement a feature that hurts the users, what do you do? Examples include working on the Sony rootkit, etc. Here's a great post about why it's a difficult problem and why all existing "codes of ethics" (including the IEEE/ACM code) completely fail to address it: http://glyf.livejournal.com/46589.html.
>The ethics of engineering is also hard. If your employer asks you to implement a feature that hurts the users, what do you do?
While that is true, (and that is a tricky situation) It is almost always okay to tell everyone you work with what you know, especially if the project will harm the users, and especially if you screwed up.
The only times when there is complexity is when management has the intent to harm the users, or when management is willing to cut corners to the point where the product will be unintentionally dangerous to the users even after you point out how it will be unintentionally dangerous.
My point isn't that those aren't complex conflicts... my point is that those are not what you spend your days thinking about. Most of the time, the right thing to do is to solve the problem in the best way you can, and to tell your supervisor about all problems. In fact, I can't think of a single situation where it's not appropriate, as an engineer, to tell the person you are reporting to about a problem with something you are working on.
There's only a conflict if folks further up the chain of command don't do their jobs correctly. And all employees deal with this. "If I have done my job correctly, but the company is doing something harmful to society, what responsibility, if any, do I have to stop the company?" All employees have that conflict.
I like the example of Werner Von Braun. He designed the V2, a terror weapon for use against civilians. But after Germany lost? there was no talk of prosecuting him for that. There was, however, talk of prosecuting him because he knew the Germans were using concentration camp labor to build the V2, he was in a position of moderate authority, and he did nothing to stop it.
Note how history judges him harshly for the actions he took (or did not take) as a middle-management joe (or fritz, I guess) - not for his actions as a brilliant Engineer.
The problem with business ethics is that every decision you make has to balance your responsibility to your shareholders to 'maximize shareholder value' - which involves concealing information from suppliers and customers, with your responsibility to be honest and up front with your suppliers and customers.
The ethical conflict is the normal state for business people, while it is the unusual case for the Engineer or other employee.
