Code of Ethics are very important in software engineering, a study that contains nearly infinite possibilities. While software engineering can enable life-changing and revolutionary innovations, it also has the power to create malicious products that can harm people unlike any technology before it. Sometimes the lines can be blurred between good and bad intentioned software, but a defined Code of Ethics attempts to provide guidelines for the field. When I am faced with an ethical situation, there are several things I do when making a decision. After recognizing the ethical situation exists, I consider what the main cause of the ethical dilemma is. This can be compared to the 5 P’s of ethics, or similar lists of causes. Software engineering …show more content…
The company who create the Therac 25, AECL, did not provide much information to the hospitals after each incident, and most healthcare professionals and doctors were left in the dark regarding whether the machine was functioning properly after each repair. This leads to the belief that AECL did not take enough responsibility in their product to ensure that it was functioning safely and as expected. With each small modification and repair, the more unresolved bugs would arise after each promised fix. Doctors complained of error codes that did not exist in the software manuals, and many of these errors left hospital unknowingly treating patients with much more radiation than intended. There were even cases where AECL denied blame in certain cases, and claimed their machine’s software was safe and operating as expected. AECL also did not demonstrate charity when faced with victims of their machine. Rather than properly investigate and further test the machines for the cases that several hospitals were reporting to them, they stubbornly ignored them in disbelief despite the fact that their products faults could be harming patients. This shows willful lack of care for the patients that would be at the mercy of their machine. This also bleeds into the value of integrity that AECL did not uphold correctly. The very first case should have caused them to question the ethical decision to continue the use of Therac 25 throughout the hospitals still offering its treatments. AECL did not act in the interest of the patients, but more so in the interest of money they received from partnerships with the hospitals and the time it would take them to correct the problems evident in the Therac