[dysarray]

I think the engineer's responsibility to society should always come first. If your boss is knowingly shipping a severe defect and your efforts to communicate your views on the matter to them have been met with ignorance or refusal to take action, then it is your ethical duty to take whatever steps are necessary in order to prevent harm being caused to society from the defect. This might include, for example, going over their head and raising the issue with upper management, or taking the issue to external organisations.

[maxbond]

I don't really disagree with anything you said, but I do think ethical principles have priority and that higher priority principles can override lower priority principles. Some people are simply not in a position to uphold their principles, and I don't think there's shame in that; if anyone is at fault, it's the people who put them in a position to make that choice.

Our first duty is always to the survival of ourselves and those around us. Of course, if you're working on a system that can put lives in jeopardy - which may not be an artificial heart or something obviously critical to life like that, it may just mean a social networking app used in countries suffering from authoritarianism - then it's possible to come into a very sticky conflict.