I won’t stoop to an Anthony Weiner tie-in. I won’t stoop to an Anthony Weiner tie-in. I won’t I won’t I won’t I won’t …

Oh, hello there. Welcome to Part 2 of our review of a moral cesspool. No, not that cesspool. We’re talking about project management as described by Scott Ambler in his recent article, “Survey Shows Unethical Behavior Rampant Inside IT Development Teams,” (Dr. Dobb’s Journal, 5/3/2011).

Last week’s column set the stage by reviewing three relevant ethical principles and distinctions:

• Deontologism vs Consequentialism: Whether to judge ethics based on the action itself or its consequences.
• Corporations as moral entities: They aren’t. They’re presumptively amoral (not immoral) entities whose “ethical” guideposts are profits and shareholder value, and whose ethical boundaries are whatever the law and applicable regulations allow.
• Employee ethics: When acting as employees, human beings are their employer’s agents, subordinating their own ethical code to that of their employer. This includes how they work with their employer.

Now we’re ready. Mr. Ambler lists four areas of questionable ethical practice: Budgeting, scope management, scheduling, and quality.

The less people know, the stronger their opinion. It’s a fine American tradition, and it’s nowhere more in evidence than when people get on their high horses about other peoples’ ethics.

I was reminded of this (again!) when long-time correspondent Mark Eisenberg forwarded an article with this shocking headline: “Survey Shows Unethical Behavior Rampant Inside IT Development Teams” (Scott W. Ambler, Dr. Dobb’s Journal, 5/3/2011).

We’ll dive into the cesspool that is, apparently, IT development team behavior next week. Before that we first have to cover a few regrettably didactic essentials if we’re to avoid the argument-by-assertion pitfall that tends to dominate most exercises in ethical high-horsemanship.