EVA: The Ethical Virtual Advocate for Supporting Developer Ethical Advocacy

Software developers often face challenges in identifying and advocating for ethical considerations within their projects, particularly when working under managerial pressure. Existing ethics education typically focuses on abstract principles, offering limited opportunities to practice the interpersonal and rhetorical skills required for real-world ethical advocacy. This paper aims to design, develop, and evaluate EVA: the Ethical Virtual Advocate. EVA is a conversational agent that enables developers to practice advocating for ethical decisions in realistic workplace scenarios, thereby strengthening their confidence, awareness, and argumentation strategies. The final prototype was evaluated in two rounds of experiments with 75 total participants, combining pre- and post-surveys, system interaction logs, and thematic analysis of their qualitative assessment of EVA. Quantitative analysis indicated increases in participants’ self-reported moral efficacy and moral ownership. The study demonstrates that conversational agents like EVA can be effective, scalable tools for situated ethics training, bridging the gap between theoretical ethics education and the practical skills needed for workplace advocacy.