a licensing system is just a form of regulation as alluded to in the comment you're replying to.

And in the end, if software engineers are to conduct themselves in moral and ethical ways, they must be empowered to do so without having to sacrifice their personal wellbeing or livelihood. Regulation, it seems, is the only way to achieve that end.

The necessary regulation is imposed and enforced via licensing. An example simply look at every other professional industry.

Indeed it is the same with Chartered Accountants. Management can make whatever decisions they think they can make, but an accountant won't inact things that are unethical at the risk of their charter and professional standing.

You really believe many people with won't violate their oaths and associations and licenses for enough money? Accountants audited Bernie Madoff and Wirecard for years and "saw nothing". Michael Jackson hired a surgeon to pump him full of drugs for $150K a month. Money > Ethics for a lot of people.

No I don't. But it does stop a lot of blatant rule breaking where external parties can see the rules being broken.

Your comment about auditors is such a common misunderstanding that it has a name, the 'expectation gap'. Auditors are not there to detect fraud.