Research background and purpose: The dynamic growth of IT, remote work, and the increasing use of AI intensify ethical dilemmas and may differentiate moral judgments across generations. The literature lacks comparisons of five ethical orientations among Polish IT employees, with a distinction between generations X, Y, and Z. The aim of the study was to profile attitudes toward business ethics and examine whether generational affiliation differentiates the intensity of orientations measured by the ATBEQ questionnaire: Machiavellianism, moral objectivism, ethical relativism, social Darwinism, and legalism. Design/methodology/approach: The ATBEQ questionnaire was applied to measure five ethical orientations. Data were collected through PAPI and CAWI methods between 2022 and 2024 among 175 Polish IT employees. Analyses included descriptive statistics, ANOVA with Scheffé’s test, and the Kruskal–Wallis test with Bonferroni correction. Findings: The study showed that legalism received the lowest rating, social Darwinism the highest, while Machiavellianism, moral objectivism, and ethical relativism stayed close to neutral. H1 was confirmed – there are differences among the five attitudes, with legalism evaluated distinctly lower. H2 was partially confirmed: generational affiliation differentiates Machiavellianism and moral objectivism (generation Y higher than X), while no differences were found for ethical relativism and social Darwinism, and the picture of legalism remains ambiguous. Overall, the results indicate the absence of a single dominant ethical philosophy and the selective role of generational affiliation. Value added and limitations: IT employees are not guided by a single ethical philosophy but choose a context-dependent approach. The low acceptance of legalism demonstrates the limited usefulness of law in rapidly changing technology, while the higher acceptance of social Darwinism highlights the importance of competition. This study empirically mapped the five ATBEQ orientations in Polish IT, pointing to the selective role of age in Machiavellianism and moral objectivism. The findings suggest the need to combine law with clear standards, introduce “ethical gates,” and develop intergenerational mentoring. Limitations include the non-representative sample, self-representation in the questionnaire, unequal generational sizes, lack of control for covariates, and the national context. The results provide a starting point for further research on ethics in the technological environment