In September of 2015, a study by the International Council on Clean Transportation, or the ICCT, found that the Volkswagen Jetta and Passat were producing much higher NOx emission than the legal limit allowed (Topham). This in and of itself interested ICCT and after further testing they contacted the EPA. After these revelations and the report to the EPA, it became known to the general public that Volkswagen deceived the EPA and their consumers. Volkswagen had engineered a defeat device to cheat through its regulation testing. Two years later, senior Volkswagen engineer, James Liang, was sentenced for his part in the development of the software. James Liang was commissioned by Volkswagen to create the defeat device as he worked on the EA 189 …show more content…
First we will talk about Kant’s interpretation of will and duty. Will is the what enables our actions. It is a member of our brain that can be trained. Interestingly, will can conflict with our minds intellect when we know that something is not in our best interest and still do it anyway. This is the definition of a weak will. More so than will, however, duty should motivate us. Duty is the right thing to do and Kant uses it and will to determine the morality of one's actions. To Kant if you complete an action for any other reason than because it is your duty it is not moral. Kant’s duty ethics does not consider or care about consequences, but only the will. To be more specific, duty ethics only cares about the purity of one's …show more content…
If he held the maxim; do your job, you may not consider his actions immoral. As discussed earlier morality according to duty ethics only cares about the pureness of will. From what we can tell, James did his job without objection. His will may have been to do his job and perfectly aligned with his duty. Therefore, we might consider his actions moral. However, you must test his maxim against the categorical imperative. Should it be universal law to do your job? What if your job involves taking others for granted? According to Kant, we are to respect other humans. As rational beings we have free will and deserve the respect of each other. This is one area that James has clearly failed. He did not have the respect for the EPA or Volkswagen consumers and aided in lying to them. I believe that the universalization of the maxim that would make James’s action moral is impossible. You must add qualifiers to his maxim to make it true and this does not allow it to become universal. One example of a qualifier to his maxim is: do your job unless you put others in harm's way. In the end, James actions according to duty ethics would be considered
This is just like in the story, Everything Will be Okay, how James is trying to be just like his brothers and his father. For example, he was going to go hunting with his dad, not because he wanted to, but because he wanted his father to like
Unknown, to James at this point he did not realize that he was having a problem with a psychological theory called behaviorism. Now this theory is one that is saying human behavior is developed through learning experiences which in this case would apply to James. His behavior as an adult was reflected by the way he was treated as a kid by his father and mother because they fought all the time. They never truly paid any attention to him, which in terms taught him how to stay out of their way and learn how to steal and burglarize places without getting caught. Therefore, within the psychological theory of behaviorism Behaviorists saw crime as something that is a learned response to life’s situations such as James situation which led him to a life of crime because of his parents. Although, he was never truly mistreated, he did not receive his father attention due to the fact of the way his father was treated as a child growing up an abusive household. Therefore, he did not want to place his son in the same situation. There is also the fact that James could be suffering from the psychodynamic theory which says that a person’s personality can be controlled by their unconscious mental process and that is grounded in them in early childhood. These entire things such as the id, ego, and superego
He knew that his mother would not be worrying about these things if he was there to look after the family and everything else. Throughout the rest of the story, there are many other instances where James's shows his maturity--from walking in the bitter cold, to the confrontation between his mother and the pimp in the café. Being without, has taught James to be appreciative. More importantly, he has learned that the decisions he makes affect not only him, but everyone around him.
Kant states that moral worth is the value of a good will in dutiful action. Dutiful actions done “from duty” have moral worth while dutiful actions that are merely “according to duty” have no moral
According to Kant “… nothing can protect us from a complete falling away from our idea of duty and preserve in the soul a well-grounded respect for duty’s law except the clear conviction that, even if there never have been actions springing from such pure source, the question at issue here is not whether this or that happened but that reason of itself and independently of all experience commands what ought to happen.” (Kant, Page 20(lines 407-412)). Kant points out that the duty is done not because of the ends but because of what is fundamentally good or
The second act of Kant’s categorical imperative pertains to how we treat others. According to Kant, we must “Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an
Kant conveys his beliefs by introducing the idea of a moral law. He believes there is a moral law that is to be upheld by everyone. The moral law is an unconditional principle that defines the standards of right action. Good will is a form of moral law because it’s a genuine attitude behind an action. Anything that is naturally good is morally good which sums up to be good will. Actions of good will do the right thing for the reason of simply being the right thing to do. There is no qualification, benefactor or incentive its good will and no personal gain, inclination, or happine...
...k up the dark cliff that he had been forcefully pulled into. He persevered to forgive himself for his actions and to be their for his son when he was needed. James went through the fiery depths of hell and should not be blamed as the one who is guilty but sympathized with as the victim.
James the landlord is one of them. He appears to be a brave and fearless character ignoring his morals in his work life, while in his personal life, his wife pressures him into doing his job harshly and without thinking about morals just to get money. This is sometimes reflected in society by politicians who run for office because they think they can help society, but are willing to do and say things they may not believe in just to get elected. Like Mr. James, they behave in a way that is in conflict with their internal morals. A politician's desire for power drives them to do or say things they might not really want to do or believe in. Power and recognition conflicts with their desire to do good, and Mr. James is the same. He collects rent or evicts tenants even though it creates a moral conflict in side. In conclusion, while Mr. James appears to be harsh and fearless on the outside, on the inside he is fearful of his wife, uneasy about taking money from the poor but does not stand up to his greed-filled wife, allowing the hypocrisy to go on, like a politician and his
We have learned our own individual personality can drive our sense of direction. The choices James made during his childhood where not his fought, he did not have the parental guidance during his developmental stage. Amazingly, he conquered all to obstacles to become successful.
Kant explores the good will which acts for duty’s sake, or the sole unconditional good. A good will is not good because of any proposed end, or because of what it accomplishes, but it is only good in itself. The good will that is good without qualification contains both the means and the end in itself.
In 2014, researchers from West Virginia found out that recent models of Volkswagen vehicles were emitting up to 40 times the allowed levels of nitrogen oxides (2). These vehicles had a special software that would determine when the vehicle was in laboratory testing conditions, and the software would then alter the vehicle 's functionality to emit the legal amount of nitrogen oxides allowed by the EPA. The software was found in around half a million vehicles in the United States. In addition to the bad publicity, the Volkswagen scandal will cost the company at least $15.3 billion dollars in compensation to the owners of the affected vehicles (3). In 2016, Volkswagen engineer James Liang pleaded guilty for being a crucial part in developing the illegal software (3). The software was created because Volkswagen was unable to meet the rigorous EPA emission standards. Therefore, a small team of engineers including James Liang decided to cheat the emission exams to allow Volkswagen vehicles to be sold in the U.S.
...r but Octavia tells him "You not a bum," she says. "You a man."(p.404) This is significant because it shows he is not seen as a young boy by his mother anymore, he is now seen as a man. We see the influence and change in James by all of the life lessons his mother instills in him, she tells him he needs to not cry, to be strong, and be able to stand alone symbolizes that he must be independent, he must also put others before himself and do things he may not like to do but must do as a necessity to live, such as killing the cardinal birds for supper. Helena also shows James that everything in life you must work for, that is why she tells him to take out the trash cans.
James was an authoritarian parent. He was controlling, in-charge and no one questioned him. He would play the role of the doting father. When his children made mistakes, he made a point to criticize them. He often compared them to other kids that he felt were “more perfect.” When his often unspoken expectations were not met he would yell and scream striking fear into his entire family. “He’s not a warm, fuzzy kind of guy, and he’s not going to inspire feelings of intimacy. But when his system works, he can boast about one thing: His recruits tend to obey” (Dewar).
Kant's Categorical Imperative Deontology is the ethical view that some actions are morally forbidden or permitted, regardless of consequences. One of the most influential deontological philosophers in history is Immanuel Kant, who developed the idea of the Categorical Imperative. Kant believed that the only thing of intrinsic moral worth is good will. Kant says in his work Morality and Rationality “ The good will is not good because of what it affects or accomplishes or because of it’s adequacy to achieve some proposed end; it is good only because of it’s willingness, i.e., it is good of itself”.