Kant Duty Ethics

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When loyalty distorts a person’s ability to perform their professional duties effectively, it is inevitable that it will sooner or later display a weakness. In 2017, after a nearly 10-year conspiracy to defraud U.S. regulators and Volkswagen customers from 2006-2015, James Robert Liang a former Volkswagen engineer was sentenced to 40 months in federal prison for his role in addition to a $200,000 fine. Liang designed software for Volkswagen’s “clean diesel” vehicles to specifically cheat state emissions test in the United States. The software allowed Volkswagen to sell thousands of their “clean diesel” vehicles in the U.S, all which generated more carbon emissions than U.S standards permitted. These vehicles would also violate the 1970 Clean …show more content…

An act that has moral value when the will is perfectly aligned with duty can best summarize Kant’s theory. Kant believes the constraining of all rational people will be by the demand of duty which is the basis of their rationale. Duty is to have obedience to the moral law and act accordingly, regardless of the consequences the actions will produce. The Kantian philosophy also defines that morality is based on the purity of the will and not on the results of an action. Kant believes a person’s will can be trained and developed to overcome one’s inclinations, as well as animate our physical actions. Motivated by duty alone, an ethical will is not about the self-interest, appetites, or moods of an …show more content…

The process becomes simplified as Liang had the option to either follow or not follow Volkswagen’s directive to create software to thwart the emissions test. Since Liang chose to follow the directive, the direct result of the action was that he was caught and is now suffering the consequences associated with lying to authorities about Volkswagen’s “clean diesel” vehicles true emissions output during the ten-year conspiracy. His decision to lie classifies his action as act utilitarianism. “Does this particular action maximize happiness?” is the only question necessary to answer whether an act is good or bad in the utilitarian theory. For Liang, his action was good for Volkswagen which could have been the only consideration taken since his loyalty distorted his moral

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