Summary: Immanuel Kant's Ethical Dilemma

Beginning in 2006, Volkswagen began designing a new version of diesel engine for future cars it planned on producing. The engineers tasked to this job quickly realized that they could not meet customer needs and emission standards at the same time [1]. The engineers decided to use software known as a “defeat device” that allowed the car to sense when it was going through an emissions test and reduce its pollution output [1].

One of the design engineers on this team was James Liang who moved to the United States in 2008 to assist in “certification, testing, and warranty issues” for these new diesel motors [2]. While in the United States he and other engineers met with the EPA, but failed to mention any software that would deliberately alter the emissions of the cars [2].

For this Immanuel Kant’s moral theory will be used. Kant believes that will is the force that animates the actions of people and that people should live by a collection of maxiums, or rules governing what they should or should not do. These maxiums are subjective, but allows for no exceptions regardless of circumstance.

To tell if a maxium is morally right or wrong it must be tested through a categorical imperative. The first part of the categorical imperative is to ask “can all rational beings follow this maxium without a fundamental contradiction?” If a world where everyone follows this maxium can be fathomed, then one must ask “would a rational being want to live in a world where everyone one follows this universal rule?” If a maxium passes these questions it is said to be a duty. If the will of a rational being is in line with this duty it is said to be morally right, but if it goes against this duty it is morally