Volkswagen Case Study

A recent scandal involving up 500,000 Volkswagen cars comprising of 24 different model vehicles has dropped Volkswagen from their position as number one auto maker. The emissions of these cars were 40 times higher than the limits stated in United States emotions laws. One critical engineer James Robert Liang, has agreed to cooperate and pleaded guilty for cheating emotions testing with special software. This blunder has cost Volkswagen $15 billion, the jobs of those employees involved, and their reputation. Executives deny connections to the scandal and say lower level employees alone are to blame. Although this begs the question; what would an ethical engineer do in such a situation? Refusing to cooperate with his superiors, risks compromising his loyalty to the company and losing his job. However, if the scandal remains hidden, James has not only lied, but he has directly increased harmful emotions which harm the environment. He now faces 5 years in prison followed by deportation. From a Kantian standpoint, if a maxim were to be “One should never lie” or “One should always follow the law of their country”, then the actions of those involved were morally

Even if telling the lie is to benefit others it is wrong and immoral. Kantians do not care about consequences, just the purity of will. This trait is one key difference between a Kantian and a rule utilitarian. Rule utilitarians only care about consequences and don’t even consider purity of will. Much like Kantians, rule utilitarians do not believe in exceptions to rules. They mainly care about what has the overall best consequence for society. A no tolerance attitude towards exceptions is one of the problems with both methodologies. Lacking exceptions to rules could lead to dissatisfying results in some cases. Looking at a rules overall positive consequences blinds them to the few negative