In the recent years, one of the biggest motor vehicle companies had been involved in a horrendous scandal. Volkswagen has been accused of cheating the emission test. An employee by the name of James Liang has helped create software that cheated the emission test; which tested against the pollution produced by the cars. The company spent billions to help those affected, and Mr. Liang was sentenced to jail. The company claimed it did not have any part in it, and that this was solely done by Mr. Liang. However, the judge decided that he worked for the company for 30 years and many executives should have known of his actions. In the end, he was sentenced to jail, even though he helped expose the company even further. It still backed fired and …show more content…
He is a known for many things, but the most important one is the Kant’s moral theory. In this theory, Kant discusses the goodwill, duty, maxim, and the categorical imperative. Starting with the goodwill: a single moral principle which freely chooses to use the other virtues for moral ends. In other words to act out of a sense of moral obligation or duty. The basis for the ethical law was constructed by the concept of duty. A will which acts of obligation is discernable as a will which defeats obstructions with a specific end goal to keep the ethical law. Next, we discuss the understanding of maxim, a maxim is a principle on which we act upon. An example of maxim would be the idea of stealing from the rich in order to give it to the poor. When we formulate a maxim, we must obligate to follow through it. As we continue on we come across an important principle of morality called categorical imperative. The categorical imperative binds us, paying a little bit more mind to our wants; everybody has an obligation to not lie; therefore, paying a little respect to the conditions and regardless of whether it is to our greatest advantage to do so. It is supposed to provide us as a means of evaluating moral actions and to make moral judgments. Kant believes that a good way to act is to follow the categorical imperative. A great example of this would be if you see an older man crossing the street, it would be imperative to help him cross the street. Reason being it is a virtuous thing to do, and not a means of
While the main focus of the case is the owner, the article briefly mentions that four of the owner's employees conspired along with him, and that they all had pleaded guilty whereas the owner elected to settle the claims against him in court. After working through the language of the court case, I was
Ms. Yates has argued that punishing individuals is one of the most effective ways of actually causing a corporation to rethink their actions, but this is also difficult to do. When a corporation is investigated, the Justice Department requires them to hand over any documents related to the case and the individuals who were involved in specific crimes. Obviously, the individuals involved are less inclined for this to happen and are often in management roles at the company. In the average case, the corporation and the individuals at fault admit to wrongdoing—as Credit Suisse and five other global banks did in May of 2014--, but they do not disclose the names of the individual people responsible. At this point in the game, the Justice Department faces a dilemma.
In Kantian terms, there lies a set of moral principles that is universal and continues to apply to all humankind no matter the context or situation. In the minds of someone who believes in this ethical theory, their decision is always motivated by goodwill and that end never justifies the means, it is all about duty. A person who stands with the supreme court decision and is in favor of banning abortion across all states is someone who believes in the kantian ethics
This theory suggests that the human will is always looking for an outside source to the universal law. What tells me that this is right? Who said that this was right? It searches for the right thing as dependent on what others are saying what is right. This relation, whether it rests on preference or on conceptions of reason, admits of only hypothetical imperatives: I should do x because I want y. (Kant, 2008, pg37) this statement to me says an external law tells a person how they should act, and by doing so they will get the desired result from it.
With the idea of a categorical imperative for a duty, it follows the though of it being pure. Being a pure thought and taken from experiences we can get morally actions as they are truly intuitive. Such as helping one another is moral and priori. Although we can be taught to help others, all are born with the thought of helping each other. It follows the rules of nature, as humans are social creature.
Kant is more rigid with the rules meaning a rule is set in place for a reason so it is supposed to be followed. He writes “ well worth Avenue in action depends neither on the result expected from that action nor on any principle of action that has to borrow its motive from this expected result” (Kant 106). this means the decisions and should not be made based on what the person will receive or what the person has the ability to receive. For example, I have moved my friend money for him to be able to purchase wheels for his truck. Give me money back was not an issue because he is not he would find himself a transportation to school which will benefit his future as well as his ability to get to his job.
The Biography of Immanuel Kant, Immanuel day of birth was on April 22, 1724 born in Prussian city of Königsberg currently known as Kaliningrad in Russia. Kant family was a part of a Lutheran Church; his parents were pietists and even though they raised him in the same believe Kant didn’t appear to be very sympathetic to this kind of religious devotion (McCormick, Matt). Kant in an early age he showed a great ability to learn things. Throughout his education years his admiration for the classics of Latin literature grew, particularly the poet Lucretius. Therefore how Immanuel Kant became so well-known and contributes to the study of business ethics?
O’Neill decides to focus on the Formula of the End in Itself. What she says is that the difference between intention and maxims (a rule or a principle of action) doesn’t matter because we can create that corresponding maxim by taking away references to particular times and places (O’Neill, 113). What she is saying that the term maxim and intention are pretty much the same thing (O’Neill,
Actions which were taken by the company to cover unethical behavior of bribery and
Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804, was a German philosopher who is considered to be a central figure in modern philosophy. Throughout his career Kant argued that the human mind creates the structure of human experience, that reasoning is the source of morality, that aesthetics arises from a faculty of disinterested judgment, that space and time are forms of our sensibility, and that the world as it is "in-itself" is independent of our concepts of it. However, Kant is most noticed for his platform of alternative ethical approach known as duty. Also regarded as deontological ethics or deontology, it is the ethical position that judges the morality of an action based on rules, which is thought to be where the title of duty comes from. According to the theories placed by Kant, the rightness or wrongness of an action does not depend on their consequences, but rather if they maintain the ability to fulfil our duty.
Even though they knew the inability of the defeat device to show the desirable performance in the actual run, they have decided to proceed with the fraudulent plan due to higher cost in safety measures, neglecting the public safety. [5] Through their actions of pursuing the cheating system in spite of being fully aware of the discrepancy, they have breached the first section of the WFEO, which asserts that “the engineers are to refrain from fraudulent, corrupt or criminal practices.” Even if they made this decision because they had not known the threats cheating system that could bring to the public, they would still have breached the code of ethics because in that case, they failed to “keep themselves informed in order to maintain their competence” in their profession as the WFEO practice provision ethics clearly states. If they had decided to protect the environment before the company’s profitability in the first place, the scandal and its consequences could have been
Introduction On the 18th of September 2015, Volkswagen, one of the world’s leading automobile company got caught cheating the emission tests and installing the defeat device in 11 million cars, which produced up to 40 times more toxic fumes than permitted. The study suggested that the impact of the scandal would result in high casualties over time, and VW was charged with fines up to 20 billion dollars that dwarfed the previous record. [5] This report will identify the cause and present the main ethical issues presented through the incident and discuss areas in the incident where the ethical guidelines of engineers have been violated. The cause of the incident attributes to the combination of firm’s decision owing to the underrating punishment and prioritizing economic interesting and the compliance of the employees. Findings
The selected corporation is the Volkswagen, a German car manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. The Volkswagen’s corporate website is http://www.vw.com/. According to the International Ethical Business Registry, there has been a dramatic increase in the ethical expectations of businesses and professions over the past ten years. Increasingly, customers, clients and employees are deliberately seeking out those who define the basic ground rules of their operations on a day to day. Volkswagen is no different, hence it created its own code of ethics in order to improve the company’s operation all over the world.
Kant’s ideas also consisted of his own theories on anthropology, and his invention
They managed to steal more than $430 million by means of fraudulent sales of Tyco stock and hiding this information from the shareholders. The two executives were charged with numerous counts of misconduct, including business corruption and falsification of business records. Even though the investigation did not identify additional fraud issues, the company still restated its financial records by hundreds of millions of dollars. Furthermore, it took additional measures to restore shareholders’ confidence by implementing safeguards to guarantee greater objectivity on the part of the board of directors. Finally, Tyco managed to survive the scandal by making sure such misconduct is not going to occur in the