Ethical Ethics Of Volkswagen

Over the recent years, Volkswagen “has had a major push to sell diesel cars in the US,” (Hotten). The marketing tool the corporation used was advertising their vehicles’ lower emission rates than their competitors. This advertisement was an act of deception towards the public, competitors, and everyone else but the few Volkswagen employees who knew of the scandal. James Liang, engineer and “Volkswagen’s Leader of Diesel Competence” (Geuss), was tasked to build a new diesel engine to meet the U.S. design standards. When Liang and his team realized they could not complete this task, they designed a software to falsify test results instead. Russell Hotten explains this so-called defeat device could recognize testing situations by monitoring certain aspects of the vehicle. When this device was activated, it affected the performance of the engine. It allowed the engine to perform at such a level, the vehicle would pass all inspections. Then, when the vehicle was released and was driven on the road, it would release emissions up forty times the allowed amount. Liang, the first Volkswagen employee to be sent to prison, received a sentence of forty months in prison, two years of supervised release, and a $200,000 fine. This sentence was more than the recommended sentence for the purpose that it “would send a powerful deterrent message to the rest of the industry,” (Shepardson, White). Although there are many ethical theories to explain the morality of Liang’s decisions, this paper