James Liang: The Morality Behind the Crime
On September 18th, 2015, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that Volkswagen installed software that falsified the amount of emissions produced in over 475 thousand cars (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS). This software was used to hide the fact that their engines could not meet the United States’ strict emission standards (Viswanatha). Within the week of the EPA’s announcement, Volkswagen stated that around 11 million cars were equipped with this software (Tabuchi). This confession of using the software has cost the company billions of dollars with more costs in the foreseeable future.
Almost a year later on September 9th, 2016, James Liang pleaded guilty of equipping the Volkswagen vehicles with the emission software. With the guilty plea, Liang agreed to cooperate and provide more information involving the emission scandal (Viswanatha). Liang’s implementation of the software and the guilty plea and cooperation bring up questions of morality. Kant’s duty ethics will be used to determine the morality of each action while being compared to the views of rule utilitarianism.
To further understand, duty ethics is built on four main …show more content…
However, strong rule utilitarianism would deem the act morally wrong due to believing that rules should never be broken even when the act causes the most pleasure ("Utilitarianism"). For utilitarianism, an act is morally right when the act brings the most amount of pleasure possible. For Liang, installing the software to hide the emissions problem provided the most pleasure. By creating this software, Liang saves him and his team from a scolding from the boss, saves the company money and time, and makes the company more money. These advantages outweigh the main disadvantage which is this act causes more pollution to the
On September 18th, 2015, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that Volkswagen installed software that falsified the amount of emissions produced in over 475 thousand cars (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS). This software was used to hide the fact that their engines could not meet the United States’ strict emission standards (Viswanatha). Within the week of the EPA’s announcement, Volkswagen stated that around 11 million cars were equipped with this software (Tabuchi). This confession of using the software has cost the company billions of dollars with more costs in the foreseeable future.
Almost a year later on September 9th, 2016, James Liang pleaded guilty of equipping the Volkswagen vehicles with the emission software. With the guilty plea, Liang agreed to cooperate and provide more information involving the emission scandal (Viswanatha). Liang’s implementation of the software and the guilty plea and cooperation bring up questions of morality. Kant’s duty ethics will be used to determine the morality of each action while being compared to the views of rule utilitarianism.
To further understand, duty ethics is built on four main …show more content…
However, strong rule utilitarianism would deem the act morally wrong due to believing that rules should never be broken even when the act causes the most pleasure ("Utilitarianism"). For utilitarianism, an act is morally right when the act brings the most amount of pleasure possible. For Liang, installing the software to hide the emissions problem provided the most pleasure. By creating this software, Liang saves him and his team from a scolding from the boss, saves the company money and time, and makes the company more money. These advantages outweigh the main disadvantage which is this act causes more pollution to the