Kant's Proportional Adoption Of Zero Emission Vehicles

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Kantian ethics focuses on the morality of actions more so that the overall consequences of said action. Unlike the consequentialist thinking of utilitarianism which chooses the outcome with the overall greatest happiness, Kant’s nonconsequentialist approach to philosophy believes in the inherent “goodness” or “badness” of an action, regardless of people’s pain or pleasure. As such, Kantianism can be applied to the labeling of zero-emission vehicles; because these cars still emit pollutants, this deceptive and misleading marketing tactic is immoral in and of itself—even if the widespread adoption of ZEVs does lead to less overall emissions. In conjunction with the inherent rightness or wrongness of actions, Kant’s categorical imperative is further …show more content…
However, while some agree that companies are at fault in marketing their goods in a misleading way, others believe that the consumer is at fault. In their opinion, consumers should exercise due diligence by researching the company and its products to see if their assertions really hold up in testing. This form of thought can be applied to zero-emission vehicles, reasoning that customers of these cars should have done their research on the company claims of “zero-emissions” before purchasing. This standpoint is supported by the idea that consumers have the freedom to buy any good or service they so choose, so they should be careful or “beware” of deceptive products, according to the concept of caveat emptor (“let the buyer beware”). Another supporting fact of this argument comes from emissions of zero-emission vehicles. For those that have done their research on ZEVs, they would have learned that the emissions of such cars are still significantly less than those of regular, gasoline cars throughout their entire lifecycle—not including the pollutants from energy generation and manufacturing of electric cars (Socolow and Thomas 13). Since transportation makes up twenty percent of world emissions, a utilitarian would stand to reason that if everyone in the world switched to a zero-emission vehicle over a gas vehicle, then overall pollution in the world would decrease and create greater overall happiness than the alternative of not doing so (Jochem et al. 68). For these reasons, one should overlook the deceptive marketing of zero-emission vehicles and instead view consumers as responsible for their own actions. Others, however, believe that consumer responsibility and the few emissions of ZEVs do not help justify the misleading actions of car

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