QUESTION 2
Tesla Motors, Inc. is a US company, founded in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, aiming to build electric cars for a wide audience. In the spring of 2004, venture capital investors rose, with Elon Musk becoming chairman of the supervisory board, and soon becoming the defining figure of Tesla (Tesla, 2016). Musk is financially involved in Tesla Motors; he has re-invested the profit from other products into the company. At the end of 2008, Tesla Motors was close to bankruptcy, but was rescued at the last minute by an investor (Lewitan, 2013). In the first quarter of 2015, Tesla was able to achieve a five-digit number of deliveries in a quarter. After thirteen consecutive quarterly losses Tesla made a profit of $ 22 …show more content…
Putting it simply, the basic utilitarian principle is: act in such a way that the consequences of your actions are optimal for the well-being of all concerned. Thus, utilitarianism wants to provide a criterion with which actions, norms and institutions can be judged morally (Mill, 2009; Posner, 1979; Schroth, 2006). Tesla states that what they are trying to achieve is to make the roads safer. Musk even stated that “If, in writing some article that's negative, you effectively dissuade people from using an autonomous vehicle, you're killing people” (Waters, 2016; McCoogan, 2016). Therefore, to him this means that his company is acting for the greater good of people. Looking at the statistics, it becomes obvious that there have been more accidents with cars that were not using the autonomous function within the last year than with those who applied the function, in relation to the number of cars that are on the streets with or without the function. Thus, the company is acting in a way that benefits the majority of people, namely those driving the cars and also those who engage in the traffic in any other way. However, the strategy with which Tesla is marketing their products leads to something different. By not actually stating what their cars are capable of, their customer can be misled to thinking that they can use the cars in a way that might actually be dangerous to them. Tesla is using this marketing …show more content…
Rules and commandments, on which the agent has to orient himself, are regarded as a binding standard for morally good or bad actions (Herold, 2008; Kamm, 2008). An action is only regarded as morally good when the agent choses this action from the motive or the attitude of his normative obligation. The decisive factor here is whether the act is in accordance with a mandatory rule and whether it is committed on the basis of this obligation (McNaughton & Rawling, 1998; Schroth, 2009). Journalists have argued that Musk’s promise to introduce the fully autonomous driving car by the end of 2017 is very risky. The technology will not yet be working sufficiently without putting the drivers in danger. The reason for this is that Musk wants to stay ahead of his competition and introduce the autonomous cars before anyone else to keep Tesla’s position as the most innovative company (Forbes, 2016). Musk is thus acting from a morally bad rule: he does whatever produces the most profit for
Tesla Motors, Inc. is a US company, founded in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, aiming to build electric cars for a wide audience. In the spring of 2004, venture capital investors rose, with Elon Musk becoming chairman of the supervisory board, and soon becoming the defining figure of Tesla (Tesla, 2016). Musk is financially involved in Tesla Motors; he has re-invested the profit from other products into the company. At the end of 2008, Tesla Motors was close to bankruptcy, but was rescued at the last minute by an investor (Lewitan, 2013). In the first quarter of 2015, Tesla was able to achieve a five-digit number of deliveries in a quarter. After thirteen consecutive quarterly losses Tesla made a profit of $ 22 …show more content…
Putting it simply, the basic utilitarian principle is: act in such a way that the consequences of your actions are optimal for the well-being of all concerned. Thus, utilitarianism wants to provide a criterion with which actions, norms and institutions can be judged morally (Mill, 2009; Posner, 1979; Schroth, 2006). Tesla states that what they are trying to achieve is to make the roads safer. Musk even stated that “If, in writing some article that's negative, you effectively dissuade people from using an autonomous vehicle, you're killing people” (Waters, 2016; McCoogan, 2016). Therefore, to him this means that his company is acting for the greater good of people. Looking at the statistics, it becomes obvious that there have been more accidents with cars that were not using the autonomous function within the last year than with those who applied the function, in relation to the number of cars that are on the streets with or without the function. Thus, the company is acting in a way that benefits the majority of people, namely those driving the cars and also those who engage in the traffic in any other way. However, the strategy with which Tesla is marketing their products leads to something different. By not actually stating what their cars are capable of, their customer can be misled to thinking that they can use the cars in a way that might actually be dangerous to them. Tesla is using this marketing …show more content…
Rules and commandments, on which the agent has to orient himself, are regarded as a binding standard for morally good or bad actions (Herold, 2008; Kamm, 2008). An action is only regarded as morally good when the agent choses this action from the motive or the attitude of his normative obligation. The decisive factor here is whether the act is in accordance with a mandatory rule and whether it is committed on the basis of this obligation (McNaughton & Rawling, 1998; Schroth, 2009). Journalists have argued that Musk’s promise to introduce the fully autonomous driving car by the end of 2017 is very risky. The technology will not yet be working sufficiently without putting the drivers in danger. The reason for this is that Musk wants to stay ahead of his competition and introduce the autonomous cars before anyone else to keep Tesla’s position as the most innovative company (Forbes, 2016). Musk is thus acting from a morally bad rule: he does whatever produces the most profit for