VOLKSWAGEN: Engineering Fraud for Favorable Fallout Codes of ethics provide the moral responsibilities of an engineer’s duty as seen by the relative profession and as a representation of the professional society. These codes are extremely important because they keep responsibility within the perimeter or good morals and reveal the importance of the engineers’ responsibility when working on projects considering they can consequently directly and indirectly effect the engineers themselves, clients, firms, communities, and most importantly, human life itself. There are eight essential roles that these codes of ethics for engineers fulfill – they are: serving and protecting the public, providing guidance, offering inspiration, establishing shared
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(Dewey 44) ( CITATION p44 ETHICS FOR ENG + listed codes) If roles and their deriving ethical codes are not taken seriously or abused, a distrust in the profession can publicly occur. This dilemma is not something new to the public where such corporations who’ve dabbled with huge ethical problems like Enron, United Airlines, Equifax, and Kobe Steel come to mind. One of the most abused, and arguably most dangerous, ethical code in engineering that comes to play is to falsify data or restricting honest information for the purpose of the company’s personal gain. This was the case with the recent popular scandal amongst Volkswagen Group It was September of 2015 when Volkswagen, a German multinational automotive manufacture who’s the sixth largest company in the world according to revenue, was accused of having engineers program their ECU’s software in order to pass diesel emission standards. From the mass coverage at the time, the public and media seemed to already label the act as a poor, and ethically wrongful act. The theme of this essay is to dissect Volkswagen’s wrongdoing and to show why falsifying details is ethically damaging for professional …show more content…
The students found that two VW vehicles of all the diesels they had produced exponentially more nitrogen oxide (NOx) than was legally permitted. Upon their discoveries, they contacted the EPA where the info was passed on for them to formally pursue. An inquiry of the issue is opened up about the issue and VW executives and engineers try to hide the illegal software exploit by giving out false data; Volkswagen later testifies guilt through a plea bargain. The EPA’s results threw VW into a huge whirlwind of costly dilemmas that effected many people including employees, stockholders, revenue, market-cap, and worse of all – the trust of the public consumers; ruining sales and VW’s vitality in the automotive market (Times, 2016). Martin Winterkorn, CEO at the time, also stepped down from his position following the
(Dewey 44) ( CITATION p44 ETHICS FOR ENG + listed codes) If roles and their deriving ethical codes are not taken seriously or abused, a distrust in the profession can publicly occur. This dilemma is not something new to the public where such corporations who’ve dabbled with huge ethical problems like Enron, United Airlines, Equifax, and Kobe Steel come to mind. One of the most abused, and arguably most dangerous, ethical code in engineering that comes to play is to falsify data or restricting honest information for the purpose of the company’s personal gain. This was the case with the recent popular scandal amongst Volkswagen Group It was September of 2015 when Volkswagen, a German multinational automotive manufacture who’s the sixth largest company in the world according to revenue, was accused of having engineers program their ECU’s software in order to pass diesel emission standards. From the mass coverage at the time, the public and media seemed to already label the act as a poor, and ethically wrongful act. The theme of this essay is to dissect Volkswagen’s wrongdoing and to show why falsifying details is ethically damaging for professional …show more content…
The students found that two VW vehicles of all the diesels they had produced exponentially more nitrogen oxide (NOx) than was legally permitted. Upon their discoveries, they contacted the EPA where the info was passed on for them to formally pursue. An inquiry of the issue is opened up about the issue and VW executives and engineers try to hide the illegal software exploit by giving out false data; Volkswagen later testifies guilt through a plea bargain. The EPA’s results threw VW into a huge whirlwind of costly dilemmas that effected many people including employees, stockholders, revenue, market-cap, and worse of all – the trust of the public consumers; ruining sales and VW’s vitality in the automotive market (Times, 2016). Martin Winterkorn, CEO at the time, also stepped down from his position following the