Ethical Decision Analysis: Volkswagen Emission Scandal

Ethical Decision Analysis: Volkswagen Emission Scandal
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Ethical Decision Analysis: Volkswagen Emission Scandal
Why the Action was Unethical
The Volkswagen emissions scandal is one of the greatest motor-related ethical cases in US history involving a recall of approximately 9 million cars across Europe and in the USA and a settlement of more than $4.3 billion (€ 6.5 billion) (Ameen, 2020; Hotten, 2015). Various principles can be used to evaluate the ethicality of Volkswagen’s defeat decision to use defeat devices to cheat carbon emissions tests including utilitarianism, universalism, and profit maximization. The defeat devices fitted into various car brands cheated emissions tests from authorities by switching the mode of performance and back in a driving mode which exceeded over 40 times the required limit for NO which can cause various respiratory diseases (Harper, 2018). Applying the above ethical bases would help understand the level of ethical considerations the VW engineers and executives. Profit maximization was the main reason for the entry of the VW models into the US market as U.S. companies had failed to comply with the set standards on Nitrogen Oxides. This shows that the company sought the most productive way to invest in the US. However, according to Koch (2010), the base has to be used in combination with other methods like behavioral norms, consequentiality, and institutional rules which apply in both utilitarianism and universalism. This means that the profitability achieved from the scandal will be measured against utilitarianism and universalism.
Measuring the decision against utilitarianism can be evaluated against the different stakeholders involved like the management, individual executives, and customers. The company only focused on profits but disregarded the health implications on its customers which is against the maximum good for everyone as required by the utility principle. In addition to a direct effect on customers’ health, the environmental effects in the long term also defy the good for everyone required by the principle. The stakeholders, despite benefiting from a short-term increase in sales faced several lawsuits, jail terms, and led to the company losing a big percentage of its stock value (Ameen, 2020). The company CEO Winterkorn had to resign and face several charges, job losses to other employees, including the company losing more than €2.4 billion-more than a third of its total stock in addition to recalls (Ameen, 2020; Wilson). To show the extent of harm done to the stakeholders, some of the justifications used by the executive was that the investors were hurt too (Wilson, 2019). Another instance of stakeholder’s harm from the decision is the jail time for some of the executives like Schmidt in the company’s Michigan environment research office (Atiyeh, 2019). Utilitarianism also pays attention to rules and regulations (Marques, 2015) while VW broke EPA codes thus enhancing the decision’s unethicality. These harms show that the decision did not adhere to utilitarianism as the customers, employees, executives, and investors lost in health, capital, and legal fees. Universalism was also disregarded a...