James Liang And The Volkswagen Emission Scandal Essay

Volkswagen is one of the largest automakers in the world and it has a global reputation as a high-quality German auto brand. Social responsibility is included in VW’s corporate culture and it seems that Volkswagen made some advances in Corporate Social Responsibility because the corporation was ranked 11th 2015 in the Global CSR Rep Track 100, which listed companies by reputation (Reputation Institute, 2015).However, the company has been threatened by an emission scandal which broke in September 2015, when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) disclosed that Volkswagen had installed defeat devices on diesel cars which were sold in the US. These devices equipped on VW cars cheated regulators in such a way that it could detect

Kantian ethics and rule utilitarianism disagree on the morality of creating a “defeat device.” This device determined when its engine was undergoing emissions testing then switched from its normal operating mode into a lower emission mode. The normal emission mode was 40 times the limit dictated by the Clean Air Act [1]. By creating a dirty engine, Liang contributed towards the destruction of the atmosphere. This will negatively impact the quality of life for many future generations of people. Because damaging the environment negatively impacts millions of people, rule utilitarianism declares it to be morally wrong. The prosecution of six executives of Volkswagen, including the head of engine development, indicate that Liang’s superiors were involved in this conspiracy from the beginning [2]. The most applicable maxim to this situation is “I shall fulfill

But was it ethical? This question will often be asked regarding the case of engineer James Liang and his role in the Volkswagen emission scandal. During the period of early 2006 to 2014, James Liang and his team of engineers developed a “defeat” device that allowed diesel powered vehicles to pass the EPA emission test, when in fact the vehicles were emitting up to 30 times the allowable limit. To many, this may seem a black and white case of ethics due to the fact that Liang’s team and Volkswagen blatantly cheated on a governmental testing regulation and then proceeded to falsely advertise the vehicles as “clean diesel and environmentally friendly” as reported by the United States Department of Justice; however, different ethical

The devised code of ethics plays a vital role in the deciding factor for the engineers. Thus, in the case of the Gee-Whiz Mark 2 (GWM2) having evidence that 25,000 units are not compliant with safety standards in North America or Europe shows that the public's security is in jeopardy. Complying to the first fundamental canon of the NSPE code of ethics for engineers states that, "engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public”. Sadly to say, the current products only put users at a much higher risk of electrocution and death. Thus, by the virtue of the fundamental canon, engineers at Gee-Whiz Mark 2 morally cannot distribute detrimental products to the public in any geographic location, even if the law permits. Taking Toyota Motors in 2009 as an example, where more than 680,000 vehicles were recalled in the United States alone, due to safety concerns of the airbags and the brake lights being defective (Valdes-Dapena, 2012 ). Even though this company could have disregarded the issue and continue to sell defective machines, they instead did what was morally right for the citizens and recalled the products. A product recall of thousands of units is not easy for any company, resulting in a multi-billion financial loss and the expenditure of sales time. Nonetheless, when someone’s life is at stake there is no choice but to resolve the emerged problem, no matter the loss that will be incurred by the

The Volkswagen dilemma comprises whether it is ethically permissible to install the defeat device. Several stakeholders, mainly the manager, the costumers including consumers and dealers, the general public and shareholders, will be affected.

I do not purport to condone the recall of Volkswagen Passenger Cars; what they did was wrong; and objectively they deserve a swift and severe punishment. However, the media’s response to ‘dieselgate’ is an excessive overreaction. First of all, we cannot go around adding the gate suffix haphazardly to every transgression and gaucherie. Bob Bernstein and Carl Woodward worked for over a year trying to piece together the Watergate controversy. They risked everything for it: jobs, reputation and even their lives. There should be perspective on this controversy, diesel Volkswagen Passenger Cars having devices designed to cheat emissions tests did not and will not ever result in (arguably) the most powerful person in the world resigning.

In 2013, the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) began conducting ?on-road emission tests for cars?. The investigation on Volkswagen identified the emission levels were nearly 40% higher than the defined limits (Jung & Park, 2017). Ultimately in 2015, Volkswagen publicized a recall of more than 450,000 diesel cars resulting from an inability to operate within the required legal parameters. Specifically, the vehicles were designed to ?cheat on emissions testing? and ultimately produced ?air pollutants well above the legal limit? (Reitze,

Volkswagen engineer James Liang was the first engineer indicted by the U.S. government during the Volkswagen scandal concerning one of the biggest frauds in the automobile industry during the 21st century. James Liang held the title of “leader of Diesel Competence” and had moved from Germany to Ann Arbor, Michigan in order to lead a team whose job was to conduct emissions tests on Volkswagens diesel engines. Unfortunately, Liang and his team were not able to fully engineer a diesel that complied with the new amendments of United States Clean Air Act. Liang’s solution to this dilemma was to install a software into the vehicle’s system that would improve the emissions control

In today’s society we often come to many debates on several issues that go on in our world today. Recently there was an ethical debate on whether or not it is ethical to release vehicles with software that defeats emission testing by the EPA. Volkswagen is being accused of using illegal software designed to hide emissions during testing by installing cars with a software. The EPA accused Volkswagen of using the device in nearly over a half a million cars (Davenport). The cars are reportedly to have been installed with a software that had the ability to turn off the emissions controls when driving normally and turns them on when the vehicle is undergoing an emissions test. With all of these assumptions of Volkswagen cheating the emissions testing does that question their ethical corporate responsibility?

In 2016, a Volkswagen engineer by the name of James Liang pled guilty to criminal charges related to a gas emissions scandal (Isidore). The scandal was a result of Volkswagen engineers trying to pass the strict United States emission standards by cheating diesel engine emissions tests with software designed to recognize when emissions testing was being performed and regulate emissions accordingly (Chambers). By cheating the tests in this way, the diesel engine vehicles were able to pass US standards when tested while maintaining vehicle performance when being driven on the open road. However, when these diesel vehicles were driving on the open road, the gas emissions were not being controlled and the vehicles were actually emitting up to 40 times the acceptable limit (Isidore). This clearly presents some ethical issues, especially when analyzing the scandal from a Kantian perspective and focusing on the moral duty of the engineers involved. If James Liang and the other Volkswagen engineers involved had followed their moral duty, this scandal would have been avoided.

It is not hard to see that the scandal would cause a horrid blow to VW’s image. Until the incident, VW had, like many other German companies, the reputation of “German engineering” (Robertson, 2013). However, instead of using that innovation to develop diesel-fueled cars compliant with U.S. standards, it decided to try to scam its way in the market. Not only did the company admit to having 11 million cars with software intended to cheat tests (Gates, Ewing, Russell & Watkins, 2017), it also plead guilty to “destroying evidence in an elaborate cover-up” (VW Admits Emissions Cheating and Cover-up, 2017); building further distrust among its consumers.

The National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) Code of Ethics expects engineers to act as faithful agents to both clients and employers as one of the Code’s fundamental canons (National Society of Professional Engineers, 2007) (American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2012). A conflict has the potential to arise when an engineering firm employs a professional engineer for contractual work. The firm seeks to maximize profits while the client desires a high quality solution to a problem. Hypothetically, the engineer’s superiors could require that the engineer specify lower quality equipment, materials, or components for the design in order to increase margins. If this situation were to occur, the engineer cannot act as a faithful agent to his company’s client while satisfying his manager’s request. On the other hand, the engineer could ignore his boss in order to create a desirable design for the client, which puts the engineer in the position of not acting faithfully to his employer. The question then becomes, how does an engineer act faithfully to both parties involved in this situation? This paper delves into this predicament and strives to find an answer. In order to maximize the benefits for all concerned factions and to focus on the engineer’s duty in this situation, the analysis utilizes both a utilitarian and Kantian perspective throughout the essay.

The German automobile manufacturer, Volkswagen, knowingly jeopardized their company to cheat emission tests, result producing a cleaner type of diesel. The actions leading to the unethical decisions by German automaker was not the fault of an individual, but rather problems throughout the entire corporation. For a greater understanding of the event that took place within Volkswagen it is best to examine the different divisions of the organization and the individuals’ decision, which was the leading cause in one of the biggest consumer class-action settlements in the United States (Judge approves $15B Volkswagen, 2015). We will look at how the scandal could have been avoided in addition to what measures can be implemented to prevent future unethical scandals.

It was irresponsible to use the ECM, which was designed in part to monitor the emissions system efficiency, to overlook this intended fault and provide an abstract feedback at the smog testing facilities. Aristotle made clear that all humans seek to flourish. Well, Volkswagen, as a corporation, was trying to flourish once more but not by good means. Also Aristotle pronounced that “man is a rational creature who lives in poleis” and what make society are rules, rational rules. Is these are violated, there is going to be a possibility of encountering a highly corrupted society. Aristotle thinks we should be upset if people do well undeservedly. This engineers fooled government authorities and the public for more than five years. And this case is an indignant outcome of how low big corporation can behave.

On my commute home that night, I began to wonder about the implications of the situation. After returning home, I fixed myself dinner and decided that a session of meditation would help me to think clearly and to approach the situation with an objective mindset. After a quick shower and a change into more comfortable attire, I sat out on my back patio and relaxed into a session of the Vipassana meditation that I had learned as a student to manage stressful situations. After an hour of meditation, I felt mentally refreshed, relaxed, and ready to approach the question of ethics that was before me. I began to consider what I knew about the situation and the possible outcomes of letting it go uncommented on. Deceiving the client is not only completely a unethical business practice, but it could create a ripple of negative effects. If the plant ran without noticing the differences between their actual and expected results, they would be unaware that their emissions were higher than they had been told to expect, possibly making their emissions rates unintentionally higher than the legal limit under the EPA. This would create a situation similar to that of the Volkswagen scandal uncovered in 2015, in which an algorithm that caused the vehicle to run differently when being tested allowed 11 million vehicles to emit 40 times the amount of pollutants specified as the maximum allowable level by the EPA [1]. The Volkswagen scandal caused millions of car owners to unknowingly