Morality And Ethical Behaviour Within The Human Population

In 2015, Volkswagen incurred a problematic situation that left people asking the question, “Where were the Lawyers?” Volkswagen’s sales were spiraling out of control in crucial markets such as China and Brazil, which eventually lead to a reputation damage for the company. Likewise, the emissions testing catastrophe only made matters worse. Over 11 million of Volkswagen’s diesel cars worldwide were equipped with illegal software, used to cheat on emissions testing, posing a more serious threat to the environment as well as endangering human life. Specifically, this paper will discuss how I as an employee or manger would have prevented the incident and as a CEO, how I would have responded once the issue became public as well as to

Moral status is a bioethical concept that concerns the type of beings that possess rights, like human beings. There are five distinct viewpoints, or theories, that help in determining moral status. These theories include: a theory based on human properties, a theory based on cognitive properties, a theory based on moral agency, a theory based on sentience, and a theory based on relationships (HLT-302 Introduction 2, 2015). In the case study, a situation in which a fetus develops a rare condition where its quality of life would be poor is presented. The physician (Dr. Wilson), aunt (Maria), mother (Jessica), and father (Marco) all share different viewpoints that make the process of determining a final plan of action very difficult.

Firstly, from the view of company, Volkswagen scandal is result from the misuse of CSR that the company regarded it as a marketing tool. Although Volkswagen promised to persuade CSR as their corporation culture, the reality turns out to be opposite. Volkswagen equipped defeat devices on cars deliberately to pass environmental tasks and actually the defeat device emitted nitrogen oxide approximately 40 times of standard (Dans, 2015). This behaviour can be explained as "green-washing", which means the real performance is different from the test results (Eric, 2015). The motivation of deception largely depends on corporation’s aggressive goal called “Strategy 2018” , which aim to increase annual sales to ten million cars by 2018 (Volkswagen, 2014). Therefore, Volkswagen needs to lower the price to be competitive to its competitors and one task is to reduce cost of production. Volkswagen used CSR concept to cover unethical actions. It demonstrates that Volkswagen focused on persuading the short-term target rather than its customers, long-term reputation and environment (Bansal, King & Seijts,

suggests that on a global scale, unique societies fail to share the same evaluative language when

The second item is if VW would be unwilling to change its ways and value sales and profit over integrity to stakeholders. VW was already caught cheating just to win awards and surpass its completion, but if its willing to continually do this and not change for the better it would be best not to continue the engagement with the organization.

The Volkswagen (VW) corporation experienced a major scandal after it conspired to manipulate data for diesel emissions. Business ethics, legal issues, and a Biblical worldview are common areas of failure and are clearly present in this case. Lippe (2015) stated that these acts were deliberate and examined the responsibility of legal counsel to mitigate such acts. If not for road testing by engineer, John German, excess emissions may not have been detected, and due to outcry, VW admitted to their technologically sophisticated fraud (Patra, 2016). God’s Word reveals, “But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known” (Luke 12:2 New American Standard

The mistrust between the Volkswagen Company and their customers developed after the scandal associated with the incorrect emission of data and cheating of the system unfolded.  The scandal occurred on the eighteenth of September 2015 when it was found that the company had made a car with a turbo that released emission directly into the real word atmosphere. The allegations were genuine and were proved by the Environment Protection Agency in the United States (EPA) (Hotten, 2016).The chief

In this case, I am not sure on who’s side I am on, legally speaking that is (not that I am a juror). The Prosecution needs to prove Volkswagen acted with Mens rea (a guilty mind), to prove they have acted criminally. That is an interesting quandary when regarding a company, what constitutes corporate consciousness?

As a multinational corporation, the implication of the scandal determines the fate of numerous stakeholders both internal and external. Internal stakeholders comprise of the board, managers and employees while external stakeholders subsume shareholders, customers and suppliers. The economic, political and social impacts of the dishonest practices would shape the fate of Volkswagen and affect the future prospects of the automotive industry. Common shareholders whilst not involved in the day to day running of the business placed faith and belief in the firm by providing capital had suffered severe economic loss as share prices (get something for stat). Despite the callous deception in advertising the defeat device displayed no signs of disturbing vehicle performance, however, customers of Volkswagen and its subsidiary vehicles suffer from lower resale value. In addition, even though the scandal was global, European consumers were the most affected with diesel cars accounting for 41% of all European cars (Fontaras, 2016). This high percentage in respect to other nations is a result of incentives provided by the European Union for the purchase of diesel vehicles such as subsidies towards the production process resulting in lower premiums compared to petrol counterparts (Vidal, 2015) In additional with sales falling suppliers of Volkswagen would likely lose future contracts or have current contracts downgraded as less parts are required. Thus, this loss of future

The link between morality and human nature has been a progressive reoccurring theme since ancient times (Prinz, 2008). Moral development is a characteristic of a person’s general development that transpires over the course of a lifetime. Moral development is derived by a wide variety of cultural and demographic factors that appear to influence morally relevant actions. Turiel (2006) defined morality as an individuals “prescriptive judgments of justice, rights, and welfare pertaining to how people ought to relate to each other.” Individuals’ moral judgments are frequently considered to be a product of culturally specific controls that provide a framework for behavioral motivations that are sensitive to the effects of gender, education, religion and politics (Banerjee, Huebner & Hauser, 2010). While several approaches have been utilized to examine the interaction of multivariate contributors to fundamental moral differences such as: disputes about family life, sexuality, social fairness, and so on, research has suggested that ideological considerations have provided a potent and diverse explanation for the polarization of contrasting views (Weber & Federico, 2013).

Ethical behavior is significant to the development of persuasion, and important to the behavior of humans.It also influences persuasion by developing the progression of persuasion, and increasing those who are accountable for it. A person’s ethical behavior originates with morals and changes into what way an individual is required to connect to encourage effectively and dependably and finishes with who obligation it is to take responsibility in a persuasive interchange. The significance of our ethical behavior is realized within all our origins as human beings and stands as the groundwork of our different societies. We are directed by our ethical customs in the cultures which we create and live. “ The persuader’s determined actions means more under deontological ethics than under teleological ethics”( Magee,2014). According to David B. Resnik, J.D.,( 2011), ethics is defined as standards for behavior that differentiate between tolerable and intolerable conduct. Ethical morals of behavior that specify how an individual should conduct them self centered on ethical responsibilities and qualities.

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?

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.

They handle the media, internal company meetings, and several other related meetings. Third, set up a notification system (Bernstein, J., 2016). Fourth, one must have a holding statement available (Bernstein, J., 2016). They are used after the event occurred and to let the community know that they are aware of the issue. Know your internal and external stakeholders. After the crisis happened, one must assess the situation, create messages to be sent to the stakeholders informing them on what they need to know (Bernstein, J., 2016). The final step is performing a post-crisis analysis (Bernstein, J., 2016).

Due to the global implications of some decisions made by Volkswagen, governing boards should strengthen their impact on worldwide automakers by working in conjunction with other countries in enforcing needed global regulations. If the impact of a product is global, then governance leadership of that product should also be at a global scale. Collaboration may never be achieved globally, but major consuming countries working in conjunction to enforce needed regulations, can make the same impact. In the case of the VW emission scandal, several countries are assisting in holding Volkswagen accountable but each country is performing their own investigation and requiring Volkswagen to correct the