Business Ethics: Arguments for and Against Self-Driving Car Liability

This assignment delves into the ethical considerations surrounding self-driving cars, specifically focusing on the arguments for and against manufacturers being liable for accidents. The analysis examines the failures of autonomous systems, highlighting instances where the technology has not performed as expected, leading to accidents. The assignment also explores the counterarguments, such as human error and the potential for drivers to take responsibility. Furthermore, it discusses the importance of human intervention in self-driving cars, presenting the view that drivers have a duty to remain prepared to take control. Objections to this view, such as the potential for machine failure and the distractions that drivers may face, are also discussed. The assignment references several sources to support the arguments made.

Running Head: Business Ethics
Business Ethics
Ques-Ans
System04104
5/28/2019

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Answer-1
The increasing incidents about the accidents of self-driving cars are major concerns
for government, people, and for manufacturers as well. From last few years, the Tesla cars
and another model Chevrolet Bolt has been observed in various car accidents during the
autonomous driving system. However, these large manufacturers of autonomous vehicles are
more responsible for accidents as they failed to properly testing the car engines and its
autonomous system. However, the another side of these things that the cars are driving by the
autonomous engines and some time it is detected that system is not performing under the set
criteria. For instance, in Florida, a tractor-trailer crossed the path of an autonomous vehicle of
Tesla and it may lead to accident of car. However, the smart autopilot systems of car
immediately fail to perform its evasive maneuvers system and could not be able to avoid the
crash with tractor (Fleetwood, 2017). It is the failure of car manufacturer that provides such
type of default technique that cannot avoid the car accident with tractor. However, another
thing is that manufacture is trying to testing the cars on a set safety standard but still there are
many improvements required to stop these types of accidents. However, in some crashes the
responsibility of drivers is questionable because if the driver had paid attention to the tractor
crossing the road, driver can immediately take the evasive maneuvers to prevent the accident.
Therefore, one cannot blame for every accidents to the manufacturers rather the human
responsibility and attention are another causes behind the car accidents (Bonnefon, Shariff, &
Rahwan, 2016).
Answer-2
The self-driving autonomous cars are generally depends on the advanced technology
and people believe that after few years the car manufacturer companies and engineers will
remove the human from driving work. However, it is very tough to ignore the human
interference in the driving of self-car. Machines are machines and can be fail any time or the
system of automatic car can be crash anytime. Therefore, it is the responsibility of driver to
take care of his own life because dependency on machines is really dangerous for people.
However, it can be said that human error is one of the major causes in car accidents (Gogoll
& Müller, 2017).
The major objection to this view is that machines and software works on the
programming code on set criteria follow the exact input and perform what the human puts in

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the system. This information is very accurate, as people cannot process the information as so
fast and accurate as machine does. Therefore, a driver really should not worry about the
processing of autonomous car engines (Greene, 2016).
The second objection to this view is that people are generally faces fatigue or sleepy
during the driving of cars. Apart from this, some people uses the phone and loud music or
watching TV in the Car. In such scenario, the automatic car provides them freedom to do
their work and drive the car with software system and machine help. Another thing is that,
machine is free from fatigue, sleep, or careless approach so the chances of accident are also
negligible because of system fault (Leben, 2017).

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References
Bonnefon, J. F., Shariff, A., & Rahwan, I. (2016). The social dilemma of autonomous
vehicles. Science, 352(6293), 1573-1576.
Fleetwood, J. (2017). Public health, ethics, and autonomous vehicles. American journal of
public health, 107(4), 532-537.
Gogoll, J., & Müller, J. F. (2017). Autonomous cars: in favor of a mandatory ethics
setting. Science and engineering ethics, 23(3), 681-700.
Greene, J. D. (2016). Our driverless dilemma. Science, 352(6293), 1514-1515.
Leben, D. (2017). A Rawlsian algorithm for autonomous vehicles. Ethics and Information
Technology, 19(2), 107-115.