Report: Ethical Analysis of the Volkswagen Diesel Emission Scandal

This report provides an ethical analysis of the Volkswagen diesel emission case, focusing on the unethical practices employed by the company. It identifies the manipulation of emission test results using a software device as a key ethical violation. The analysis evaluates the case through the lenses of utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, and social contract theory, highlighting how Volkswagen's actions caused harm to the majority, violated moral duties, and disregarded environmental sustainability. The report also discusses the negative impact on the company's goodwill and suggests recommendations for promoting transparency, enforcing regulations, and increasing consumer awareness. It concludes with the importance of continuous monitoring by a centralized authority to prevent such unethical practices in the automobile industry. The report is a comprehensive study of the ethical dimensions of the Volkswagen case.

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Doing ethics technique
What is going on?
Ethical issues can arises in many aspects of doing business. In certain cases
the ethical dilemmas affect the decision making and good will of the company. One of
these cases is the diesel emission case in Volkswagen. This case has been referred as
the ‘diesel dupe’ (Richardson, Post & Fulk, 2017). It has been found out by the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the cars sold by the Volkswagen has a
defect in the device or the software, which helps to manipulate the performance
testing result of the cars ("Volkswagen Settles Diesel Emissions Lawsuit Right Before
Trial Set To Begin - Slashdot", 2018). This German car giant has been found cheating
with the emission test in USA. The main objective of this paper is to identify the
unethical acts done by the Volkswagen in the diesel emission case and to justify the
reason of mentioning those acts as unethical with the help of three classical theories in
ethics. Primary recommendations are made on the basis of the findings from the
analysis of the Volkswagen case.
What are the facts?
The Volkswagen is accused of implementing a software device in the
cars that is helping to manipulate the test results of the cars ("Volkswagen
Settles Diesel Emissions Lawsuit Right Before Trial Set To Begin - Slashdot",
2018). This software can sense the test scenarios. In case, when the cars are
being tested under controlled laboratory conditions, that software device puts
the cars in a safety mode, which make sthe cars to perform within the normal
power and performance (Wilburn & Wilburn,2016). The change of mode is
done by the software when the cars are on the road. This results the engines to
those cars to emit the nitrogen oxide above the limit permitted in USA.

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What are the issues?
The issues with the Volkswagen diesel emission case is that the company is
using the two different modes to manipulate the emission test. During the test the cars
are operated in the safe mode. During the commercial use the cars are operated which
causes the excessive emission of the nitrogen oxide.
Another ethical issue regrading this problem is that this automobile company is using
the software device to manipulate the test result. This can be considered as the misuse
of the technology
Who is affected?
The cars launched by the Volkswagen are emitting the nitrogen oxide in an
excessive limit. This causes air pollution. The pollution in air is affecting the people.
This German car company is misusing the technology. This action is hampering the
good will of the technology. . The overall impact of the for the company after this
news is negative. It can be said the unethical practice of the company has affected
the goodwill of the company.
This leads to ETHICS ANALYSIS:
What are the ethical issues and implications?
The Volkswagen case study can be evaluated under these four theories.
Utilitarianism: Utilitarianism is an ethical theory. According to this theory, the action
is preferable to adopt if the result of the action causes the benefit of the majority of
the people (Van Riel,2016). In the Volkswagen case, the manipulation of the testing
result is unethical as it works only for the favour of that particular automobile
company (Richardson, Post & Fulk, 2017). The manipulation by the software device
causes the emission of the nitrogen oxide higher than the permitted limit. This causes

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the air pollution which is harmful for all the people. The company is gaining the profit
by doing harm to the most of the people.
Deontology: Deontology states the judgement of the an action based on the moral and
ethical attributes present in the action. In this case , the action taken by the
Volkswagen is unethical for the following reason-
The manipulation of the testing result is not an ethical action. The organization tried
to violate the rules and regulations of manufacturing the car by the manipulation of
result with the software device.
The nitrogen oxide limit is much higher than the desired level. The Volkswagen did
not maintain sustainability in the environment while developing a product
(Saha,2015). The organization is aware of this fact and misused the technology to
hide the truth. This action is unethical.
Virtue: According to this ethical theory, the people or entity should make right
decision in case of ethical dilemma. The right choice should be ethical in nature. The
main aim of the Volkswagen was to increase the performance and the speed of the
cars. In order to this they uses the engines that emit nitrogen dioxide higher than the
permitted level (Saha,2015). The decision made by the organization is not right and
ethical. In order to hide the flaw in the system, it uses the software device to
manipulate the result of the performance test (Kruger,2017). This action is not
considered as an ethical action.
Contract: Social contract theory says that the people should live together in then
society and should be agreed upon the ethical acts in the society (Hermans & da Cruz
Caria,2016). In the case of Volkswagen diesel emission , the unethical act is
disapproved by the society as it is hampering the moral and environmental
sustainability.

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What can be done about it?
There are certain recommendations those can be made from the
analysis of the case on the basis of the four ethical theories. In this article
Volkswagen case is taken as references to show the ethical problems in the
business (Barrett et al.,2015). However, the case does not give us some
solutions or recommendations to dissolve the problems related to the ethical
dilemma. However, from the analysis of the case and based on the four ethical
theories some of the recommendations can be made (Vyas Tippabhotla, 2016).
What options are there?
 The organizations should maintain a clear policy that will promote the
transparency in their services (Hermans & da Cruz Caria,2016). The steps
taken by the Volkswagen in order to increase the service of the product was
unethical as it did not promote the sustainability and the manipulation of the
result is not desirable from the well known automobile company like
Volkswagen (Richardson, Post & Fulk, 2017). This action damages the good
will of the brand.
 The administration should take significant steps in order to eliminate these
unethical practices of the organization (Raman, Garg & Thapliyal, 2017).
Certain policies and regulations should be made in order to control the
unethical practices (Hermans & da Cruz Caria,2016). Currently there are no
procedures those can be taken if it is found out that an organization is taking
the unethical way to do the business.
 People should be aware about the steps and ways taken by the organizations
for doing the business (Vyas Tippabhotla, 2016). The consumer should not
judge the product or services of the organization only on the basis of the
performance of the product, they should also consider the other factors like

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maintaining the sustainability of the environment while the development of the
product.
 The organizations should not take unethical practices in order to improvise
their products.
 The checking in the laboratory should be done in more effective way so that
nay unethical practices can get noticed at the first stage of the examination.
Which option is best – and why?
The continuous monitoring of the activities of the automobile companies are
needed to be done by the centralized authority.
This option can be helpful as it will help to generate the regulations which can be
followed by all the automobile companies.

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References
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permissible?.
Kruger, W. H. (2017). Ethical decision making processes. Healthcare Ethics: For Healthcare
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Raman, G. V., Garg, S., & Thapliyal, S. (2017). Integrative Live Case: A Contemporary
Business Ethics Pedagogy. Journal of Business Ethics, 1-24.
Richardson, R. E., Post, K., & Fulk, H. K. (2017). From Peanuts to Prison: Applying Ethical
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Van Riel, R. (2016). Enhancing Beyond What Ought to be the Case‐A Conceptual
Clarification. Bioethics, 30(6), 384-388.
Volkswagen Settles Diesel Emissions Lawsuit Right Before Trial Set To Begin -
Slashdot. (2018). Retrieved from
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/18/02/26/223205/volkswagen-settles-diesel-
emissions-lawsuit-right-before-trial-set-to-begin
Vyas Tippabhotla, V. K. (2016). Corporate and social responsibility. The case of Volkswagen.
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