Volkswagen Car: Kant Theory And Nicomacean Virtue

Introduction

Over the time, it has been seen that Volkswagen has been dealing with the internal scandal which has dented the integrity of the company. For this, it has been seen that the team tested the different models of the Volkswagen car (VW) where the team tested the different models. The company has been equipped with the different variety of the diesel vehicles where the car manufacturer requires to have the software installed in the car for cleaning any of the diesel exhaust (Griffin et al., 2016). The company made the changes in the software and shut off the normal driving conditions to improve the economy of the fuel and the performance. This led to affecting the diesel cars to release the legal amount of nitrogen oxide in the air with the havoc in the environment. The theories that include are the Kant theory and the Nicomacean Virtue Ethics.

Detailed dilemmas for the case study

The scandal has been about the Environmental Protection Agency where there is a change in the installation in diesel engine that could be for improving the results. The working over the company is for cheating the testing for the emission in US and the CEO also acknowledged the same. They look for putting efforts with reputation and customer satisfaction that is important for bringing the competition with best products. The competition creates the urge with creating the situation without harming the morals and the ethics. It also includes the opportunities to the consumers to have products and the services at the affordable pricing with the quality and creating choice (Oldenkamp et al, 2016). The increased market for the automobile manufacturers need to focus on the improvement of the car quality and then working over providing and increasing the market at the reasonable price. The focus is also on adopting the unethical ways of manufacturing, with emerging out the competition in US. It includes the values where the goal of the company is to increase the shareholder value with the common financial myth. The proof is about working over the scandals that have resulted mainly due to the short-term rewards of gaining market values and then rising over the competition as well (Rhodes, 2016). VW need to focus on the different standards and the policies which could bring a change in the image of the company. For this, they have started working on the “Go Green” initiatives where there are objectives related to working over the cleaning and modifying the mistakes that they have done by making change in the software. Along with this, the focus is on the growing technology and the forms that will remove the ethical dilemma.

Ethical Theories chosen

The theories focus on:

The Kantianism theory which is the moral based ethical perspective focusing over the ethical duties to work over and handling the treating of the people with respect and equally capable living in the autonomous life. For this, the people also work over the rights and the justification with the range and the scope of rights that process for the prioritizing and resolving the conflicts as well. The consumers, stakeholders, employees and the dealers works over the incredibly immoral perspectives where VW has never been able to give the people a proper right to know what needs to be done. The people believe in the facts and the images of the company with major focus on the dishonesty. VW has also kept the customers to buy the cars and the shareholders to buy the company stock with the employees working over the company standards and building up the faulty cars and the car dealers (Strittmatter et al., 2017). The focus is mainly on dealing and working over the sales and the business pursuing without handling the rights for making the decisions.

The Nicomacean Virtue Ethics works over the ethical standards to determine the needs and work over handling and discovering the character traits which are for the good and the full human life. The virtues are based on including the courage, honesty, self-control and the justice, where there is a need to offer a detailed version about the business life to make the distinctions that is more than good and bad at the time of describing the person or the company with the actions (Thiroux et al., 2015). The regards are taken to focus on the will to stand over the right ideas and the actions where VW does not need to exemplify the company intentions with creating and installing the defective software. The virtue of honesty is considered important for the employee’s treatment with the other companies and the customers. The scandal is based on the occurrence where VW is not honest and is working over designing the emission software to test and work with shutting off afterwards to improve the performance of the fuel. The temperance and the self-control is important for the expectations and desires that includes the focus on the unattainable desires with the extent that must deal with meeting the personal goals as well. Hence, there is no company, who lies to the government for the improvement of the business. Along with this, the justice needs to be for working hard and producing the quality products with upholding the business practices as well. VW works on creating the software which did not take time for creating and then make a proper emission system to comply to the regulations of the government. The entire scandal could easily be avoided if it is abided by any of the virtues.

Discussion & Analysis

It is important to focus on the actions by VW where the entire situation is to develop a cleaner version for the diesel engine with the major priorities of the company to focus on the sales rather than the quality of the vehicle. With this, the company has also sacrificed the integrity and the image for the company which needs to be dealt along with handling the decisions for the years to come (Tse et al, 2017). With this, it did not lose its customers and the stakeholders but also the trust of the government and the other investors. VW and its other executives are working over achieving the high routes and now they are trying to focus on regaining the trust of the people. Here, the major cause of the pursuits is related to the concern of air pollution and control of the emission which is important for the environmental improvement. There are other strict laws and regulations which are considered important for maintaining the profit of the company.

Conclusion

The company is currently working over the top-level executives with goal on the attractive, safe and the environmental friendly solutions to compete in the tough market. With this, there are different standards set for the respective classes where the major focus is on striving to the achievement of the goals (Zhang et al., 2016). Along with this, the company has been able to work on creating the different programs for the consumers and following the path of honesty. This will help in gaining the trust of the consumers, stakeholders and the government which involves the detailed reports about the cars and including the tests and the information to verify the data authenticity. Along with this, there is involvement of the different techniques to rectify the situation where the company is working on the buyback program and providing the customers with the free exchange of the vehicle, who bought the vehicle in the time.

References

Griffin, P.A. and Lont, D.H., 2016. Game Changer? The Impact of the VW Emission Cheating Scandal on the Co-Integration of Large Automakers’ Securities.

Oldenkamp, R., van Zelm, R. and Huijbregts, M.A., 2016. Valuing the human health damage caused by the fraud of Volkswagen. Environmental Pollution, 212, pp.121-127.

Rhodes, C., 2016. Democratic business ethics: Volkswagen’s emissions scandal and the disruption of corporate sovereignty. Organization Studies, 37(10), pp.1501-1518.

Strittmatter, A. and Lechner, M., 2017. Sorting on the Used-Car Market After the Volkswagen Emission Scandal.

Thiroux, J. and Krasemann, K., 2015. Ethics: Theory and Practise. 11th ed. Sydney: Pearson Australia, pp.47-48.

Tse, Y.K., Zhang, M., Doherty, B., Chappell, P., Moore, S.R. and Keefe, T., 2017. Exploring the hidden pattern from tweets: Investigation into Volkswagen emissions scandal. In Supply Chain Management in the Big Data Era (pp. 172-198). IGI Global.’

Zhang, B., Veijalainen, J. and Kotkov, D., 2016. Volkswagen Emission Crisis: Managing Stakeholder Relations on the Web. In WEBIST 2016: Proceedings of the 12th International conference on web information systems and technologies. Volume 1, ISBN 978-989-758-186-1. SCITEPRESS.