Uber is a transportation company that was created in 2009. It is a new way for people in cities to have transportation by connecting customers directly to drivers through an app (“About Uber”). Uber divers are paid through a surge pricing model. Surge pricing occurs when the demand for drivers rises, causing the price for the drivers to rise accordingly. Uber claims surge pricing helps to motivate drivers to work in bad conditions. Sometimes New Yorkers are expected to pay as much as eight times the base line price for a driver when demand increases, such as during bad weather or holidays (Inae Oh). This tactic became very controversial when Uber’s surge pricing went into effect during Hurricane Sandy in October of 2012. As people were trying …show more content…
According to this theory, there are no absolute right or wrong answers to ethical questions, only standards set in each and every unique culture. So one person cannot judge another person’s actions as morally wrong if those actions are acceptable to the other person’s culture. Within this theory, decisions about right and wrong only depend on the social norms in a culture, and these social norms cannot be imposed on people from outside one’s culture. No culture can be superior to another culture, and no culture’s practices can be judged immoral by comparison to other …show more content…
But there seem to be a few different sets of norms that could have influenced this decision. First, there is the expectation that during a national emergency, people would come together and help each other as much as possible. This would have influenced Uber to keep the prices low during the hurricane. But another expectation prevalent in the US is that businesses are cutthroat and often take advantage of their customers to maximize their profits. So if Uber were influenced by this expectation, we would see the prices to continue to rise, even during a hurricane. So Cultural Relativism could have a number of outcomes for Uber’s decision. The second ethical system to examine is Ethical Egoism. In this theory, the main influence for decisions is to create a better life for oneself. Ethical Egoism promotes selfish behavior and rejects altruism because it claims altruism is the opposite of the natural order of things. According to this theory, altruism provides help to those who don’t deserve it, and it can create a dependence on others. But if people pursue their own interests and focus on bettering themselves, society will benefit as a
Cultural Relativism is a moral theory which states that due to the vastly differing cultural norms held by people across the globe, morality cannot be judged objectively, and must instead be judged subjectively through the lense of an individuals own cultural norms. Because it is obvious that there are many different beliefs that are held by people around the world, cultural relativism can easily be seen as answer to the question of how to accurately and fairly judge the cultural morality of others, by not doing so at all. However Cultural Relativism is a lazy way to avoid the difficult task of evaluating one’s own values and weighing them against the values of other cultures. Many Cultural Relativist might abstain from making moral judgments about other cultures based on an assumed lack of understanding of other cultures, but I would argue that they do no favors to the cultures of others by assuming them to be so firmly ‘other’ that they would be unable to comprehend their moral decisions. Cultural Relativism as a moral theory fails to allow for critical thoughts on the nature of morality and encourages the stagnation
Altruism regards the individual life as something one may be required to sacrifice for the sake of
There are a lot of positive reports about the benefits working for Uber has compared to working for a taxi company. Cab drivers have to pay exponential rates to lease cabs; Uber drivers have the freedom to drive cars they own. Many former cab drivers have switched to Uber due to the personal financial benefits (“Uber isn’t Just Good For…”). There have been some reports of inappropriate
Uber needs to focus its entry into densely populated areas of Canada lacking a well developed public transit system. These opportunities can easily be taken advantage of if Uber was to further develop its existing strengths.
Monopolistic competition was also being undertaking in the circumstance of competing against taxi cab. Uber's lower the price for each rides so that drivers would gain more passenger to which it would have an increase in demand. Allowing more consumers to use uber than taxi cab. That's one of the biggest advantage uber has and still the reason why is not yet
Before a case can be made for the causes of altruism, altruism itself must first be defined. Most leading psychologists agree that the definition of altruism is “a motivational state with the ultimate goal of increasing another’s welfare.” (Batson, 1981). The only way for a person to be truly altruistic is if their intent is to help the community before themselves. However, the only thing humans can see is the actions themselves, and so, selfish intent may seem the same as altruistic intent. Alas, the only way that altruism can be judged is if the intent is obvious. Through that, we must conclude that only certain intents can be defined as altruistic, and as intent stemming from nature benefits the group while other intent benefits yourself, only actions caused by nature are truly altruistic.
One example found of assault by an uber driver, was the assault on a pregnant passenger of all people. The driver got into a slight argument with the two women passengers, and once they got out of the car, the uber driver followed and assaulted the woman. The police report states: “Rafeeqah Abdur-Rahman told Graham her friend was six weeks pregnant, police said. That’s when Graham started kicking the 22-year-old in the stomach” (Eldridge). That is just one of the 57 alleged assaults by an Uber or Lyft driver. As mentioned before, sexual assault is a big problem for uber, a specific assault happened to a Boston College student. This student was picked up by an Uber using a fake name. He drove her to a different location from what she had requested, sexually assaulted her, and then drove her back to campus (CBS Boston). This man driving for uber was arraigned on three counts of rape. Overall, Uber’s negligence in their hiring process and background checks as well as their lack of overall care for their customer’s safety is a big problem. Fortunately, Taxi Cab companies in general do not have nearly as many of these
For many years now, people have always wondered what ethical principle is the right one to follow. These individuals are all seeking the answer to the question that the ethical principles are trying to clarify: What defines moral behavior? The Divine Command Theory and the theories of cultural relativism are two principles of many out there that provide us with explanations on what our ethical decisions are based on and what we consider to be our moral compass in life. Even though these two theories make well-supported arguments on why they are the right principle to follow, it is hard to pinpoint which one should guide our choices because of the wide array of ethical systems. Therefore, what is morally right or wrong differs greatly depending
How did Uber and Lyft become more popular in 2016-2017? Because people love the latest and greatest trends once popular. As a result, many of us, especially young people, are unaware of the many reasonable safety standards that these companies are not required to follow, like in-depth background checks, vehicle safety and valid insurance policies. According to an article in Forbes Magazine titled, “Uber's Background Checks Failed to Catch a Murderer and Other Felons, Prosecutors Say”, prosecutors from San Francisco and Los Angeles contends that ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft continue to mislead their customers by selling the notion that the company conduct in-depth background checks on all of their drivers. Despite the fact records show that drivers are intentionally providing false personal information to these companies, hiding incidents of sexual assault, assault, pedophilia, robbery, theft, kidnapping and murder. Recently, both Uber and Lyft settle lawsuits, requiring them to change the wording in their message to customers. Prosecutors maintained that the “gold standard” for criminal background check must include fingerprinting or other biometric identifier; therefore, Uber and Lyft cannot claim “industry-leading”
Every individual is taught what is right and what is wrong from a young age. It becomes innate of people to know how to react in situations of killings, injuries, sicknesses, and more. Humans have naturally developed a sense of morality, the “beliefs about right and wrong actions and good and bad persons or character,” (Vaughn 123). There are general issues such as genocide, which is deemed immoral by all; however, there are other issues as simple as etiquette, which are seen as right by one culture, but wrong and offense by another. Thus, morals and ethics can vary among regions and cultures known as cultural relativism.
one of the major player OLA cabs changed its revenue model. Ola Mini Cabs slashed their prices
Cultural relativism is the philosophical approach which suggests that it is difficult to make assessments and judgments against other cultures. What might be considered as morally right or wrong in one culture can be different from what is accepted in another For example, the Greeks believed it was immoral to eat the dead whereas the Callatians believed it was right to eat the death. Here, eating of the dead is neither wrong nor right. It is simply a matter of opinion. Different cultures follow different moral codes and it varies from one culture to another.
Road pricing-is charging the road users for the costs they impose to others road users or to non-road users
In explaining Cultural Relativism, it is useful to compare and contrast it with Ethical Relativism. Cultural Relativism is a theory about morality focused on the concept that matters of custom and ethics are not universal in nature but rather are culture specific. Each culture evolves its own unique moral code, separate and apart from any other. Ethical Relativism is also a theory of morality with a view of ethics similarly engaged in understanding how morality comes to be culturally defined. However, the formulation is quite different in that from a wide range of human habits, individual opinions drive the culture toward distinguishing normal “good” habits from abnormal “bad” habits.
Uber has a set of clear advantages over mature incumbents. First advantage is higher value for competitive price. Value is comprised of convenience (one tap to require a ride), high service, verified cars and drivers. This is in contrast to taxis that have rude drivers, car issues (AC or payment terminal) and not reliable pickups. The second reason of Uber’s success is low marginal costs, as it does not operates as same as taxi, it does not needs a license that may cost up to 1,000,000$ per car. Also low marginal cost implies fast ability for scaling up the business model. Another reason of success is fleet variety, riders are not obliged to hail same type of sedan anymore as it happened with taxis, now they can choose what type of car they want.