Utilitarianism And Kant's Ethical Essay: What Is Morally Wrong?

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James Liang has been an engineer for Volkswagen Motor Company since 1983 working as a diesel engineer. Last September, the Environmental Protection Agency made an announcement that exposed VW in their testing of their vehicles by using an illegal software that changed the emissions systems in their vehicles. When the engines were being tested in the government laboratory conditions, the device would control the emissions to show perfect results, but when the car was on the open road, the device turned off and the vehicle emitted harmful gases into the air, including nitrogen oxide. Not only did the vehicles emit nitrogen oxide, but the amount that was being released was around forty percent higher than the legal limit. Earlier in 2014 when …show more content…

Others believe that lying is okay, but only in circumstances where it better to tell a lie to prevent the consequences of the truth. These two views are very good examples of utilitarianism and Kant’s ethical views. Utilitarianism believes that as long as the actions of a person are for the greater good, or, greatest number of greatest amount of happiness is achieved, then the action is morally right. Kant’s theory is the opposite where there are certain types of actions that are never to be permissible (lying, cheating, murder, etc.). Kant believed that the wrongness or rightness of a person’s action does not depend on the consequences but whether they fulfill our duty. A duty is defined as the action that we are obligated to perform out of respect for the moral law. The moral law is the definition of good and evil and is our inner conviction of that we ought to do good. Kantian ethics teaches that the only truly good thing in this world without needing qualification is the good …show more content…

He would start out by saying that since Liang’s intentions were to benefit himself and his company, he did not act on his good will, and did not act according to his duty of respecting the moral law. If everyone in the world did what Liang did, lie and act selfishly, then the world would cease to exist because no one would trust each other and nothing would ever get accomplished, improved, or function as it should. Utilitarian views would see Liang’s actions as morally right since the consequences of his actions provided more pleasure than pain for himself and the company that he represents. When confronted about the issues, and Liang lied to the government, he was doing so to prevent more panic and consequences on himself, while also making the company look better. If he were to tell the truth right away, which is what Kant believes is always the right choice, he probably would have been fired right away and sent to prison for fraudulently tampering with governmental data and breaking the law. Even though these things did end up happening to him eventually, utilitarians would say that since the consequences of lying and creating a device that tampered with the true results of a test made himself and the company look better than they would have if the results showed the truth, the pleasure was more than the pain and therefore was a morally right decision. One could also say

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