Landon Woerdeman

Ethics Essay
Ethics, a term almost everyone is familiar with, but a term that is
broken by almost all people at some point in their lives. Ethics are a code of
living that society has encouraged upon its members that govern the lines
between right and wrong. The purpose to these virtues, or ethics, is so that a
societys members would be well-mannered individuals who are benefitting
society and not harming it. Although there are universal ethics, some people
have their own ethics as well. For example, when I am faced with a situation I
tend to rely on Christian ethics since I am a Christian. One situation that
came up this semester was when a friend had wronged me. In this scenario, I
had two options. One would be to have ignored the friend and to have let
him come to me to make things right. However, I did not do this, and instead
I humbled myself and approached him with forgiveness and an
understanding of how I contributed to the problem as well. In this situation,
my ethics had governed my response to my friend, and a situation that could
have gone much worse was resolved in a friendly way.
In our discussion group, we talked about the Volkswagen emissions
tests. In this case study, we found that Volkswagen had cheated emissions
tests by writing software that reduced the amount of pollution that its
emissions were giving off. When confronted about this activity, the
management of Volkswagen said they knew nothing of it. Either way,
whether or not they knew, over 11 million vehicles were outfitted with these
faulty regulators. Our group discussed the implications of VWs actions and
concluded that what VW did and their response to the situation was
unethical. We determined that since Volkswagen cheated their tests they
should be properly punished, and that upper management should have taken
the blame instead of trying to pin it on those below them since they are the
figurehead of the company.
The first virtue that Volkswagen failed was the principle of honesty. It
wasnt until a committee investigated the emissions tests that VW owned up
to what they did. It would have been a different story if VW had recognized
the problem and began fixing it before they were investigated. Instead, they
covered it up for as long as they could, then they self-reported the incident
after realizing how big of a mistake it was. The second ethic that Volkswagen
forgot about is responsibility. After having been investigated, VW
management looked to pin the blame on their workers rather than accepting
the responsibility for themselves. They did not want to be accountable for
their employees mistakes and were not trustworthy. Finally, the Volkswagen
case study also demonstrated the virtue of self-discipline, more clearly the
lack of it. Instead of immediately offering to fix the problem, VW waited until
the investigation had concluded to begin fixing the cars, and by that time
over 11 million cars had been equipped with the cheating regulator. While
some of the other virtues may have applied to the situation, I chose these

because they seemed to be the most relevant to the case. One virtue that
probably could not be applied to the situation was fidelity since there was no
question of loyalty in this study. Another that might not apply would be the
charity virtue since this was not about VW giving away their money to good
causes. I think one virtue that was not on the list that could be applied is the
principle of obedience to authority. If VW had obeyed and followed the
emissions laws in the first place, they would not have cheated the tests and
destroyed the environment with pollution.