Jadie Marshall

ENGR 482-908

Emissions Ethics;
Using Kantian Theories to Analyze Volkswagen Emissions Fraud

James Liang pleaded guilty in September 2016 to conspiracy to defraud the government,
wire fraud, and violation of the Clean Air Act. In late August of this year, he was sentenced to 40
months in prison, two years of supervised release, and a $200,000 fine. Over a period of 10
years, Liang and his team created and implemented a defeat device in seven model years of
Volkswagen diesel vehicles. This device allowed for the vehicle to recognize when it was in the
lab being tested for emissions compliance, and turned on the emissions control system. This
system hindered road performance however, so the software would be disabled under normal
road conditions. Almost 500,000 VW diesel vehicles in the US were fitted with these defeat
devices, which allowed for 40 times the allowed emissions under the Clean Air Act. These
vehicles were marketed as clean diesel and as having environmentally friendly engines. Liang
also met with members of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the California Air
Resource Board (CARB) and withheld the information that those vehicles did not meet
emissions requirements.

In the Kantian ethical model, an action is morally right if the will is perfectly aligned
with duty. He believed that humans are rational beings, and everyone who is rational will act in
precisely the same way in a given situation. Will in this sense is defined as something that only
exists in human beings, and is indicative of our being rational beings. Will is following or acting
on some rule or law. A will is good only if it is one of duty, not out of natural inclinations. The
sense of duty is the idea that a person either does or does not do something only because it is
the right or wrong thing to do. If a person has a reason for his action other than their duty, it is an
immoral action according to Kant.

A maxim is the rule or law that may be acted upon, or a subjective principle that governs
action. These statements are tested using the categorical imperative. This objective
framework seeks to determine the morality of a maxim using practical reason. There are several
steps to determining morality through this method. The first step is to generalize the maxim. This
means taking the rule or law from an I should statement to an everyone should
statement. Then you apply this maxim to each of the following formulations: Universalizability,
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Humanity as an End in Itself, and Law of Autonomy. Universalizability refers to the ability to
apply the maxim to every human being and does not contradict itself or create a state that nobody
deserves. The second, Humanity as an End in Itself, means that a maxim cannot be morally right
if it uses a human life as a means to an end. The final formulation, the Law of Autonomy,
represents human free will. A maxim is morally right only if it would be agreed to be moral by
all (rational) people.

One maxim that can be derived from the Volkswagen case is: It is morally right to
Volkswagen to use a defeat device to circumvent vehicle emissions regulations. This maxim is
taken from Liang and his teams creation and use of a defeat device in six model years of VW
diesel vehicles. Using the categorical imperative, this statement will first need to be generalized:
It is morally right for anyone to use a defeat device to circumvent emissions regulations. Then
the test of Universalizability can be performed. When this maxim is applied universally, it would
render the Clean Air Act useless, as it would be moral to not follow that law. This universal
application would create a contradictory state in those people whose duty it is to regulate
emissions and ensure that vehicle manufacturers follow those regulations. Due to this
contradiction between their given duty and this maxim, the maxim would be determined to be
immoral.

The Law of Autonomy could also be used on this maxim (once again generalized to it is
morally right for anyone to use a defeat device to circumvent vehicle emissions regulations) to
determine its morality. The Law of Autonomy requires for a maxim to be one where everyone
would consider it moral. Obviously, due to the many laws and organizations whose purpose is
the reduction of these emissions, this maxim would not be chosen by all people as moral.
Therefore, this maxim fails both the Universalizability and Law of Autonomy formulations and
is immoral according to the categorical imperative.

Duty is understood in a broader sense in the world outside of Kantian ethics. It

encompasses not only morality of actions, but job requirements, industry standards, and legal
issues. In this case, Liang, as an engineer employed by Volkswagen, had many different duties
outside the most basic Kantian definition. As a Volkswagen employee, Liang had a duty to fulfill
those tasks given to him by his bosses. As an engineering professional, he had a duty to uphold
industry standards and abide by the code of ethics set out for him. As a producer of vehicles in
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the United States, he had a duty to abide by the laws and regulations that the nation has set. In
this case, Liang treated his employee duty as the most important of his many duties. This meant
that he helped create and implement the defeat device, as well as omitting information from
regulatory boards. Those actions contradicted both his engineering professional and U.S. legal
system obligations, as he was breaking both engineering codes of ethics and U.S. laws while
fulfilling his obligations to Volkswagen.

Liangs actions in this case, when analyzed through the Kantian ethical theory, can be
determined to be immoral both using the categorical imperative and examining what his duty
would dictate his actions to be. The maxim created earlier in this paper showed how it is not able
to be applied universally, nor will it by determined to be moral by all people. By failing at least
one of the formulations under the categorical imperative, a maxim fails. This maxim fails two, so
is doubly proven immoral according to this method. In the duties that Liang had to his
employer, profession as a whole, and as a member of a company producing goods for the U.S.,
he failed to act upon those duties from his engineering profession and those set out by the U.S.
legal system. He did not follow codes of ethics that engineers are expected to follow, when he
helped implement the defeat device and omitted information in meetings with regulatory
agencies. He also broke U.S. laws with those actions, and was sentenced by a U.S. court of law
for them.

Works Cited:
Megan Geuss - Aug 25, 2017 10:15 pm UTC. VW engineer sentenced to 40 months in
prison for role in emissions cheating. Ars Technica, 25 Aug. 2017,
arstechnica.com/cars/2017/08/vw-engineer-sentenced-to-40-months-in-prison-for-role-in-
emissions-cheating/. Accessed 24 Sept. 2017.
Megan Geuss - Sep 9, 2016 5:51 pm UTC. Volkswagen engineer pleads guilty in emissions
scandal [Updated]. Ars Technica, 9 Sept. 2016, arstechnica.com/cars/2016/09/volkswagen-
engineer-pleads-guilty-in-emissions-scandal/. Accessed 24 Sept. 2017.
Shepardson, David, and Joseph White. VW engineer sentenced to 40-Month prison term in
diesel case. Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 25 Aug. 2017, www.reuters.com/article/us-
volkswagen-emissions-sentencing/vw-engineer-sentenced-to-40-month-prison-term-in-
diesel-case-
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nt=59a05e9b04d301050bce8161&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter. Accessed
24 Sept. 2017.
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Volkswagen Engineer Pleads Guilty for His Role in Conspiracy to Cheat U.S. Emissions
Tests. The United States Department of Justice, 9 Sept. 2016,
www.justice.gov/opa/pr/volkswagen-engineer-pleads-guilty-his-role-conspiracy-cheat-us-
emissions-tests. Accessed 24 Sept. 2017.
Ethics - Introduction to ethics: Duty-Based ethics. BBC, BBC,
www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/introduction/duty_1.shtml. Accessed 24 Sept. 2017.