Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Tina Prouty
EE 394
5 May 2017
Ethics in Engineering
Volkswagen was a respected name in the automobile industry up until
recently, when they were caught for cheating emission detector tests. These tests
determined how much carbon monoxide was released into the air, and Volkswagen
tampered with the system so as to give much lower results than what they would
have originally received. This case was discussed in the second EE 394 faculty
meeting with Dr. Jones. Our group analyzed the situation and used this example as a
formulate a systematic way of making ethical decisions, and finally applying our
knowledge to the Volkswagen situation in how we would have handled the issue.
As an electrical engineer, our products and services will be used by a wide
range of people. Our actions while dealing with our work can affect their lives in
That is why we have an obligation towards ethical practices. Among our obligations
are the virtue ethics, which are the core underlying ethics that most others are built
off of. The three discussed for our meeting, as well as relating to the case study
were integrity, honesty, and responsibility. In the case of integrity, we all have a
duty to uphold and exercise our morals and values. As engineers, we must be able
to decide between what is right and what is wrong. In the case of Volkswagen, the
company was not able to make a moral decision in choosing to cheat the emission
detectors. Honesty comes in play by being truthful and open. Honesty is the
important in the corporate world, where good client relationships are valuable. In
the case of Volkswagen, they were dishonest to their customers and investors by
lying about their emissions ratings. This came back to bite them when they came
engineers are responsible for our actions and the fulfillment of our duties. We must
adhere to guidelines so that people and property are protected. In the case of
Volkswagen, their line of cars have left a lot of pollution behind, damaging the
the environment in which they live in. As engineers, when we practice in our field,
making, we can always describe the situation using the 5ps of ethics: pressure,
pleasure, power, pride, and priorities. Each of these ps are an indicator of ethical
decision he is making are a result of influences form each category. One must ask
what the decision will compromise. For instance, Volkswagen pressures their
method also just so happens to be more pleasurable in that its easier to do than go
back to the drawing boards to design a better model. The company has prioritized
money over their product and that is the compromise being made. The
consequences of such a decision has cost the company power in the form of
influence and credibility as well as pride in the form of customer perspective of the
company. Most people will think twice or avoid Volkswagen products for quite a
while because the company has obtained a poor reputation. From this we see that
realize that going the extra miles to meet our responsibilities and obligations to our
ethical code would be a much better alternative than the fines and negative public
organization who we trusted can report suspicious activity. Ideally, this person
higher up, whether as an executive or high level manager, we would have put a
stop to cheating the detectors. Instead, we would have focused on our values of
responsibility and integrity to design a better product. Even though the short term
costs would be high, they are only short term compared to the long term costs that
discussions were well facilitated and provided an optimal learning environment for
ethics. During the course of the meeting, we highlighted the importance and our
obligations towards following an ethical code and the consequences of not doing so.
We analyzed the case study with Volkswagen and used this as an opportunity to
apply what we learned through our discussions by observing how ethical codes were
breached and the resulting consequences. In the end, our group walked away with