Qibai Zheng

11/19/2015
Ethics Essay
After attending the large group meeting along with faculty mentors, I learned
something about ethics from the case studies. I think the purpose of having a Code of
Ethics is to make engineers who like us become integrity, honesty, fidelity, charity,
responsibility and self-discipline. It can improve the understanding of technology and
maintain the technical competence.
I would like to share an experience when I faced with an ethical situation. I think
it is so common for children lying to their parents when they got a worse grade of
midterm or final in middle school or high school. Standing on the parents side, they
have the right to know their childrens grade, they really want to understand how does
their children did in school. But on the other hand, for children, if they got a good
grade, they will so excited to share it with parents, but if they had a terrible score, they
would prefer to hide or lie to parents. When I was in middle school, I got a terrible
grade after a midterm. Teacher asked us to bring it back to get a signature of parents
to make sure parents know the grade. But when I back to home, I tried to find my
parents signature and want to mimic it. Because I dont want my parents know my
score, otherwise they will blame me. Then I swear to myself that I would study hard
to get a good grade next time and show it to them. This was a white lie for my
parents.
The case study that we discussed in our small group is the Volkswagen use
software to cheat in emission test. The first thing that need to mention is Volkswagen
cheat in a test. That is a big problem in ethics. The second thing is the reason why
Volkswagen want to use the software to pass the emission test is they are not

confident with their product. This is a performance of irresponsibility. Because

emission is a serious problem for the world. They let the unqualified products sell in
the market and that will increase the emission. This action is loss of ethics. After we
discussed, we think Volkswagen has many ways to solve this problem rather than use
the cheating method to get advantages. They can improve their technology to decrease
the emission to pass the test.
The three virtues that I feel are most related to our case study are honesty,
responsibility and self-discipline. First of all, honesty is comprised of truthfulness,
fairness, sincerity and openness. Volkswagen using the unfair method to obtain the
advantages

obey

the

honesty.

Secondly,

responsibility

is

accountability,

trustworthiness, dependability reliability and recognizing a person and moral

obligation to act for the good of others. Volkswagen sell unqualified product which
may increase the emission to the market. That is an action of irresponsibility for the
world, because it may increase emission and then cause greenhouse effect. Third, the
employees in Volkswagen are self-discipline. They want to get more profit, and let
unqualified product to be sold. It obeys the principle of self-discipline. The reason
why I didnt take the other three are not revealed that Volkswagen did well in this
three virtues, it just because the three virtues can reveal the problem of Volkswagen
directly.