One of the largest car manufacturers in the world deliberately deceived its customers and the EPA. That means that a group of high-level managers, engineers, executive officers, etc., sat down in conference and decided to install a device on millions of cars that "tricked" emission standard tests.
Quoting from a BBC report of October 7, 2015:
It's still unclear who knew what and when, although VW must have had a chain of management command that approved fitting cheating devices to its engines....
"Cheating devices."
Conscious, willful deception at a very high level in world commerce.
I taught an ethics class briefly at a community college. I learned that, in past decades, ethics was the premier philosophy course, required of all seniors, esteemed as the crown of legitimate education.
When I was teaching it, it had fallen to the status of one among a number of electives.
Ethics is concerned with distinguishing between good and evil in the world, between right and wrong human actions, and between virtuous and non-virtuous characteristics of people. Our higher educational system has evolved [or devolved] from all major universities being seminaries, to secular education with strong emphasis on ethics, to the study of ethics as a weak, second-rate, banal discussion of how anyone determines right or wrong--or even if there is such thing as right and wrong. ["OK, give me my degree so I can start making money to pay off my student loans."]
It concerns me that we might become desensitized to deceit and greed. I hope it doesn't become the status quo.
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