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Kennedey Reiling
Iowa State University
Fall 2022

Ethics Essay
A code of ethics holds the general public to the same standards when doing high-stakes
jobs. It makes everyone double-check what they are doing and think about things differently.
The code of ethics forces me to think about what I am doing, either in a job or in my day-to-day
life. When faced with an ethical issue, I break it down and truly think about its pros and cons.
You have to weigh both sides of the issue because if you decide about an ethical issue with only
one side in mind, your decision wouldn't be very fair.
In class, I looked more in-depth into the issue with the Amazon Echo. In this specific
ethical issue, the Amazon Echo could have contained very vital information when convicting the
correct criminal. The murder case being discussed had two conflicting alibies. One suspect said
that he went to bed at 1 AM the night the victim was murdered, and the other suspect said he
left the house at 12:30 AM the night the victim was murdered. In this case, the Amazon Echo
would have been useful to confirm or deny one of these alibis’ stories.
Other classmates are looking into issues relating to car manufacturing, like Volkswagen.
Certain Volkswagen cars were not ready to be sold because of the emissions test that they
failed. Volkswagen manufactured a car that produced a large amount of nitrogen oxide
emissions, which was against the code. Volkswagen hid the emissions test results when they
went to sell this car to the public, which created a lot of other issues.
Volkswagen was one of many car companies that ran into ethical dilemmas. Ford had a
major issue when creating the Pinto. The Pinto was created to make a subcompact vehicle that
was light and cheap to produce. With this as its criteria, the Pinto ran into problems. Primarily,
the Ford Pinto's problem centered around the location of the fuel tank and how the little space
for the fuel tank would function in a collision. The Pinto had many engines start on fire because
of these problems. There needed to be more space for the fuel tank to function properly
because it was common for it to get punctured in the event of a collision. Before Ford started
selling this car to the public, the Pinto was put through a large number of collision tests, and in
these tests, it was discovered that the fuel tank was not in a functional location. Despite this,
Ford ignored these problems and still sold the car.
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My classmates and I looked at different topics, but we typically agreed when responding
to each other's posts. In my case study, I concluded that Amazon did the ethical thing by not
disclosing this information to the police. However, in other cases, I could see the major benefit
of using the evidence the Echo contained to help arrest the correct suspect. I understand it
could go against the Fidelity Code, but most customers would understand the service of
disclosing this evidence from that night to the police. My classmates also agreed with my stance
on this topic. They also said Amazon did the right thing by not giving up this information to the
authorities. As a group, we all said there were certain situations in which Amazon should be
allowed to give out this information to the police. However, in this specific case, there was no
need to divulge this information based on the prior evidence.
On the Volkswagen ethical issue, once again, we agreed on the outcome. We thought
Volkswagen was wrong for producing a car, knowing it did not pass the emission test.
Volkswagen lied to the public and created a product that was harmful to the earth and the
people using it.
The Ford Pinto showed my group how far some companies would go to make money.
Ford’s goal was to merely create a car that was cheap to produce, no matter the consequences.
Because of this greedy goal, Ford knew that their car would have fatal defects when used in a
public setting, and they still pushed to sell it. If Ford had spent the time and money to fix the
issue before releasing the Pinto to the public, it would have saved them a lot of money in
lawsuits. Instead, Ford had to pay a lot more to fix the defects they knowingly allowed.
When looking at the Amazon Echo issue, we all can recognize that three main virtue
ethics were addressed: fidelity, responsibility, and integrity. In The Virtue of Ethics, fidelity is
described as “faithfulness to yourself, your family, the public, your employer, your clients, and
your procession” (Brant, et al., 2020). Fidelity was a very important virtue in this case study
because Amazon had to determine whether to be unfaithful to their customers by turning over
the records from the Echo. Responsibility was another virtue that played a critical part in this
case study. Responsibility is having “accountability, trustworthiness, dependability, reliability, and
recognizing a personal and moral obligation to act for the good of others” (Brant, et al., 2020).
Amazon needed to think about its relationship with its clients; if it gave this information over to
the police, would it lose the trust that they have built with its clients? How did they look to their
clients because they were unwilling to give out the information to help the authorities? All of
these questions are crucial to think about in this case study. Finally, integrity is an important
virtue in this study. Integrity is the “thought of moral uprightness and practicing good ethical
judgment” (Brant, et al., 2020). Integrity is one of the most important values Amazon needed to
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think about. Amazon had to decide if its decision would be the right one. Their decision
impacted the way people viewed the company, and it was solely dependent on what they chose
to do. In this case study, I could see why “honesty” could be argued to be a relevant virtue, but I
believe it would have been more relevant if Amazon had decided to give over the information to
the police. If Amazon had given the information to the police, they would have been more
honest and shown there was nothing to hide because all the information would have been made
available.
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Work Cited

Brant, J.D., P.E., W. A. (B. (2020). The Right Choice: Applying Ethics to Engineering.
PDHonline.com. Retrieved December 10, 2022, from
https://pdhonline.com/courses/r115/r115content.pdf