Discuss about the Marketing Ethics for Theory and Pedagogy Method.
The primary objective of this paper is to utilize ethical theories in analyzing the concept of autonomous cars, especially if any such vehicle crashes down, causing fatal accidents. The entire discussion would be based on an incident reported by Corinne Iozzio in the online edition of the Scientific American.
Autonomous cars. Autonomous cars or self-driving cars are defined be defined as intelligent vehicles capable of monitoring their environment by themselves and navigating on the roadways without any human intervention (Gerla et al. 2014). Experts in the domain of automobile engineering are of the opinion that the growing interest of the car manufacturing organizations in the production of autonomous or self-driving cars is primarily because of the fact that such cars are theoretically much more reliable than those driven by human beings (Le Vine, Zolfaghari & Polak, 2015). The confidence on the capability of such automated vehicles is primarily due to the fact that these vehicles utilize a wide range of technical tools like that of lidar, radar, computer vision, and GP for ensuring safe navigation.
The incident. On May 1, 2016, the Scientific American published an article by Corinne Iozzio, which reports a crash caused by one of Google’s self driven cars, a “modified Lexus SUV.” The accident occurred on 14th of February of the same year, at Mountain View in Calif. The car had detected certain obstacles in its own path and had thus steered into the central lane to avoid the same. Within a few seconds, the car rammed into the side of a bus (Iozzio, 2017). According to the information logs available from the ‘test driver,’ the intelligence systems included in the car had indeed noticed the presence of the car but had considered that it was the duty of the bus driver to slow down and let the car pass. The writer has also pointed out the fact that although this was the first case of Google’s self-driving cars crashing due to non-human errors, these vehicles have experienced several cases resulting from harsh driving of other drivers in the past. Such being the circumstances, the following sections of the paper would be utilized for analyzing the concept of self-driven cars from the perspective of ethical theories, so as to determine who should be held responsible in case an autonomous car crashes.
The Utilitarian theory. The first theory that we would consider for discussing the ethical aspects of the concept of ‘ autonomous cars’ is that of Utilitarianism. Researchers Kahane et al. (2015) are of the opinion that Utilitarianism is one of those concepts of ethics that justifies any action based on the ‘utility’ of the same.
On the other hand, researchers Chiu et al. (2014) are of the opinion that the utility of any concept or product can be defined in terms of several aspects, the most common one being the welfare of all living beings of the planet. Again, Jeremy Bentham, who is often considered as the founder of the Utilitarian theory has a different definition of ‘ utility’ : he considers the ‘utility’ of any product or process to be simply the sum of advantages available from the same minus the ‘displeasures’ caused during the utilization of the same (Schneider, 2014).
When the concept of ‘utility’ as defined by Jeremy Bentham is considered, we find that advantages available from the concept of self-driving cars are essentially manifold: the accuracy and precision mastered by such cars can be utilized to navigate safely through busy roadways without any human intervention. In fact, such vehicles can be successfully utilized for highlighting the quality of lives of people having physical and/ or mental disabilities by reducing their dependencies on others. Such vehicles are capable of taking over the control of driving from human drivers under drastic situations, thus avoiding fatal errors. However, the sole disadvantage lies in the fact that any glitch in the intelligence system of the vehicles would invariably result in fatal accidents.
The point that should be considered in this situation that the car owner would have no option of taking over the control of the vehicle in case the same malfunctions. Thus, the sole disadvantage of the entire process would essentially rise from defective machinery or software systems provided by the manufacturing company. Thus, the responsibility of such car crashes should essentially be taken by the automobile organizations producing the same.
The Deontological theory. Deontology is that particular ethical concept that takes into consideration the rules and regulations associated with any action before judging the morality of the same (Kehoe, 2015).
The writer of the article, Corinne Iozzio, has pointed out the fact that the Obama administration has already started working on developing national regulation dictating the production and utilization of such autonomous cars. However, the author has also commented that from the ethico-legal perspective, the automobile manufacturers are solely responsible for the shift in the role of ‘drivers’ and would thus bear the responsibility of any crashes caused by intelligent driving systems installed in autonomous cars.
It has already been established that under no circumstances can the self-driving car owners be held responsible for any crashes. Thus, from the perspective of Deontological theory, the idea of the car manufacturers taking responsibilities of crashes sounds both logical and ethical.
The Virtue theory. Researcher Hursthouse (2013) defines the term virtue as those positive characteristics the possession of which makes a human being to be considered as a ‘good person.’ Virtue ethics is that particular ethical theory that emphasizes on the virtue and/or characteristics of any entity, before making judgments regarding the actions taken by the same (Youpa, 2013).
The positive and negative characteristics of the Autonomous cars have already been identified in the preceding sections of the paper. However, the point that has to be considered in this context is that both the positive and negative characters of self-driven cars are determined by the hardware and software technologies utilized by the manufacturing organizations. Since the characteristics of the self-driven car are determined by the manufacturer’s end, malfunctioning of the same should be considered as their sole responsibility.
Thus, even when the Virtue theory is considered, the responsibility of crashes caused by self-driving cars should be borne entirely by the manufacturing organization.
The Contract theory. The social contract theory, according to Skyrms (2014), is that particular ethical theory that considers the moral obligations of two parties to be dependent on the agreement or contract that exist in between them.
The automobile manufacturing organizations that produce and market self-driven car would indeed have sales agreements with their customers, thus guaranteeing the delivery of quality products. Now, it has already been disused that autonomous vehicles are installed with the state of the art technologies that assist them in monitoring their surroundings. On the other hand, these vehicles rely solely on the artificial intelligence software installed in them so as to make navigational decisions. Thus, it can be easily comprehended that the sales agreement made by the car manufacturers includes the guarantee that the said components would function properly.
Therefore, the cases of crashing of such cars due to non-human errors should be considered as the responsibilities of the car manufacturers as such instances can be directly associated with the malfunctioning of technical components.
In the preceding section of the paper, detailed discussions have been presented regarding the technological aspects of self-driving cars, so as to highlight the functionalities and utilities of such vehicles. These discussions have been followed by the analysis of the incident being considered and the 4 most prominent ethical theories of Utilitarianism, Deontology, Contract Theory and Virtue theory has been utilized in the sane. It is worth mentioning that the individual application of the said theories on the reported incident have to lead us to believe that the car manufacturing organizations should take the blame when nonhuman errors lead to the crashing of self –driving cars.
Chiu, C. M., Wang, E. T., Fang, Y. H., & Huang, H. Y. (2014). Understanding customers’ repeat purchase intentions in B2C e?commerce: the roles of utilitarian value, hedonic value and perceived risk. Information Systems Journal, 24(1), 85-114.
Gerla, M., Lee, E. K., Pau, G., & Lee, U. (2014, March). Internet of vehicles: From intelligent grid to autonomous cars and vehicular clouds. In Internet of Things (WF-IoT), 2014 IEEE World Forum on (pp. 241-246). IEEE.
Hursthouse, R. (2013). Normative virtue ethics. ETHICA, 645.
Iozzio, C. (2017). Who’s Responsible When a Car Controls the Wheel?. Retrieved 19 January 2017, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/who-s-responsible-when-a-self-driving-car-crashes
Kahane, G., Everett, J. A., Earp, B. D., Farias, M., & Savulescu, J. (2015). ‘Utilitarian’judgments in sacrificial moral dilemmas do not reflect impartial concern for the greater good. Cognition, 134, 193-209.
Kehoe, W. J. (2015). Marketing Ethics: Theory and Pedagogy. In Proceedings of the 1982 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 261-264). Springer International Publishing.
Le Vine, S., Zolfaghari, A., & Polak, J. (2015). Autonomous cars: The tension between occupant experience and intersection capacity. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 52, 1-14.
Lin, P. (2016). Why ethics matters for autonomous cars. In Autonomous Driving (pp. 69-85). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Schneider, R. C. (2014). Utilitarian Moral Theory: Parallels between a Sport Organization and Society.
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Skyrms, B. (2014). Evolution of the social contract. Cambridge University Press.
Slattery, K. L. (2014). Ethics and journalistic standards: An examination of the relationship between journalism codes of ethics and deontological moral theory. The ethics of journalism: Individual, institutional and cultural influences, 147-164.
Youpa, A. (2013). Descartes’s Virtue Theory. Essays in Philosophy, 14(2), 4.
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