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60 people was just an estimate from statistics, and NOx emissions are not a new problem either.

by yuhong 10y ago

galdosdi 10y ago
That it's an estimate doesn't change the basic moral argument unless you're suggesting it's quite likely the estimate could be so off that the actual amount is 0. If it's even 1, and the outcome could reasonably have been predicted, the argument holds.
btilly 10y ago
NOx emissions are not a new problem, and our ability to estimate its effects are pretty good. The exact number is an estimate, but the real number is very unlikely to be off by more than a factor of 2. If you randomly shoot 30 people, what is the appropriate penalty? What if you were shooting blindfolded and couldn't see when or who you killed? What if you were being paid money to take shots? That is an exact analogy to what Volkswagon did when it sold cars that exceeded regulatory limits.
- yuhong 10y ago
  I mean in the sense that the emissions before the EPA was created was far worse.
  - chc 10y ago
    Isn't this like saying that shooting deaths were a much bigger problem in the Old West, so it's not fair to jail someone just for shooting a few people? The crucial fact is that you're breaking the law and killing people in the process, not that you would have killed even more people if the law hadn't been there.
  - Mtinie 10y ago
    Ok, so in your example 120 people were killed by emissions vs. the ~60 that died today. That's an improvement for everyone except for the people who still died. Arguing that killing less people than could have in the past doesn't feel like it's the best way to frame a position, unless the new number is zero.
  - x0x0 10y ago
    And murders were worse 10 years ago too. How on earth is that related to giving someone a pass for a murder now?
    - Udik 10y ago
      The law does give a pass for murder now. Just half the number it gave until a few years ago. So it's really hard to argue that a company in this situation is morally responsible for the murder of some number of people. As that would be equivalent to saying that the government has decided how many people you can murder, perfectly legally, every year. So unless you accept this, it's not murder.
  - btilly 10y ago
    Yes. See https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/progress-cleaning-air-and-improving-peoples-health https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/progress-cleaning... for estimates of things like how many hundreds of thousands of deaths per year worse we used to be. But that is irrelevant to the question of what the consequences of Volkswagen's actions were. That's like justifying calling a black person a nigger on the basis of that being better than the lynchings that they used to have to put up with.

60 people was just an estimate from statistics, and NOx emissions are not a new problem either.

by yuhong 10y ago

60 people was just an estimate from statistics, and NOx emissions are not a new problem either.

That it's an estimate doesn't change the basic moral argument unless you're suggesting it's quite likely the estimate could be so off that the actual amount is 0. If it's even 1, and the outcome could reasonably have been predicted, the argument holds.

btilly 10y ago

NOx emissions are not a new problem, and our ability to estimate its effects are pretty good. The exact number is an estimate, but the real number is very unlikely to be off by more than a factor of 2. If you randomly shoot 30 people, what is the appropriate penalty? What if you were shooting blindfolded and couldn't see when or who you killed? What if you were being paid money to take shots? That is an exact analogy to what Volkswagon did when it sold cars that exceeded regulatory limits.

yuhong 10y ago
I mean in the sense that the emissions before the EPA was created was far worse.
- chc 10y ago
  Isn't this like saying that shooting deaths were a much bigger problem in the Old West, so it's not fair to jail someone just for shooting a few people? The crucial fact is that you're breaking the law and killing people in the process, not that you would have killed even more people if the law hadn't been there.
- Mtinie 10y ago
  Ok, so in your example 120 people were killed by emissions vs. the ~60 that died today. That's an improvement for everyone except for the people who still died. Arguing that killing less people than could have in the past doesn't feel like it's the best way to frame a position, unless the new number is zero.
- x0x0 10y ago
  And murders were worse 10 years ago too. How on earth is that related to giving someone a pass for a murder now?
  - Udik 10y ago
    The law does give a pass for murder now. Just half the number it gave until a few years ago. So it's really hard to argue that a company in this situation is morally responsible for the murder of some number of people. As that would be equivalent to saying that the government has decided how many people you can murder, perfectly legally, every year. So unless you accept this, it's not murder.
- btilly 10y ago
  Yes. See https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/progress-cleaning-air-and-improving-peoples-health https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/progress-cleaning... for estimates of things like how many hundreds of thousands of deaths per year worse we used to be. But that is irrelevant to the question of what the consequences of Volkswagen's actions were. That's like justifying calling a black person a nigger on the basis of that being better than the lynchings that they used to have to put up with.