Ceased Citations
Arizona legislators have decided to stop issuing citations to drivers of the online ride share companies, Uber and Lyft as the Super Bowl weekend approaches. The ethical dilemma that emerges is based on previous legal issues that have been raised on the hiring practices, poor enforcement of driver licencing and insurance standards of Uber and Lyft and the lack of safety and concern for patrons using the ride share services. The decision for Arizona legislators to simply eliminate efforts to regulate the drivers during a busy sports event weekend based on the revenue that the services are likely to generate is of great concern.
The state has clearly decided that economics is far more important than the safety of its citizens. According to the Ethical Theory and Business text, the “deontological” ethical approach would be the guiding factor for passing a decision such as this. Kant described a "categorical imperative" where one would make a decision based on the final outcome being of the highest good (27). In other words, the state has decided that the highest good is to make money and the safety of citizen’s takes a back seat.
The state is essentially a business entity in that it must raise revenues in the form of taxes in order to operate effectively and therefore it is in the business of making money during busy weekend sports events and so the state certainly expects to earn a lot of additional revenue from the taxes it will collect from these ride share companies during the busy Super Bowl weekend.
The state should have resolved this incident differently by demanding that the event producers and the NFL contract to private shuttle van and bus line services to allow for alternative transportation services to be available, before, during and after the event. The integrity of the state is in question due to the decision to stop citations that do not take into account the history of the unsafe operating practices and danger they pose to potential patrons.
The “Might makes Right”, adage from the class discussion seems to fit this news story very well in that “Might” in this case is the power of the state and the money making aspect is what has been found to be “Right” over the safety of Arizona citizens. Another ethical approach discussed in class could also be applied to the analysis of this case being that of “Outcome Based ethics”. In this sense the ends of making revenue for the state justifies the means in making the decision to stop citations of these ride share drivers.
At the end of the day patrons will have a choice to make about whether or not they take a ride with an Uber or Lyft car and the state will ultimately make money. The ethical dilemma also must look at the patron as well in that they are part of the puzzle so mitigation of risk must also fall on them. If patrons do not mind and have a relaxed attitude about the issue than maybe it is not really an issue at all. The ethical approach of "emotive reasoning" comes into play as discussed in our class lecture. Moral relativism is what would drive patrons that know and accept the risk of taking a ride with a driver that was not commercially licensed or insured and according to the text Ethical Theory and Business, relativism is really an identifier for the times we live in. The postmodern age has garnered a propensity for humankind to question the world and even rebel against culture (27).
Arizona’s decision should actually not be a surprise to anyone with a sense of reason and we shouldn’t be surprised if the state has a change of heart after the game this weekend. The ethical case that could one day emerge whether the state will change its ruling after the Super Bowl weekend was over and would seem to be even more unethical but that would be a different analysis from a future news cycle.
References
Fox News Business (29 January 2015). Retrieved from http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/01/29/arizona-stops-ticketing-uber-lyft-drivers-as-new-governor-legislature-work-on/
Beauchamp, T.L., Bowie N.E., Arnold D.G., (2012). Ethical Theory and Business, 9th Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall
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