Pinto

There are many different cases where people have been critically injured or have died from burn-related injuries from the ruptured the Pino gas tank. This case study specifically discusses the 1978 untimely deaths of Lynn Marie Ulrich, Dana Ulrich, and Judy Ann. Between 1971 and 1978, the Pinto was responsible for a number of fire-related deaths. It was the death of these teenagers that lead brought the controversy of the Ford Pinto’s faulty gas tank placement to a climax resulting in criminal homicide charges for the automaker. Ford’s CEO Henry Ford II and Ford’s new president Lee Iacocca were responsible for the launch of the Ford Pinto. To stay ahead of the growing competition, The Pinto was not to weigh over 2,000 pounds and not costs not to exceed $2,000. Ford officials knew that the Pinto represented a serious fire issue when struck from the rear, but were desperate to expedite the vehicle’s release, the Pintos timing was set just under 25 months. Tooling has already been kicked off, so when crash tests revealed a serious defect in the gas tank, it was too late for any design modifications. The tooling was well underway. Therefore, Ford’s president decided it would be too costly to make changes in the Pinto’s gas tank location pushing ahead with the original design which went unchanged for six years. Any changes to the low-cost Ford Pinto would result in an increased price, thus possibly making it less desirable by small car buyers. Iacocca understood that people shopping for compact cars were watching every dollar, One Ford engineer explained, “the process of elasticity on these subcompacts is extremely tight. You can price yourself right out of the market by adding $25 to the production cost of the model”.

There are a few concerns about harmful behavior of the FMC that should be discussed. A behavior is harmful when it wrongfully sets back the interest of others and has a high risk of harm. Obviously, the gravity of harm in this case is very high being that it is life threatening. Once a consumer has purchased the Pinto and drives it off the lot he is at risk to getting rear ended, and burned to death by a car fire or explosion. Since the weight of this harm is very severe, the low probability of the consumer having an accident doesn’t discount Ford’s unethical behavior. Indeed, driving a Ford Pinto would place a consumer’s life at risk. Also at stake are the interests of Pinto passengers and drivers of other vehicles who certainly are not willing to risk their lives so Ford can make an extra buck. Everyone has an interest in not getting injured or killed. Setting back the interest of consumers isn’t the only thing Ford Motor Company was responsible for.

Ford executives were under a great deal of pressure to produce a smaller, more gas efficient automobile. Japanese and German automobile sales were rapidly increasing. These competitive forces drove Ford’s executive team to respond by rushing the design process of the Ford Pinto. By 1973, the Pinto was well into production when engineers discovered a flaw in the gas tank, which was located just under the rear bumper. They discovered that if the vehicle suffered a rear-end collision over 20 mph, the gas tank could break and spill gasoline into the passenger compartment, potentially resulting in a fire. The remedy for the flaw was a part that cost $11.00 per vehicle. Executives at Ford knew the company had followed all safety standards and regulations. At that time, automobile safety standards only needed gas tanks to withstand a collision under 20 mph. An internal cost-benefit analysis revealed the costs would be substantially higher to fix the design flaw that the costs associated with any potential damages due to collisions and loss of life. The public remained unaware until Mother Jones journalist, Mark Dowie broke the story in 1977. Fueled by the media, what followed was a frenzy of public outcry and court trials.

In May of 1968, the Ford Motor Company, based upon a recommendation by then vice-president Lee Iacocca, decided to introduce a subcompact car and produce it domestically.  In an effort to gain a large market share, the automobile was designed and developed on an accelerated schedule.  During the first few years sales of the Pinto were excellent, but there was trouble on the horizon.

Ford has argued for over three decades that The Ford Motor Company is not at fault, but rather the other motorists who happened to rear end the Pinto drivers. Many accuse Ford of rushing the Pinto into production without proper testing leaving a faulty

In 1968, Ford Motor Company made plans for a car that would be inexpensive, small, and appeal to all car buyers. The planned project was to meet the 2000/2000 rule, meaning that the Pinto could weigh no more than 2,000 pounds, and cost no more than $2,000. This rule was instituted because of the extreme competition from foreign car makers such as Toyota and all of the automotive companies at the time. However, the 2000/2000 rule left designers with limited ability to design a car the way it should be designed. The Pinto was brought into production faster than any other car had ever been produced; twenty

A similar ethical concept to Utilitarianism is that of Rawl’s Theory of Justice. Within his theories he states that for something to be both ethical and just it must not infringe on the basic rights and liberties of a person, nor give advantage to any one group but to all with positions and offers available to all equally. In reference to the Ford Pinto, the second statement is upheld. The Pinto being a relatively cheap car which was often a starter vehicle, and as long as a person had the funds and a driver’s license, they could own the vehicle. So the design process general design itself was both fair and ethical to Rawls when regarding the second of his two theories of justice. The first theory can be up to interpretation. The only rights or liberties that might have been infringed upon are those of safety

They could miss out several tiny details as they were designing the vehicle, blinded by their goal to release the vehicle in their planned time-frame that they ended up producing one that is not safe enough as long as it meets the safety standard. In other words, prior to its release, Pinto was not thoroughly tested and inspected. That is why cost-benefit analysis is also known as risk–benefit analysis as it contains a lot of risks if used in engineering perspective that design a vehicle or machine or anything similar and could cost people’s

Dennis Gioia had taken part in making a decision based off of a cost benefit analysis regarding whether Ford should conduct a recall for the Ford Pinto or should they do nothing. In this situation, Ford's cultural values play a big role on how they approached this issue. The organization beliefs of everyone was to make sure Ford was losing the minimal amount of money regardless if people are in danger or not. The cost benefit analysis indicated that they did not think people's safety was as important as retaining money within the company. The rationalization tactics that was used was social weighting. In Gioia's article, he mentioned that they compared the Pinto to other cars of that class and decided that the Pinto was not in a bad enough

Those cars made after 1973 have to withstand a 30 mph fixed-barrier impact. The Pinto failed to meet both of these standards before release and upon release. Was Ford simply answering a public demand for a small, fuel-efficient, and inexpensive auto? They were yes, however doing so while knowingly endangering lives, is not the correct or ethical way to provide a product that is demanded by the market.

2. Suppose Ford officials were asked to justify their decision. What moral principles do you think they would invoke? Assess Ford’s

Ford wanted the price of the Pinto to be below $2,000 and the vehicle to be less than 2,000 pounds in weight. Fulfilling these benchmarks of profitability for the organization was deemed to be more important than showing concern for customers' lives. The organizational culture at Ford created a sense of tunnel vision, focusing only on numerical goals and figures, rather than encouraged executives to think about the human lives behind the numbers. Apparently, dissent from the 'party line' was not tolerated or encouraged, since no one seemed to strenuously object amongst Ford's upper-level

Even though this was the first criminal case against Ford Motor Company it doesn’t mean these were the first people to lose their lives. There had been hundreds of people who either burned to death or were left scared and disfigured in similar accidents involving the Pinto. Ford Motor Company knowingly sold an unsafe car to their customers and paid out millions to settle law suits for damages out of court. They also spent many more millions lobbying against Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 301. They fought against this standard until they felt it was profitable to make the change to the Pinto design which was determined by their cost-benefit analysis. This to me was not a wise ethical decision as it would eventually ruin the company’s reputation as well as the lives of people involved.

Looking at the Volkswagen case from a Kantian perspective, the actions that James Liang took were immoral. Someone following a Kantian ethics standpoint would have said that it is never okay to unnecessarily harm the environment. A second reason a Kantian probably would not do what Liang did is

Everyone except Ford’s top executives, who in an internal document cited the potential danger. So not only did they know about it, but they calculated that it would be cheaper to pay out possible injury claims then it would be to recall all the vehicles. This ethical dilemma came to a head when three teenage girls were killed in Indiana while in a Ford Pinto. With the bad press and with company officials being indicted with negligence and homicide, Ford was forced to recall all their Pinto vehicles. Ethical issues in the auto industry regarding product safety are dangerous and are linked to human lives. The decisions that Ford executives made had a direct impact on those three teenage girls and the blood was left in their hands. This is just one of many faulty decisions made in automakers history that helped mold the unethical decisions made by Volkswagen in the most recent ethical issue facing the auto industry.