Business Ethics: In the Ford Pinto Case, what moral issues does the Pinto case raise?

what is the dollar value of the human life.Business Ethics: In the Ford Pinto Case, what moral issues does the Pinto case raise? that a car that explodes when hit in the rear can be used to deliver mailBusiness Ethics: In the Ford Pinto Case, what moral issues does the Pinto case raise? That businesses should not be putting a value on human life and disregard a known deadly danger. Ford thought they could get away with a dangerous automobile by paying off those lawsuits from people who were injured and the families of the dead. Ford thought it was more ';cost effective'; not to fix the dangerous condition than to spend the money to save people.

1. What moral issues does the Pinto case raise? The Pinto case brought up issue of abusing human rights and behaved unethically in business. Ford had the design to reduce the possibility of Ford Pinto from exploding. However, the company refused to implement it, although it can prevent 180 deaths from happening at a cost of $11 per car according to the cost-benefit analysis. (Shaw, W.H., Barry, V., & Sansbury, G. 2009) 2. Suppose Ford officials were asked to justify their decision. What moral principles do you think they would invoke? Assess Fords handling of the Pinto from the perspective of each of the moral theories discussed in this chapter. The Ford officials would probably invoke the principles of utilitarianism. Ford had claimed that the strict cost-benefit analysis was made based on the statistics information provided by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), an organization of the federal government. Ford then quantified life as an economic commodity at a cost of approximately $200,000. According to the cost-benefit analysis, the $49.5 million benefits and $137.5 million cost suggested that Ford implementation of safety improvements would totally outweighed their benefits. (Kelman, S. 2001) (81 words) 3. Utilitarians would say that jeopardizing motorists does not by itself make Fords action morally objectionable. The only morally relevant matter is whether Ford gave equal consideration to the interests of each affected party. Do you think Ford did this? Ford did not give equal consideration to the interests of each affected party. During the preproduction crash test, Fords engineers had already discovered that the potential danger from the ruptured fuel tank. Pinto Case Study Solution

Posted on January 14, 2013 by harvardcasestudies No Comments Amanda Nevill Pinto Case Study February 6, 2012 1. Put yourself in the role of the recall coordinator for Ford Motor CO. Its 1973, and field reports have been coming in about rear-end collisions, fires, and fatalities. You must decide whether to recall the automobile. A. Identify the relevant facts. In August of 1978 three teenage girls were driving a Ford Pinto and were struck from behind. The three girls died because the Ford Pintos fuel tank ruptured from the collision and burst into flames. There was a big debate about the safety of the Ford Pinto to its proneness to its fuel tank catching on fire in low-speed rear-end collisions. In 1968 Ford decided to battle the foreign competition of small cars with large trunk areas. The Ford Pinto did have a large trunk for its size of car, but this is what caused the fuel tanks to be susceptible to fire. This decision came after a battle between Semon Bunky Knudsen, president at the time, and Lee Iacocca. Iacocca wanted to be in the battle of the small car market while Knudson argued to concentrate on other models. The CEO at the time, Henry Ford the second, agreed with Iacocca. It took three and a half years to put the conception of the product into production, Iacocca wanted to build the Pinto in just two years. Since two years is shorter than the regularly three and half years, some of the building processes were done less concurrently. Therefore when the fuel tank issue was discovered, it was too costly to redesign the product. Ford did eleven crash tests of the Pinto and discovered that eight of the eleven leaked fuel, however three Pintos did not. These three Pintos did not leak fuel because special measures had been taken to prevent fuel leaks. Ford still decided to go with their original, faulty gas tank, design. They decided this because they believed that their customers were price sensitive and would not want to pay the extra money it would have cost if Ford would have changed the design of the gas tanks. Ford convinced NHTSA that cost/benefit analysis would be appropriate for determining not to change the fuel tank. The costs were eleven dollars per fuel tank to change which ended up equaling 137.5 million dollars. This

number is very large and much bigger than the benefit if they would have not changed it, which was 49.5 million dollars. B. Identify the pertinent ethical issues and points of ethical conflict. All of the relevant facts discussed above lead to many ethical issues. Ford was aware of the problem with the gas tank leaking and could have changed it before others died from their mistakes. Putting a price value on a life to beat the Japanese in the small car market is unethical. Safety should be a companys number one priority, not beating the completion. There was a legal issue of NHTSA and Ford. Ford was aware that the fuel tanks were not working correctly but did nothing to change it because the NHTSA, at the time, had no laws against it. C. Identify the relevant affected parties. a. Customers (Fords victims) b. Drivers of Pinto c. Ford Employees d. Manufactures of Ford e. Suppliers of Ford f. Dealers of Ford g. Stockholders h. NHTSA The customers (drivers of Ford) are the number one stakeholders that lost the most. They might not have lost much money or reputations, but they lost the one thing that you can never get back, their life.

Manufactures of Ford lost their reputation with the public. They were aware of the problem and still manufactured it. Dealers of Ford lost many customers due to the unsafe Pinto. G. Check your gut. What will you decide. If I was the recall coordinator of Ford at the time of the Pinto fires, I would have recalled the product. I would have first did research to make sure that was the problem with all the Pintos and what was causing the fire. After I was sure that was the problem, I would have paid the eleven dollars to change the gas tanks. I would not like to have to recall all the Pintos and loose money from the gas tanks, but I would have. I think that you cannot put a price on a life and if you were aware of the problem, fix it before it could kill anyone else. Toyota in 2011, recalled 420,000 cars. Toyota had to spend millions of dollars to recall these vehicles but saved many lives