The Ford Pinto Case

Utilitarian Paper

MGMT 368 Business Ethics

The Ford Pinto Case:

        For many years people have debated on whether or not Ford Motor Company was ethically right or wrong in its handling of the Pinto case. I am here to tell you that in my opinion they were in no way ethically or morally justified in doing so.  There are those who will stand by and try to convince you otherwise, however, I will outline here why they were not.  In a Utilitarian Analysis if the good outweighs the bad then the choice is a morally correct one. However, what if your idea of good is not necessarily in line with that of the majority of society or population?  This is where “Ethical fading” comes into play.  Ethical fading refers to an erosion of the ethical standards of a business in which employees become used to engaging in or condoning such behavior. (World Wide Words) I will explain shortly how Ethical Fading plays a deadly hand in this case and the morality of the situation as a whole.

        For the model year of 1971 Ford debuted the Pinto, which was supposed to compete with so many current foreign cars already on the market.  While this was lauded as a great thing for a domestic car manufacturer to grab hold of the small car market it was done by cutting many corners.  The typical time it takes a car to go from design to production was 43 months at the time, and the Pinto was rushed through this in only 25 months. (George) When the vehicle failed the rear impact tests conducted on 8 of 11 test cars production continued unchanged. The only Pinto’s to survive the rear impact tests were cars which had been modified in some way to protect the fuel tank from the bumper bolts. (Berry) It was determined that if a plastic baffle were installed to protect the fuel tank from being punctured, the car would be safe and not burst into flames upon rear impact.  

        The following is a quote from a Ford Employee regarding the Pinto. “When it was discovered the gas tank was unsafe, did anyone go to Iacocca and tell him? "Hell no," replied an engineer who worked on the Pinto, a high company official for many years, who, unlike several others at Ford, maintains a necessarily clandestine concern for safety. "That person would have been fired. Safety wasn't a popular subject around Ford in those days. With Lee it was taboo. Whenever a problem was raised that meant a delay on the Pinto, Lee would chomp on his cigar, look out the window and say 'Read the product objectives and get back to work.'" (Dowie)  This is where I make a case of Ethical Fading taking place.  At this point while I doubt that Mr. Iacocca was deliberately being unethical, his bottom line is making more money for his company.  While I can understand this concept, I ask at what price is this justifiable?  How many lives lost is an acceptable amount?  The morally correct answer is that no amount of lost lives is okay, however, we know that in life things will happen that sometimes we cannot control.  In the case of the Ford Pinto however, many of these lives could have been saved if not for basic greed by a business man and corporation.  As we read in our text, the Ford Motor Company did a cost analysis, which as stated before that if more good comes from it than bad then it must be good right?  Well, in this case, this was a wrong assumption.  The Ford Motor Company placed a dollar value on a human life, which in my own mind I cannot wrap a value around any of my family members lives.  To say that a human life had a value of “X dollars” does not sit well with me morally or ethically, not now, not ever.