Ford Pinto: A Study of Ethics

In the 1960s Ford Motor Company, under pressure from stakeholders and the pressures involved in competing with the foreign vehicle market set out to manufacture a vehicle that was smaller, lighter and less expensive than the competition’s product. This vehicle was designed and moved into production within 2 years, much quicker than the 3 ½ year company norm and is still the shortest vehicle production planning schedule in history. The result: The Ford Pinto. While the Pinto was in the design phase it was decided that the fuel tank would be placed under the rear fender instead of over the rear axel to allow for more trunk room in the car. This design however, was quite flawed. The Pinto being smaller than the other American made cars was not built using the same frame design; a design that was manufactured to prevent the fuel tank from exploding upon a rear impact collision. Upon testing a serious defect was found with the placement of the fuel tank. It was determined that if the Pinto was involved in a rear end collision the fuel tank may rupture and burst into flames causing serious injury or death to the passengers. Team A will be examining the ethical dilemmas involved in the case and the solutions that we would recommend today and the solutions that would have been ethically appropriate in 1971. Lee Iacocca was the president of Ford Motor Company in 1971 and was the directive authority behind the creation of the Ford Pinto. He wanted a vehicle produced that cost no more than $2,000, and weighed no more than 2,000 lbs. When the fuel tank design flaw was brought to his attention it was not made a priority because in his words, “safety doesn’t sell.” This statement would come back many times in the numerous lawsuits filled against the Ford Motor Company by grieving families and injured motorists due to the lack of safety features in the Pinto. The life saving ethical solution available to Ford and its employees at the time would have been to recall all Ford Pinto’s to install the $11 part necessary to save lives if a rear end collision were to occur. This solution was denied based on a cost benefit analysis done by Ford Motor Company. According to the cost benefit analysis conducted it would be less expensive to put a dollar amount on human lives. The cost benefit analysis was outlined in the following way; From an ethical perspective the decision that was made was highly unethical. If Ford would have asked themselves if their decision was fair and if they were offering dignity and respect to their customers, they may not have made the decisions that they did. Categorical Imperative is a set of formulations or questions that must be asked when determining what is right and wrong. Ford clearly did not ask the questions when making their decisions. The Humanity or End in Itself formulation says that we should not use people for our own benefit. People should not be used to make the outcome of a situation better for ourselves. It was made quite obvious that Ford clearly violated this ethical formulation. In the end if the right thing had been done by recalling and replacing the parts many lives could have been saved. Ford could have used the situation to their benefit and set the standards in auto safety.

When making decisions people sometimes use social pressures to influence their final decision. There are peer pressures, socioeconomic pressures, and pressures that involve monies. When dealing with a situation like the Ford Pinto case, Ford executives made a decision based on saving money. Ford did a cost benefit analysis asking how much human life worth is. Would the decision be so easy if their family was in the mix of buying a Pinto? Ford Motor Company executives calculated the probability of a certain number of people suing and then weighed the cost against the cost of replacing the hazardous part. Ford Motor Company CEO made a bad decision and should have done a mass recall and saved lives, instead he chose to save money and time. Social pressures such as family or significant other would be the main influence on the decisions that is made today.
Professor Michael Baxandall was an art historian who wrote about the period eye and ways of seeing objects. His theory was that the transfer of visual information from the eye to the brain was interpreted different when presented to different people, or at different times. He proposed that because every person relies on different sets of knowledge and interpretations skills to do their seeing, they will see things differently (Art and Visual Culture). The period eye concept can influence many other aspects besides art. When it comes to the Ford Pinto case, is it fair to say that the external social pressures that influenced the 1970’s are the same that influence society today? Let us look at the case with a Period Eye.
From 1971 to 1974 over 2 million Ford Pintos were sold. When reports began to surface in 1972 about the Pinto bursting into flames after a rear impact, the public apparently considered this an acceptable risk, due to the vehicles low price, good gas mileage, and great handling. This was evident in the continued sales of the Pinto throughout the 70’s. (Consumer Guide)
When examining the laws and regulations that were in affect during this time, it can be found that there were no National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) rear-end impact standards in place, meaning vehicle manufacturers were not required to test vehicles using rear impact scenarios. However, there were strict liability laws. Three primary elements of the strict liability law are: (a) the manufacturer failed to warn the consumer of risks of use or of know hazards in certain uses of the product, (b) the product is poorly designed, or (c) the product produces latent injuries. (Meiners, Ringleb, & Edwards 2006)
Looking at the case during the late 70’s from this perspective with a Period Eye, it is fair to say that many would not be as quick to blame Ford for unethical behavior until the information regarding the previously mentioned cost analysis came to light. This changed the views of many to think that Ford was only concerned about the bottom line and not the safety of the consumer. This was evident in the number of liability cases brought against Ford Motor Company and the requirement to recall millions of Pintos.
While it appears that the same conclusion can be found by looking at the Pinto case through the Period Eye for both the past and present, it is obvious that in today’s society of much stricter crash testing and recall regulations, that there were more leniencies in placing the blame in 1978 than would be given to Ford today.
Looking at the case through a period eye, Team A’s consensus would be that whether then or now; Ford should have recalled all of the units sold to the public. This decision was made primarily using the Deontological approach to ethics. Such ethical approach states, “What makes an action right is not the sum of its consequences but the fact that it conforms to the moral law” (De George, 2006).

The total vehicle recall should have taken place long before the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety made a recommendation for such action in 1974 (Dowie, 1977). Due to the fact that a total recall was not the solution Ford finally employed during the initial production dilemma our team was curious to contrast the two different solutions in order to better understand why a total recall would be the moral and ethical course of action. In accordance to our textbook, Ford’s cost-benefit analysis determined that it was cheaper for the company to implement a safety kit rather than recalling all units, for the potential losses stemming from lawsuits and resulting deaths (De George, 2006). Another possible reason for the lack of recall could have been due to the complexity of doing so. Previous recalls by automotive companies have shown the overwhelming difficulty of execution and intricacy in details a total recall entail (Dowie, 1977). In addition, a total recall of the product would have been devastating for the company, so a more “rational” decision was made in order to save the organization from peril.
Furthermore, when analyzing other external factors that possibly played a roll in Ford’s decision not to recall the product, one might consider the difficult situation the country was going through in the early 1970’s when OPEC proclaimed an oil embargo in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military (Hervey, 1994). This event caused a crisis within the automobile industry, which could have caused fear among Ford executives. As with any corporation there are pressures to make a profit. But in this case Ford chose the route that benefited them regardless of the cost to others. It was a hard lesson to learn but it was a lesson that Ford as well as many other auto makers, have come to hold as their ethical benchmark. With the increased set of safety standards in place by the NHTSA, manufacturers have been put to the test to provide safety first above all else. References

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