Ethical Analysis: Ford Pinto Case

Ethical Analysis: Ford Pinto Case

  • Submitted By: Mindcrime
  • Date Submitted: 11/15/2010 7:52 PM
  • Category: Business
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Ethical Analysis: Ford Pinto Case
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Ethical Analysis: Ford Pinto Case
In this analysis, two opposing viewpoints are given; Mark Dowie, of the magazine Mother Jones and James Neal, chief attorney for the Ford Motor Company. The case involves the ethical implications of the horrific accident that occurred on August 10, 1978.
Three girls died in an auto accident when the automobile they were driving, a 1973 Ford Pinto, was slammed into by a van driven by a potentially impaired driver, on U.S. Highway 33 near Goshen, Indiana. The car immediately burst into flames and the girls could not escape the vehicle in time before the flames reached them.
Dowie, the general manager of business operations of the magazine, had made a case for issues concerning the Ford Pinto only a year earlier. Dowie believed that the vehicle had been rushed into production without adequate testing; that it had vulnerable fuel system that would rupture with any rear end collision, and that this vulnerability was discovered before production, and in spite of these discoveries, Ford rushed the vehicle to the public.(cite). Furthermore, under successful lobbying, these facts and discoveries were held from government regulators delaying them from stopping production and requiring a safer gas tank be installed.
During the course of the trial, many facts of the case backed by documentation of letters and memos throughout Ford, help to strengthen Dowie’s position that the Ford Motor Company was operating unethically in the manufacturing and sales of the Ford Pinto. The harrowing effects from this incident were 27 deaths and over 2.2 million automobiles recalled, costing Ford billions. The ethical implications were far reaching even to today’s businesses and companies worldwide.
This paper will further analyze the ethical concerns and questions surrounding the case.
The researchers of this paper will attempt to answer and elaborate on three additional concerns; what...

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