Ford Pinto Research Paper

Would you be willing to pay a few dollars more to ensure you aren’t getting behind the wheel of a ticking time bomb every time you go for a drive? When Ford Motor Company began rolling out the Ford Pinto in the 1970s, it quickly became one of the hottest selling subcompact cars of its decade. The Ford Pinto was cheap, handled well, and had sufficient power effectively achieving Ford’s goal to stay competitive amidst a market flooded with countless foreign import cars offering the same benefits. However, the Ford Pinto was more than just a decent car for a good price. It offered one more notable quality: a gas tank that was extremely susceptible to exploding in the event of a rear end collision. It is estimated that exploding Pintos have claimed

Claims have been made that suggest Ford’s decisions in the Pinto brought about a lot of positive benefits to society at large such as providing a car almost anyone could afford and stimulating the domestic economy amidst a time of massive quantities of competitive foreign imports. People who make this argument are appealing to the ethical principle of beneficence which states companies have an ethical moral obligation to affect society in a positive way [3]. Even if the long-term effect of the Pinto offered some benefits, Ford still violated the principle of beneficence. The principle of beneficence also states that companies have an ethical obligation to take away existing harm similar to the principle of non-maleficence. As we know Ford made no efforts to take away the existing harms in their products which they were well aware of. As much as some of us may like to think positively and utilize the principle of of beneficence to focus exclusively on the positive outcomes of the Pinto, Ford Motor Company still violated the principle of beneficence just making it another mark on the long list of ethical strikes for