Ford Pinto Fire Utilitarianism

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This paper will discuss the concept of utilitarianism and its impact in a prominent engineering ethics case, The Ford Pinto Fires. Utilitarianism determines if an act is morally right or wrong depending on the consequences of that actions. For this theory, consequences are measured based off their impact on pleasure or wellbeing. In the classic definition of utilitarian theory, pleasure is additive and does not have to be distributed among individuals equally to be considered morally right. An act is considered morally right if the net outcome on all individuals is the most positive outcome. In the 1970’s, due to international pressure to produce more light weight and fuel efficient vehicles, ford produced the Ford Pinto. Due to the release date of foreign competitors, the Pinto was produced in 25 months rather than the average of 43 months. This rushed design was one of the major factors that lead to the controversy of the …show more content…

Although there were multiple reasons the Ford company did not install these components, the most controversial reason was the usage of cost-benefit analysis. Cost-benefit analysis is a process used in many engineering projects to determine if the benefits of a design are worth the cost to implement the design. The benefit of the design is determined by assuming values for specific cases and adding up the total sum. The controversy with Fords usage of this method was how they determined their benefits. Ford motor company projected 180 deaths that equated to a loss of $200,000/death and 180 burn injuries with each injury causing a deficit of $67,000. The benefits of installing the component were determined to be around $50 million while the costs far exceeded this with a value of $137 million. From a higher perspective the monetary costs outweighed the benefits which is why Ford determined not to install the

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