Ford Pinto and Ford

¶ … Ford Pinto WAS FORD TO BLAME IN THE PINTO CASE? The Ford Company and Lee Iaccoca are fully responsible for every single death that has occurred due to the Pinto's design flaw. There is ample evidence and testimony that the design flaw was known of long before the car was released. Ford's management decided to produce the car despite the obvious safety issue. A car was released that the manufacturers knew would cause unnecessary deaths, deaths that could be avoided by installing a part for less than ten dollars.

With this knowledge in mind, Lee Iacocca committed an act that is tantamount to murder. He ordered the production to continue undisturbed. The Ford company went on to block safety legislature for the next eight years that would have forced a recall on all the unsafe Pintos. Instead, the assembly lines churned out millions of rolling firebombs to take the lives of innocent people for years to come.

Again, instead of spending under $10 per car to correct a safety issue, they prevented and delayed the passing of laws that would have saved the lives of hundreds of people. How can any entity, man or corporation, justify such blatant disregard for human life? WHAT ARE THE MORAL CONSIDERATIONS RAISED BY THE ISSUE? Firstly, it springs to mind that leaders of large corporations such as ford should face appropriate legal consequences for their actions.

Would these guys make these decisions if they faced jail time instead of a minor fine? Second of all, we need to consider the nature of corporations in general. Corporations are not legal entities created for the purpose of doing the right thing, or to promote the health and well being of all men. They are created for the sole purpose of maximizing the profits of its operations for its shareholders.

This brings us to the problem of capitalism; the only behavior that is promoted in the system is what makes money. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT IT? & WHY? I think that the tragedy perpetrated by Iacocca is criminal. To have made the decisions that he did shows a contempt for human life that should not be tolerated. There is no more favorable way of looking at the facts. Ford placed their profits ahead of the safety of its customers.

If such rampant disregard is present in the designs of all the cars made by Ford, as well as the other large auto companies, which we are led to believe, then the tragedies of the pinto are doomed to be repeated. Some may argue that the executives are only responding to demands of stockholders. This is a.