Question

What was the fundamental moral mistake made by Ford? Is it related to utilitarianism? Considering that this story wound being very expensive for Ford (due to not just bad publicity but also the fact that it has paid out millions to settle damage suits out of court), might Ford have done a different long-term cost-benefit analysis? Insurers place dollar values on human lives all the time—otherwise they would go out of business. When is it permissible to assign a cash value to a human life and when not? What differentiates between cases?

Answer 1

The Ford Pinto case of the 1970s was a famous incident that attracted immense attention from the common public. Ford Pinto was the most famous subcompact cars of its time. Unfortunately it's gas tank was prone to explosion when other hits the rear. Above five hundred people lost their lives with their car burst into flames. When one of the accident survivors sued the faulty design of the car and demanded redressal it came out that the engineers designing the care were aware of this fault all along . But company ran a cost benefit analysis of fixing the issue and came to the conclusion that letting people die was more profitable than adding the equipment to stop the explosions. Upon learning of this argument the jury was infuriated and

awarded. The plaintiff $2.5 million in compensatory damages and $3.5 million in punitive damages . This is a case of Jeremy Bentham's utilitarianism where the greater good is looked at and the sacrifices of human life are taken in to zero account. People were so against this philosophy and especially enraged at the point of putting cash value on human life.

Insurance officers place a cash value on every individual but that is uniform and is acceptable to people because they are not planning for any one to die. Instead they are helping the family of dead economically.