Week_8_Reading_Response
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New Jersey Institute Of Technology *
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334
Subject
Philosophy
Date
Jan 9, 2024
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docx
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2
Uploaded by DoctorFlowerArmadillo43
PHIL 334
03/09/2022
Week 8 Reading Response
The Pinto Case study was an interesting article as it was broken down into 2 sections. Part I of the case study described and spoke of the ethical analysis of case studies. It broke down the criteria by which ethical analysis should talk place and how everything should be considered, and nothing should be presumed. Part II of the case study describes the problem that the Pinto as an automobile was having. It described the problems that arose, and steps and actions taken by different agencies and people to mitigate the problem. I found Part I to be interesting, especially the parts where it was talking about negative and positive obligations. “Most of the obligations we learned while growing up were negative that is, they stipulated that one was
not to do certain things: lie, cheat, steal, harm others and so forth. They were “do nots”. These obligations can be stated as negative rights that require others not to interfere with us in certain ways, such as taking our possessions, causing us pain, or causing us to believe something false.” (Birsch & Fielder, n.d.) I understand that these were taught to us to be better human beings, but to say they are negative obligations had me baffled for little while. As I read further into the reading, I understood how they were being implied as not necessarily being negative in a bad way, but negative as in terms of no to do them. It also discussed how certain rights and risks are being used or they used to interchangeably for the comfort of corporations. A perfect example of this is how human beings are test subjects for the automobile manufacturers. They design and create new cars but, essentially it us who buys them and
tests and more than they could or would. Yes, they make sure the basic safety parameters are in place, but the actual useability is tested by us. While the Part II of the Pinto Case study outlines the events in full, the steps that were taken to rectify the problem and the public disgrace that Ford Motor Company had to deal with. In Part II it stated that the cost of fixing
the 1.5 million Ford Pinto’s from (1971-1977) was about $ 20-40 million. That is substantial amount of money that Ford Motor company had to spend, while also the money that they paid in fines, other pending cases, and the worst off all the damage to its name. All of this could have been avoided if the proper due diligence was done by all parties involved. All the engineers, designers, supervisors, CEO as they are all to be blamed for this mishap. If they had all thought about the ethical implications, they could have saved them self a lot of time, money, and disgrace. Ford Motor Company as a whole entity needed to take their positive and negative obligations into account and design a product that was worthy and save. The regulations and oversight have improved in the years since the Pinto
Case, but we all need to take the opportunity and learn from it, and even though we are still being used as guinea pigs for testing and feedback, the engineers need to take safety and security a lot more seriously. Works Cited
Birsch, D., & Fielder, J. H. (n.d.). The Ford Pinto Case
. Retrieved from NJIT Structure: https://njit.instructure.com/courses/22084/pages/readings-documents-by-week?module_item_id=746334
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