1. Identify the main issues found and discussed in the case.

The main issues found in the Ford Pinto case brought up issues of abusing human rights by
business and unethical behavior of the businesses. The company had the knowledge regarding
the flaws in the design of Pinto and hence it could have reduced the possibility of preventing the
model from exploding. However, instead of making rectifications in the model, the company
refused to implement the changes. The company could have prevented the deaths from
happening at the cost of only $11 per car as per the cost-benefit analysis but instead of
implementing the changes, the company decided to went ahead with the same model (Boda &
Zsolnai, 2016). It is unethical for the business to knowingly produce a model that puts the lives
of its consumers at risk even after knowing of the consequences. It is evident from the case that
then Ford President Lee Lacocca never cared about the safety of its consumers and believed in
the saying that “safety does not sell”.

Another moral issue found in the case it that Ford put their monetary value upon the general
human lives of its customers through their own cost-benefit analysis. The Ford management
decided to not to make improvements to the gas tank even after the completion of the risk benefit
analysis. Instead they focused on the money that the company would save by going ahead with
the original design and hence keeping it same. The company believed on the fact that a single
human like which is taken in an auto accident costs over $200,000 (Boda & Zsolnai, 2016). And
if ford goes ahead and recall every Pinto sold to make necessary improvements, it would cost the
company $137.5 million (Boda & Zsolnai, 2016). Therefore, here company made use of the
utilitarian ethics in order to suggest that safety improvements dis not out-weigh their benefits and
hence decided to keep up with the original model. This was not correct in terms of Business
Ethics that would have been otherwise followed by the company.