Cost Benefit Analysis: The Ford Pinto Case

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In the mid-1900’s America’s domestic car companies felt little to no threat by its non-domestic competitors. This began to change in the 1960’s when an influx of affordable, yet quality cars made by foreign companies, gained popularity on American soil. In hopes of regaining dominance as the top automobile provider, Ford Motor Company vouched to create a car that was affordable to all Americans, a model later named the Ford Pinto. Although affordable, costing a small $2,000, the Pinto held many manufacturing flaws, and in the end proved to be a dangerous and even deadly car for the American consumer.
One of the major design malfunctions the Ford Pinto faced was when colliding with another car from the rear; an explosion was likely to occur.
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As seen in the Pinto Case, Ford came to a decision by using cost-benefit analysis in which a monetary value was put to human life. According to Sandel, “cost benefit analysis tries to bring rationality…to complex social choices by translating all costs and benefits into monetary terms—and then comparing them”(Sandel, p. 41). He later claims this flaw in utilitarian reasoning is through moral theory; one can not put a monetary value to human life. Similar to the reasoning presented in the Pinto case, in The Benefits of Lung Cancer, Phillip Morris, a tobacco company, used a cost-benefit analysis of the monetary effects smoking has on the Czech Republic national budget. The final claim: the positive effects of smoking, such as tax revenues and premature deaths, outweigh the negative effects, such as losing human lives, with the treasury gaining a net of $147 million per year because of smoking. Once again, a dollar and cent value was tacked onto a human life, which Sandel argues is morally incorrect. In both The Benefits of Lung Cancer and The Pinto Case they abuse the views of utilitarian reasoning through cost-benefit analysis; in which utility thinking is misapplied and

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