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Ethical Responsibilities of Engineers in Large Organizations: The Pinto Case Author(s): Richard T. De George Source: Business & Professional Ethics Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Fall 1981), pp. 1-14 Published by: Philosophy Documentation Center Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27799725 . Accessed: 29/03/2013 13:38

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Ethical Responsibilities of

Engineers in Large Organizations: The Pinto Case

Richard T. De George

The myth that ethics has no place in engineering has been attacked, and at least

in some corners of the engineering profession has been put to rest.1 Another myth,

however, is emerging to take its place?the myth of the engineer as moral hero. A

litany of engineering saints is slowly taking form. The saints of the field are whistle

blowers, especially those who have sacrificed all for their moral convictions. The zeal

of some preachers, however, has gone too far, piling moral responsibility upon moral

responsibility on the shoulders of the engineer. This emphasis, I believe, is misplaced.

Though engineers are members of a profession that holds public safety paramount,2 we

cannot reasonably expect engineers to be willing to sacrifice their jobs each day for

principle and to have a whistle ever by their sides ready to blow if their firm strays from what they perceive to be the morally right course of action. If this is too much

to ask, however, what then is the actual ethical responsibility of engineers in a large

organization?

I shall approach this question through a discussion of what has become known as

the Pinto case, i.e., the trial that took place in Winamac, Indiana, and that was

decided by a jury on March 16, 1980. In August 1978 near Goshen, Indiana, three girls died of burns in a 1973 Pinto that

was rammed in traffic by a van. The rear-end collapsed "like an accordian,"3 and the

gas tank erupted in flames. It was not the first such accident with the Pinto. The

Pinto was introduced in 1971 and its gas tank housing was not changed until the 1977

model. Between 1971 and 1978 about fifty suits were brought against Ford in

connection with rear-end accidents in the Pinto.

What made the Winamac case different from the fifty others was the fact that

the State prosecutor charged Ford with three (originally four, but one was dropped)

\ counts of reckless homicide, a criminal offense, under a 1977 Indiana law that made

it possible to bring such criminal charges against a corporation. The penalty, if found

guilty, was a maximum fine of $10,000 for each count, for a total of $30,000. The

case was closely watched, since it was the first time in recent history that a

Copyright Richard T. De George

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2 Business & Professional Ethics Journal

corporation was charged with this criminal offense. Ford spent almost a million

dollars in its defense.

With the advantage of hindsight I believe the case raised the right issue at the

wrong time.

The prosecution had to show that Ford was reckless in placing the gas tank where

and how it did. In order to show this the prosecution had to prove that Ford

consciously disregarded harm it might cause and the disregard, according to the

statutory definition of "reckless," had to involve "substantial deviation from

acceptable standards of conduct."4

The prosecution produced seven witnesses who testified that the Pinto was

moving at speeds judged to be between 15 and 35 mph when it was hit. Harly Copp, once a high ranking Ford engineer, claimed that the Pinto did not have a balanced

design and that for cost reasons the gas tank could withstand only a 20 mph impact

without leaking and exploding. The prosecutor, Michael Cosentino, tried to introduce

evidence that Ford knew the defects of the gas tank, that its executives knew that

a $6.65 part would have made the car considerably safer, and that they decided

against the change in order to increase their profits. Federal safety standards for gas tanks were not introduced until 1977. Once

introduced, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) claimed a

safety defect existed in the gas tanks of Pintos produced from 1971 to 1976. It

ordered that Ford recall 1.9 million Pintos. Ford contested the order. Then, without

ever admitting that the fuel tank was unsafe, it "voluntarily" ordered a recall. It

claimed the recall was not for safety but for "reputational" reasons.5 Agreeing to

a recall in June, its first proposed modifications failed the safety standards tests, and

it added a second protective shield to meet safety standards. It did not send out

recall notices until August 22. The accident in question took place on August 10. The

prosecutor claimed that Ford knew its fuel tank was dangerous as early as 1971 and

that it did not make any changes until the 1977 model. It also knew in June of 1978

that its fuel tank did not meet federal safety standards; yet it did nothing to warn

owners of this fact. Hence, the prosecution contended, Ford was guilty of reckless

homicide.

The defense was led by James F. Neal who had achieved national prominence in

the Watergate hearings. He produced testimony from two witnesses who were crucial

to the case. They were hospital attendants who had spoken with the driver of the

Pinto at the hospital before she died. They claimed she had stated that she had just had her car filled with gas. She had been in a hurry and had left the gas station

without replacing the cap on her gas tank. It fell off the top of her car as she drove

down the highway. She noticed this and stopped to turn around to pick it up. While

stopped, her car was hit by the van. The testimony indicated that the car was

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The Pinto Case 3

stopped. If the car was hit by a van going 50 mph, then the rupture of the gas tank

was to be expected. If the cap was off the fuel tank, leakage would be more than

otherwise. No small vehicle was made to withstand such impact. Hence, Ford

claimed, there was no recklessness involved. Neal went on to produce films of tests

that indicated that the amount of damage the Pinto suffered meant that the impact must have been caused by the van's going at least 50 mph. He further argued that

the Pinto gas tank was at least as safe as the gas tanks on the 1973 American Motors

Gremlin, the Chevrolet Vega, the Dodge Colt, and the Toyota Corolla, all of which

suffered comparable damage when hit from the rear at 50 mph. Since no federal

safety standards were in effect in 1973, Ford was not reckless if its safety standards

were comparable to those of similar cars made by competitors; that standard

represented the state of the art at that time, and it would be inappropriate to apply

1977 standards to a 1973 car.6

The jury deliberated for four days and finally came up with a verdict of not

guilty. When the verdict was announced at a meeting of the Ford Board of Directors

then taking place, the members broke out in a cheer.7

These are the facts of the case. I do not wish to second-guess the jury. Based

on my reading of the case, I think they arrived at a proper decision, given the

evidence. Nor do I wish to comment adversely on the judge's ruling that prevented the prosecution from introducing about 40% of his case because the evidence referred

to 1971 and 1972 models of the Pinto and not the 1973 model.^

The issue of Ford's being guilty of acting recklessly can, I think, be made

plausible, as I shall indicate shortly. But the successful strategy argued by the

defense in this case hinged on the Pinto in question being hit by a van at 50 mph. At

that speed, the defense successfully argued, the gas tank of any subcompact would

rupture. Hence that accident did not show that the Pinto was less safe than other

subcompacts or that Ford acted recklessly. To show that would require an accident

that took place at no more than 20 mph. The contents of the Ford documents that Prosecutor Cosentino was not allowed

to present in court were published in the Chicago Tribune on October 13, 1979. If

they are accurate, they tend to show grounds for the charge of recklessness.

Ford had produced a safe gas tank mounted over the rear axle in its 1969 Capri in Europe. It tested that tank in the Capri. In its over-the-axle position, it withstood

impacts of up to 30 mph. Mounted behind the axle, it was punctured by projecting bolts when hit from the rear at 20 mph. A $6.65 part would help make the tank safer.

In its 1971 Pinto, Ford chose to place the gas tank behind the rear axle without the

extra part. A Ford memo indicates that in this position the Pinto has more trunk

space, and that production costs would be less than in the over-the-axle position. These considerations won out.9

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4 Business & Professional Ethics Journal

The Pinto was first tested it seems in 1971, after the 1971 model was produced,

for rear-end crash tolerance. It was found that the tank ruptured when hit from the

rear at 20 mph. This should have been no surprise, since the Capri tank in that

position had ruptured at 20 mph. A memo recommends that rather than making any

changes Ford should wait until 1976 when the government was expected to introduce

fuel tank standards. By delaying making any change, Ford could save $20.9 million,

since the change would average about $10 per car.10

In the Winamac case Ford claimed correctly that there were no federal safety standards in 1973. But it defended itself against recklessness by claiming its car was

comparable to other subcompacts at that time. All the defense showed, however, was

that all the subcompacts were unsafe when hit at 50 mph. Since the other

subcompacts were not forced to recall their cars in 1978, there is prima facie

evidence that Ford's Pinto gas tank mounting was substandard. The Ford documents

tend to show Ford knew the danger it was inflicting on Ford owners; yet it did

nothing, for profit reasons. How short-sighted those reasons were is demonstrated by the fact that the Pinto thus far in litigation and recalls alone has cost Ford $50

million. Some forty suits are still to be settled. And these figures do not take into

account the loss of sales due to bad publicity. Given these facts, what are we to say about the Ford engineers? Where were

they when all this was going on, and what is their responsibility for the Pinto? The

answer, I suggest, is that they were where they were supposed to be, doing what they were supposed to be doing. They were performing tests, designing the Pinto, making

reports. But do they have no moral responsibility for the products they design? What

after all is the moral responsibility of engineers in a large corporation? By way of

reply, let me emphasize that no engineer can morally do what is immoral. If

commanded to do what he should not morally do, he must resist and refuse. But in

the Ford Pinto situation no engineer was told to produce a gas tank that would explode and kill people. The engineers were not instructed to make an unsafe car. They were

morally responsible for knowing the state of the art, including that connected with

placing and mounting gas tanks. We can assume that the Ford engineers were

cognizant of the state of the art in producing the model they did. When tests were

made in 1970 and 1971, and a memo was written stating that a $6.65 modification

could make the gas tank safer,11 that was an engineering assessment. Whichever

engineer proposed the modifcation and initiated the memo acted ethically in doing so.

The next step, the administrative decision not to make the modification was, with

hindsight, a poor one in almost every way. It ended up costing Ford a great deal more

not to put in the part than it would have cost to put it in. Ford still claims today that its gas tank was as safe as the accepted standards of the industry at that time.12

It must say so, otherwise the suits pending against it will skyrocket. That it was not

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The Pinto Case 5

as safe seems borne out by the fact that only the Pinto of all the subcompacts failed

to pass the 30 mph rear impact NHTSA test.

But the question of wrongdoing or of malicious intent or of recklessness is not

so easily solved. Suppose the ordinary person were told when buying a Pinto that if

he paid an extra $6.65 he could increase the safety of the vehicle so that it could

withstand a 30 mph rear-end impact rather than a 20 mph impact, and that the odds

of suffering a rear-end impact of between 20 and 30 mph was 1 in 250,000. Would

we call him or her reckless if he or she declined to pay the extra $6.65? I am not

sure how to answer that question. Was it reckless of Ford to wish to save the $6.65

per car and increase the risk for the consumer? Here I am inclined to be clearer in

my own mind. If I choose to take a risk to save $6.65, it is my risk and my $6.65. But if Ford saves the $6.65 and I take the risk, then I clearly lose. Does Ford have

the right to do that without informing me, if the going standard of safety of

subcompacts is safety in a rear-end collision up to 30 mph? I think not. I admit,

however, that the case is not clear-cut, even if we add that during 1976 and 1977

Pintos suffered 13 firey fatal rear-end collisions, more than double that of other U.S.

comparable cars. The VW Rabbit and Toyota Corolla suffered none.13

Yet, if we are to morally fault anyone for the decision not to add the part, we

would censure not the Ford engineers but the Ford executives, because it was not an

engineering but an executive decision.

My reason for taking this view is that an engineer cannot be expected and cannot

have the responsibility to second-guess managerial decisions. He is responsible for

bringing the facts to the attention of those who need them to make decisions. But

the input of engineers is only one of many factors that go to make up managerial decisions. During the trial, the defense called as a witness Francis Olsen, the

assistant chief engineer in charge of design at Ford, who testified that he bought a

1973 Pinto for his eighteen-year-old daughter, kept it a year, and then traded it in

for a 1974 Pinto which he kept two years.*4 His testimony and his actions were

presented as an indication that the Ford engineers had confidence in the Pinto's

safety. At least this one had enough confidence in it to give it to his daughter. Some

engineers at Ford may have felt that the car could have been safer. But this is true

of almost every automobile. Engineers in large firms have an ethical responsibility to do their jobs as best they can, to report their observations about safety and

improvement of safety to management. But they do not have the obligation to insist

that their perceptions or their standards be accepted. They are not paid to do that,

they are not expected to do that, and they have no moral or ethical obligation to do

that.

In addition to doing their jobs, engineers can plausibly be said to have an obli

gation of loyalty to their employers, and firms have a right to a certain amount of

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6 Business & Professional Ethics Journal

confidentiality concerning their internal operations. At the same time engineers are

required by their professional ethical codes to hold the safety of the public paramount. Where these obligations conflict, the need for and justification of whistle blowing arises.15 If we admit the obligations on both sides, I would suggest as a rule of thumb

that engineers and other workers in a large corporation are morally permitted to go

public with information about the safety of a product if the following conditions are

met:

1) if the harm that will be done by the product to the public is serious and

considerable;

2) if they make their concerns known to their superiors; and

3) if, getting no satisfaction from their immediate superiors, they exhaust the

channels available within the corporation, including going to the board of

directors.

If they still get no action, I believe they are morally permitted to make public their views; but they are not morally obliged to do so. Harly Copp, a former Ford

executive and engineer, in fact did criticize the Pinto from the start and testified for

the prosecution against Ford at the Winamac trial.He left the company and voiced

his criticism. The criticism was taken up by Ralph Nader and others. In the long run

it led to the Winamac trial and probably helped in a number of other suits filed

against Ford. Though I admire Mr. Copp for his actions, assuming they were done

from moral motives, I do not think such action was morally required, nor do I think

the other engineers at Ford were morally deficient in not doing likewise.

For an engineer to have a moral obligation to bring his case for safety to the

public, I think two other conditions have to be fulfilled, in addition to the three

mentioned above. *7

4) He must have documented evidence that would convince a reasonable,

impartial observer that his view of the situation is correct and the

company policy wrong. Such evidence is obviously very difficult to obtain and produce. Such evidence,

however, takes an engineer's concern out of the realm of the subjective and precludes that concern from being simply one person's opinion based on a limited point of view.

Unless such evidence is available, there is little likelihood that the concerned

engineer's view will win the day simply by public exposure. If the testimony of

Francis Olsen is accurate, then even among the engineers at Ford there was

disagreement about the safety of the Pinto.

5) There must be strong evidence that making the information public will in

fact prevent the threatened serious harm.

This means both that before going public the engineer should know what source

(government, newspaper, columnist, TV reporter) will make use of his evidence and

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The Pinto Case 7

how it will be handled. He should also have good reason to believe that it will result

in the kind of change or result that he believes is morally appropriate. None of this

was the case in the Pinto situation. After much public discussion, five model years,

and failure to pass national safety standards tests, Ford plausibly defends its original claim that the gas tank was acceptably safe. If there is little likelihood of his

success, there is no moral obligation for the engineer to go public. For the harm he

or she personally incurs is not offset by the good such action achieves.1**

My first substantive conclusion is that Ford engineers had no moral obligation to

do more than they did in this case.

My second claim is that though engineers in large organizations should have a say in setting safety standards and producing cost-benefit analyses, they need not have the

last word. My reasons are two. First, while the degree of risk, e.g., in a car, is an

engineering problem, the acceptability of risk is not. Second, an engineering cost-benefit analysis does not include all the factors appropriate in making a policy

decision, either on the corporate or the social level. Safety is one factor in an

engineering design. Yet clearly it is only one factor. A Mercedes-Benz 280 is

presumably safer than a Ford Pinto. But the difference in price is considerable. To

make a Pinto as safe as a Mercedes it would probably have to cost a comparable amount. In making cars as in making many other objects some balance has to be

reached between safety and cost. The final decision on where to draw the balance

is not only an engineering decision. It is also a managerial decision, and probably even

more appropriately a social decision.

The difficulty of setting standards raises two pertinent issues. The first concerns

federal safety standards. The second concerns cost-benefit analyses. The state of the

art of engineering technology determines a floor below which no manufacturer should

ethically go. Whether the Pinto fell below that floor, we have already seen, is a

controverted question. If the cost of achieving greater safety is considerable?and I

do not think $6.65 is considerable?there is a built-in temptation for a producer to

skimp more than he should and more than he might like. The best way to remove that

temptation is for there to be a national set of standards. Engineers can determine

what the state of the art is, what is possible, and what the cost of producing safety is. A panel of informed people, not necessarily engineers, should decide what is

acceptable risk and hence what acceptable minimum standards are. Both the

minimum standards and the standards attained by a given car should be a matter of

record that goes with each car. A safer car may well cost more. But unless a

customer knows how much safety he is buying for his money, he may not know which

car he wants to buy. This information, I believe, is information a car buyer is entitled

to have.

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8 Business & Professional Ethics Journal

In 1978, after the publicity that Ford received with the Pinto and the controversy

surrounding it, the sales of Pintos fell dramatically. This was an indication that

consumers preferred a safer car for comparable money, and they went to the

competition. The state of Oregon took all its Pintos out of its fleet and sold them

off. To the surprise of one dealer involved in selling turned-in Pintos, they went for

between $1000 and $1800.l9 The conclusion we correctly draw is that there was a

market for a car with a dubious safety record even though the price was much lower

than for safer cars and lower than Ford's manufacturing price. The second issue is the way cost-benefit analyses are produced and used. I have

already mentioned one cost-benefit analysis used by Ford, namely, the projection that

by not adding a part and by placing the gas tank in the rear the company could save

$20.9 million. The projection, I noted, was grossly mistaken for it did not consider

litigation, recalls, and bad publicity which have already cost Ford over $50 million. A

second type of cost-benefit analysis sometimes estimates the number and costs of

suits that will have to be paid, adds to it fines, and deducts that total amount from

the total saved by a particular practice. If the figure is positive, it is more profitable not to make a safety change than to make it.

A third type of cost-benefit analysis, which Ford and other auto companies

produce, estimates the cost and benefits of specific changes in their automobiles. One

study, for instance, deals with the cost-benefit analysis relating to fuel leakage associated with static rollover. The unit cost of the part is $11. If that is included

in 12.5 million cars, the total cost is $137 million. That part will prevent 180 burn

deaths, 180 serious burn injuries and 2100 burned vehicles. Assigning a cost of

$200,000 per death, $67,000 per major injury, and $700 per vehicle, the benefit is

$49.5 million. The cost-benefit ratio is slightly over 3-1.20 If this analysis is compared with a similar cost-benefit analysis for a rear-end

collision, it is possible to see how much safety is achieved per dollar spent. This use

is legitimate and helpful. But the procedure is open to very serious criticism if used

not in a comparative but in an absolute manner.

The analysis ignores many factors, such as the human suffering of the victim and

of his or her family. It equates human life to $200,000, which is based on average

lost future wages. Any figure here is questionable, except for comparative purposes, in which case as long as the same figure is used it does not change the information

as to relative benefit per dollar. The ratio, however, has no absolute meaning, and

no decision can properly be based on the fact that the resulting ratio of cost to

benefit in the above example is 3 to 1. Even more important, how can this figure or ratio be compared with the cost of styling? Should the $11 per unit to reduce

death and injury from roll-over be weighed against a comparable $11 in rear-end

collision or $11 in changed styling? Who decides how much more to put into safety and how much more to put into styling? What is the rationale for the decision?

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The Pinto Case 9

In the past consumers have not been given an opportunity to vote on the matter.

The automobile industry has decided what will sell and what will not, and has decided

how much to put on safety. American car dealers have not typically put much

emphasis on safety features in selling their cars. The assumption that American

drivers are more interested in styling than safety is a decision that has been made for

them, not by them. Engineers can and do play an important role in making cost-benefit analyses. They are better equipped than anyone else to figure risks and

cost. But they are not better equipped to figure the acceptability of risk, or the

amount that people should be willing to pay to eliminate such risk. Neither, however, are the managers of automobile corporations. The amount of acceptable risk is a

public decision that can and should be made by representatives of the public or by the

public itself.

Since cost-benefit analyses of the types I have mentioned are typical of those

used in the auto industry, and since they are inadequate ways of judging the safety a car should have, given the state of the art, it is clear that the automobile companies should not have the last word or the exclusive word in how much safety to provide. There must be national standards set and enforced. The National Highway Traffic

Administration was established in 1966 to set standards. Thus far only two major standards have been established and implemented: the 1972 side impact standard and

the 1977 gasoline tank safety standard. Rather than dictate standards, however, in

which process it is subject to lobbying, it can mandate minimum standards and also

require auto manufacturers to inform the public about the safety quotient of each car,

just as it now requires each car to specify the miles per gallon it is capable of

achieving. Such an approach would put the onus for basic safety on the

manufacturers, but it would also make additional safety a feature of consumer

interest and competition.

Engineers in large corporations have an important role to play. That role,

however, is not usually to set policy or to decide on the acceptability of risk. Their

knowledge and expertise are important both to the companies for which they work and

to the public. But they are not morally responsible for policies and decisions beyond their competence and control. Does this view, however, let engineers off the moral

hook too easily? To return briefly to the Pinto story once more, Ford wanted a subcompact to

fend off the competition of Japanese imports. The order came down to produce a car

of 2,000 pounds or less that would cost $2000 or less in time for the 1971 model. This

allowed only 25 months instead of the usual 43 months for design and production of

a new car.21 The engineers were squeezed from the start. Perhaps this is why they did not test the gas tank for rear-end collision impact until the car was produced.

Should the engineers have refused the order to produce the car in 25 months?

Should they have resigned, or leaked the story to the newspapers? Should they have

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10 Business & Professional Ethics Journal

refused to speed up their usual routine? Should they have complained to their

professional society that they were being asked to do the impossible?if it were to be

done right? I am not in a position to say what they should have done. But with the

advantage of hindsight, I suggest we should ask not only what they should have done.

We should especially ask what changes can be made to prevent engineers from being

squeezed in this way in the future.

Engineering ethics should not take as its goal the producing of moral heroes.

Rather it should consider what forces operate to encourage engineers to act as they feel they should not; what structural or other features of a large corporation squeeze them until their consciences hurt? Those features should then be examined,

evaluated, and changes proposed and made. Lobbying by engineering organizations would be appropriate, and legislation should be passed if necessary. In general I tend

to favor voluntary means where possible. But where that is Utopian, then legislation is a necessary alternative.

The need for whistle blowing in a firm indicates that a change is necessary. How

can we preclude the necessity for blowing the whistle?

The Winamac Pinto case suggests some external and internal modifications. It

was the first case to be tried under a 1977 Indiana law making it possible to try

corporations as well as individuals for the criminal offenses of reckless homicide. In

bringing the charges against Ford, Prosecutor Michael Cosentino acted courageously, even if it turned out to have been a poor case for such a precedent-setting trial. But

the law concerning reckless homicide, for instance, which was the charge in question, had not been rewritten with the corporation in mind. The penalty, since corporations cannot go to jail, was the maximum fine of $10,000 per count?hardly a significant amount when contrasted with the 1977 income of Ford International which was $11.1

billion in revenues and $750 million in profits. What Mr. Cosentino did not do was

file charges against individuals in the Ford Company who were responsible for the

decisions he claimed were reckless. Had highly placed officials been charged, the

message would have gotten through to management across the country that individuals

cannot hide behind corporate shields in their decisions if they are indeed reckless, put too low a price on life and human suffering, and sacrifice it too cheaply for profits.

A bill was recently proposed in Congress requiring managers to disclose the

existence of life-threatening defects to the appropriate Federal agency.22 Failure to

do so and attempts to conceal defects could result in fines of $50,000 or imprisonment for a minimum of two years, or both. The fine in corporate terms is negligible. But

imprisonment for members of management is not.

Some argue that increased litigation for product liability is the way to get results

in safety. Heavy damages yield quicker changes than criminal proceedings. Ford

agreed to the Pinto recall shortly after a California jury awarded damages of $127.8

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The Pinto Case 11

million after a youth was burned over 95% of his body. Later the sum was reduced, on appeal, to $6.3 million.23 But criminal proceedings make the litigation easier, which is why Ford spent $1,000,000 in its defense to avoid paying $30,000 in fines.24

The possibility of going to jail for one's actions, however, should have a salutary effect. If someone, the president of a company in default of anyone else, were to

be charged in criminal suit, presidents would soon know whom they can and should

hold responsible below them. One of the difficulties in a large corporation is knowing who is responsible for particular decisions. If the president were held responsible, outside pressure would build to reorganize the corporation so that responsibility was

assigned and assumed.

If a corporation wishes to be moral or if society or engineers wish to apply

pressure for organizational changes such that the corporation acts morally and

responds to the moral conscience of engineers and others within the organization, then

changes must be made. Unless those at the top set a moral tone, unless they insist

on moral conduct, unless they punish immoral conduct and reward moral conduct, the

corporation will function without considering the morality of questions and of

corporate actions. It may by accident rather than by intent avoid immoral actions,

though in the long run this is unlikely. Ford's management was interested only in meeting federal standards and having

these as low as possible. Individual federal standards should be both developed and

enforced. Federal fines for violations should not be token but comparable to damages

paid in civil suits and should be paid to all those suffering damage from violations.2S

Independent engineers or engineering societies?if the latter are not co-opted by auto manufacturers?can play a significant role in supplying information on the state

of the art and the level of technical feasibility available. They can also develop the

safety index I suggested earlier, which would represent the relative and comparative

safety of an automobile. Competition has worked successfully in many areas. Why not in the area of safety? Engineers who work for auto manufacturers will then have

to make and report the results of standard tests such as the ability to withstand

rear-end impact. If such information is required data for a safety index to be affixed

to the windshield of each new car, engineers will not be squeezed by management in

the area of safety. The means by which engineers with ethical concerns can get a fair hearing

without endangering their jobs or blowing the whistle must be made part of a

corporation's organizational structure. An outside board member with primary

responsibility for investigating and responding to such ethical concerns might be

legally required. When this is joined with the legislation pending in Congress which

I mentioned, the dynamics for ethics in the organization will be significantly

improved. Another way of achieving a similar end is by providing an inspector general

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12 Business & Professional Ethics Journal

for all corporations with an annual net income of over $i billion. An independent committee of an engineering association might be formed to investigate charges made

by engineers concerning the safety of a product on which they are working;2** a

company that did not allow an appropriate investigation of employee charges would

become subject to cover-up proceedings. Those in the engineering industry can

suggest and work to implement other ideas. I have elsewhere outlined a set of ten

such changes for the ethical corporation.27 In addition to asking how an engineer should respond to moral quandaries and

dilemmas, and rather than asking how to educate or train engineers to be moral

heroes, those in engineering ethics should ask how large organizations can be changed so that they do not squeeze engineers in moral dilemmas, place them in the position of facing moral quandaries, and make them feel that they must blow the whistle.

The time has come to go beyond sensitizing students to moral issues and solving and resolving the old, standard cases. The next and very important questions to be

asked as we discuss each case is how organizational structures can be changed so that

no engineer will ever again have to face that case.

Many of the issues of engineering ethics within a corporate setting concern the

ethics of organizational structure, questions of public policy, and so questions that

frequently are amenable to solution only on a scale larger than the individual?on the

scale of organization and law. The ethical responsibilities of the engineer in a large

organization have as much to do with the organization as with the engineer. They can

be most fruitfully approached by considering from a moral point of view not only the

individual engineer but the framework within which he or she works. We not only need

moral people. Even more importantly we need moral structures and organizations.

Only by paying more attention to these can we adequately resolve the questions of the

ethical responsibility of engineers in large organizations.

NOTES

1. The body of literature on engineering ethics is now substantive and

impressive. See, A Selected Annotated Bibliography of Professional Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering, compiled by Robert F. Ladenson, James Choromokos, Ernest d'Anjou, Martin Pimsler, and Howard Rosen (Chi cago: Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions, Illinois Institute of Technology, 1980). A useful two-volume collection of readings and cases

is also available: Robert J. Baum and Albert Flores, Ethical Problems in

Engineering, 2nd edition (Troy, N.Y.: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Center for the Study of the Human Dimensions of Science and Technology, 1980. See also Robert J. Baum's Ethics and Engineering Curricula

(Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Hastings Center, 1980).

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The Pinto Case 13

2. See, for example, the first canon of the 1974 Engineers Council for

Professional Development Code, the first canon of the National Council of

Engineering Examiners Code, and the draft (by A. Oldenquist and E. Slowter) of a "Code of Ethics for the Engineering Profession" (all reprinted in Baum

and Flores, Ethical Problems in Engineering.

3. Details of the incident presented in this paper are based on testimony at

the trial. Accounts of the trial as well as background reports were carried

by both the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune.

4. New York Times, February 17, 1980, IV, p. 9.

5. New York Times, February 21, 1980, p. A6. Fortune, September 11, 1978,

p. 42.

6. New York Times, March 14, 1980, p. 1.

7. Time, March 24, 1980, p. 24.

8. New York Times, January 16, 1980, p. 16; February 7, 1980, p. 16.

9. Chicago Tribune, October 13, 1979, p. 1, and Section 2, p. 12.

10. Chicago Tribune, October 13, 1979, p. 1; New York Times, October 14, 1979,

p. 26.

11. New York Times, February 4, 1980, p. 12.

12. New York Times, June 10, 1978, p. 1; Chicago Tribune, October 13, 1979,

p. 1, and Section 2, p. 12. The continuous claim has been that the Pinto

poses "No serious hazards."

13. New York Times, October 26, 1978, p. 103.

14. New York Times, February 20, 1980, p. A16.

15. For a discussion of the conflict, see, Sissela Bok, "Whistleblowing and

Professional Responsibility," New York University Educational Quarterly,

pp. 2-10. For detailed case studies see, Ralph Nader, Peter J. Petkas, and

Kate Blackwell, Whistle Blowing (New York: Grossman Publishers, 1972);

Charles Peters and Taylor Branch, Blowing the Whistle: Dissent in the

Public Interest (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972); and Robert M.

Anderson, Robert Perrucci, Dan E. Schendel and Leon E. Trachtman, Divided

Loyalties: Whistle-Blowing at BART (West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue

University, 1980).

16. New York Times, February 4, 1980, p. 12.

17. The position I present here is developed more fully in my book Business

Ethics (New York: Macmillan, forthcoming in fall 1981). It differs

somewhat from the dominant view expressed in the existing literature in that

I consider whistle blowing an extreme measure that is morally obligatory

only if the stringent conditions set forth are satisfied. Cf. Kenneth D.

Walters, "Your Employees' Right to Blow the Whistle," Harvard Business

Review, July-August, 1975.

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14 Business & Professional Ethics Journal

18. On the dangers incurred by whistle blowers, see Gene James, "Whistle

Blowing: Its Nature and Justification," Philosophy in Context, 10 (1980), pp. 99-117, which examines the legal context of whistle blowing; Peter

Raven-Hansen, "Dos and Don'ts for Whistleblowers: Planning for Trouble," Technology Review, May 1980, pp. 34-44, which suggests how to blow the

whistle; Helen Dudar, "The Price of Blowing the Whistle," The New York Times

Magazine, 30 October, 1977, which examines the results for whistleblowers; David W. Ewing, "Canning Directions," Harpers, August, 1979, pp. 17-22, which indicates "how the government rids itself of troublemakers" and how

legislation protecting whistleblowers can be circumvented; and Report by the U.S. General Accounting Office, "The Office of the Special Counsel Can

Improve Its Management of Whistleblower Cases," December 30, 1980 (FPCD-81 10).

19. New York Times, April 21, 1978, IV, p. 1, 18.

20. See Mark Dowie, "Pinto Madness," Mother Jones, September/October, 1977, pp. 24-28.

21. Chicago Tribune, October 13, 1979, Section 2, p. 12.

22. New York Times, March 16, 1980, IV, p. 20.

23. New York Times, February 8, 1978, p. 8.

24. New York Times, February 17, 1980, IV, p. 9; January 6, 1980, p. 24; Time, March 24, 1980, p. 24.

25. The Wall Street Journal, August 7, 1980, p. 7, reported that the Ford Motor Company "agreed to pay a total of $22,500 to the families of three Indiana teen-age girls killed in the crash of a Ford Pinto nearly two years ago....A Ford spokesman said the settlement was made without any admission of

liability. He speculated that the relatively small settlement may have been influenced by certain Indiana laws which severely restrict the amount of damages victims or their families can recover in civil cases alleging wrongful death."

26. A number of engineers have been arguing for a more active role by engineering societies in backing up individual engineers in their attempts to act responsibly. See, Edwin Layton, Revolt of the Engineers (Cleveland: Case Western Reserve, 1971); Stephen H. Unger, "Engineering Societies and the Responsible Engineer," Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 196 (1973), pp. 433-37 (reprinted in Baum and Flores, Ethical Problems in

Engineering, pp. 56-59; and Robert Perrucci and Joel Gerstl, Profession Without Community: Engineers in American Society (New York: Random House, 1969).

27. Richard T. De George, "Responding to the Mandate for Social Respon sibility," Guidelines for Business When Societal Demands Conflict (Wash ington, D.C: Council for Better Business Bureaus, 1978), pp. 60-80.

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