With people having an astonishing level of access to the information these days, it is safer to say that

there has been a significant increase in the number of grey areas and its more often than not that
people modify the meaning of a subject according to their convenience. One such term is called
professional ethics which in a broader sense should encompass personal and moral standards of
behaviour expected by professionals. The case of Ford Pinto relating to its irregularities in designing
and positioning of the fuel tank and lobbying against a safety standard is no such exception. The
issue in hand is to take a stand whether it is plausible to concurrently and persistently endorse the
two claims that the engineers did not comply with their duty of care whilst the vehicle met all the
relevant technical standards governing the vehicle safety. After much deliberation, I have arrived at
the viewpoint that both these claims can exist together and should be endorsed with one another
only, as to obtain the complete picture of what really happened, concurrency in such claims are a
necessity. However, the ambiguity clouding over the case where the professional ethics of engineers
at Ford are at question, makes it a convoluted process to pass a simple judgment.

Before endorsing these two claims together, it is essential to realize whether they can even exist
together or not. (Semplici, 2015) clearly outlines that professional ethics are subject to a company’s
requirement are to be followed by its employees. It is not rare to find company’s ignoring these
standards in order to reap in more profit, as after all these rules were set by the company only.
(Jones, Pinto Madness, 1977) mentioned in his article that in the testing phase engineers realized
that the safety of the entire vehicle had been compromised due to inaccurate positioning of the gas
tank and the engineers also came up with a solution in form of rubber bladders. Yet the changes
were not implemented which resulted in a horrific number of deaths due to burning. However, it can
be still argued that engineers were acting towards meeting the company objectives and thus if it
required overlooking their ethical conduct, it was a harmless thin to do as after all the standards of
conduct were established by the company only. Considering the former point, still engineers are
ought to have their own set of code of conduct as pointed out by (Uff, 2003). It has been emphasized
that during the study period of an aspiring engineer, the student should set his own standards which
would be subject to modification as per the future requirements. In Pinto’s case, it seems that the
engineers lacked here own instinct to act and take a stand. Thus without considering personal
morality, still it is more than justified to say that the engineers at Ford did not perform their duty of
care to the appropriate level. The other aspect, which is the compliance with the relevant
government standard is a relatively simple one to examine. In a clear black and white scenario, it is
obvious that vehicle was compliant of all the necessary standards required for it to hit the road. To
merely prove that these two claims can exist together, one can ignore the fact even before the
inception of Pinto, Henry Ford 2 in 1956 had lobbied extensively to prevent a vehicular law to come
into motion. This attitude was then carried forward by Iacocca Lee which delayed the incorporation
of FMVSS 301 by lobbying against it for 8 years. To further affirm our claim, it can be understood as
the scenario in which engineers designed a vehicle keeping it compliant to all the safety standards of
that time but failed invoke their own ethical conduct when it was required. This scenario is not an
isolated instance as there have been many cases in the past which show this kind of behaviour.

The disaster of space shuttle Challenger shook the entire world from its toes. As pointed out in
(Rogers, 1986) , the main reason for the failure of vacuum chamber was the inadequacy of a more
durable set of O – rings. In further investigation carried out by (Rogers, 1986) , it was found out that
engineers had realized that there was a fair amount of chance that the O rings could fail and even
pointed it out to the concerned Program Managers. However, rectification of the defect would have
resulted in delaying the project by 6 months which prompted the engineers and the executives to
overlook the anomaly which they had discovered. This case is quite analogous to Pinto’s case as the
space shuttle fulfilled all the safety standards, however an extra set of O rings would have served as
a precautionary measure in order to make the vacuum sealings more robust. It is a horrific yet classic
case of engineers not performing their duty of care by overlooking their professional ethics while the
project they were engaged in was in compliance with all the necessary safety standards. One major
addition to the point of personal professional ethics is that it is not necessary that engineers fail to
develop their own code of ethics, but to implement them when it is required makes the difference
between lost lives, millions of dollars wasted and a successful project with equally appropriate social
responsibility. The investigation report (Teague & Case, 1975) in Pinto’s case clearly states that the
fuel system assembly was defective and the engineers knew about it, however the safety standards
at that time, which excluded Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 301, were all satisfied. The
question remains that what should be the threshold at which a professional should step out of the
domain of his company’s objective and check his practices against his own code of ethics. In case of
Challenger, it has been duly reported in (Rogers, 1986)that the engineers did report the case to their
program heads which in turn told them to overlook the possible problem. This brings us to a
counter-notion that should engineers be held liable for the neglect of their duty even if they do bring
the issue to light in front of their superiors.

Another major engineering disaster which took place due to the neglect of its professionals was
Bhopal Gas Tragedy which claimed more than 60,000 lives in the M.P. region of India. The chemical
mixing plant encountered a failure in one of its electrical system which tripped the cooling system to
go off thus setting off a huge explosion and sending more than 40tonnes of toxic waste in the
atmosphere. It happened during the night time and it is estimated that more than 3300 people
never wake up. In the investigation carried out by the Government Of India and the report (NEERI,
2010)submitted it was found out that the structural engineers expressed their concern over safety
procedures right from the very beginning when the plant was being setup all the way while it was
operating. It was also found out that a number of government safety officers were bribed to get the
safety approval for the plant. This was even worse as in this case the safety standards at that time
were not even being satisfied and yet the management decided to overlook these concerns in the
wake of more profit. In all the 3 cases mentioned so far, the engineers brought their concern to the
respective supervisors, but does this mean that they did enough. It is quite understandable that
different people have different priority ratings in life; some value there career the most while others
like to follow there own ethical instinct first. Whichever the case is, no engineer should place
someone else’s life below there own career progression or as a matter of fact to maintain healthy
relations with there supervisors. It is also true that management executives have even more liability
in this case, but the engineers have to be held accountable for the neglect of their duty even if they
bring the issue to light in front of there supervisors.

One critical aspect which needs to be addressed is how relevant were the government safety
standards which Ford took an advantage of. The article of (Jones, Pinto Madness, 1977) clearly
illustrates that by using several techniques to combat government safety standard, like making your
arguments in succession or stating that the problem is not X but Y, the officials at Ford heavily
influenced the legislation. To top it all they successfully managed to incorporate the clause of “Cost
Benefit Analysis” which basically gave a company power to neglect the safety standard if the cost
outweighed the benefits. This basically resulted in an 8-year delay in incorporating the safety
standard 301 while Ford made millions of profit from its sales. The investigation report (DHSG,
2011) on the tragedy of Macondo Well Blowout(Deep Water Horizon) found out that defective
cement was being used on the walls of the oil tanks. The engineers a B.P. knew about it but chose to
ignore this as removal of defective cement and addition of new cement would have been quite a
time consuming task and to add to there confidence, that particular cement grade was still under
safety standards to properly function. This is yet again a classic case of negligence by the engineers
while the aspect of safety was within relevant government safety standards.

In conclusion I would like to reaffirm my claim that the two aspects; engineers at Ford were
responsible for the neglect of their duty of care and the vehicle met relevant safety standards can
exist together and should be endorsed simultaneously. The reason for this is that engineers instead
of modifying the design of the vehicle, they chose to take advantage of the relevant safety standards
to overshadow their lust of profit over concern for human life.

References
 DHSG. (2011). Final Report o the Investigation of Macondo Well Blowout.

 Jones, M. (1977, October). Pinto Madness.

 NEERI. (2010). Assesment and Remediation of hazardous waste around Union Carbide. New
Delhi.

 Rogers, W. P. (1986). Presedential Comission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident.

Washington D.C.

 Semplici, S. (2015). Conflict of interest and professional ethics. Italian Journal of Pediatrics.

 Teague, O. E., & Case, C. P. (1975). Automobile Collision Data: An Assessment of Needs and
Methods of Acquisation. Washington D.C.

 Uff, J. (2003, february 15). The engineer's public duty.