But on further reflection, I'm wondering what is an acceptable way to navigate those decisions?
If viewed entirely as a tradeoff between safety of that car's passengers vs. the total corporate profits, then the "right" answer is they should operate as a nonprofit that barely makes ends meet.
That's my intuition as well. But the questions (for me) remain:
What are the acceptable tradeoffs in this scenario? And acceptable to whom?
What ethical framework do we have for deciding that one particular solution is more acceptable than another, and why should we all agree on that framework?
And is viewing this as simply a 1D tradeoff of passenger safety vs. corporate profits the most useful way to frame the issue?
Okay, but what if that means the car has to be $300k USD more expensive?
And suppose that price increase means 20,000 persons who otherwise could afford some car, no longer can afford any car. And then, as a result, those 20,000 persons collectively lose 10,000 person-years of lifespan because of poorer access to good jobs, inability to quickly get to a hospital during emergencies, etc.
At that point was the $300k USD pricetag better than, say, allowing 30 individuals to die in a car fire?
I'm not saying I know the answer. But if we can't answer that, I'm not sure your "safely" agree with the point you were making.
If there were some absurd scenario where the benefit is prohibitively expensive then we could debate that.
As it is, I'm afraid too many people in charge at Boeing and similar manufacturers have a terrible sense of priorities and tradeoffs. We should never have outsourced regulation to the manufacturers themselves.
In the 1980s there was such a car: it was a 1970s Pinto with wood panelling.
gryfft•7mo ago