Ford's conduct in the faulty design of the Pinto fuel tank resulted in many deaths. Which theory, Utilitarian or Kantian was used and why?

In my opinion, Ford would have had to have been acting out in accordance with Utilitarianism (if they were actually even trying to be moral).

By Kant's reasoning, I can't see anyway to justify what Ford did. If you use the Categorical Imperative, what would their universal law be? "Feel free to endanger people's lives if safety would cost too much?" I don't know how you could will that to be a universal law.

From a utilitarian perspective, you could sort of justify it. You could say that the harm that would come to all the Ford workers, their families, etc if Ford went broke would be worse than the possibility of some people dying. We just bailed out the auto companies because it would be terrible if they went broke, so the same logic could apply here.