Moral or Ethical Difference if

¶ … moral or ethical difference if the $11 savings had been passed on to Ford's customers? Could a rational customer have chosen to save $11 and risk the more dangerous gas tank? Would that have been similar to making air bags optional? What if Ford had told potential customers about its decision?

In an effort to under-price the competition in the increasingly cutthroat automobile industry, under the leadership of Lee Iacocca, Ford cut many corners when designing their newest model, the Ford Pinto. Although design engineers had reported that the alternate placement of the gas tank was a time bomb waiting to happen, Ford stuck with its "under $2,000, under 2000 pounds" initiative and went ahead with the design as planned. Their blunder was exposed to the public in an article in Mother Jones magazine, which incited a maelstrom of negative backlash against the automotive industry and their lack of concern for safety. In this sense, Ford was to blame for Pinto debacle in that the company could have done more to ensure safety. There would have been no moral difference if the $11 savings had been passed on to Ford's customers. No rational person would chose to risk their lives to save $11. However there are still questions about where to draw the line when it comes to manufacturer responsibility. After all in our overly-litigious society, American industry is finding itself increasingly at risk.

Ford felt the impact of the tort system's growing obsession with institutional punishment as their actions were considered not just a mistake, but a crime. As Shaw and Barry (2004) point out even if corporations cannot be considered "moral actors," the law can "still fine them, monitor and regulate their activities, and require the people who run them to do one thing or another" (p. 212). They can also indict them. The Ford Motor Company was indicted on two counts of criminal homicide. Because the prosecution was not able to prove that Ford acted with conscious bad faith, or that any official of the company even believed that its design was unreasonably dangerous, let alone had any intent to kill or injure, Ford was acquitted of claims of criminal homicide but not of criminal product liability. This does not mean however that lawsuits such as the one against Ford should be entirely disallowed. There are certainly instances when manufacturer neglect is viably criminal. This case was not the last to invoke strict-liability tort standards as a new basis for criminal responsibility. The new tort law had come full circle. Strict liability was originally offered as a low-key, no-fault insurance system. These no-fault principles have been stretched to define a new class of crime.