Legally, forcing Ford to make costly payments to the families of the victims of its maleficent inaction was good for society as well as for the individuals who were harmed. Companies are less likely to make such criminally negligent risk/benefit calculations when they know the legal system will penalize the organization financially and legally. Only by increasing the hazardous potential of financial loss from acting immorally can the tort system truly protect consumers. Even in utilitarian ethical calculations, forcing Ford to make costly payments to victim's families makes acting as Ford did in the Pinto case 'wrong' even in terms of corporate profitability analysis as the company is potentially harming the profit margins of shareholders as well as unwitting drivers.

Of course, it could be argued that such an ethical rationale is undeniably influenced by the current litigious environment -- few companies would feel, in today's environment that they could operate with impunity, as Ford did in the 1970s. Furthermore, there is an atmosphere of distrust of corporations and corporate managerial decisions in the automotive and financial industry in America today, although the lack of consideration for individual welfare to make a short-term profit was not physically harmful, but economically, in the case of the current economic crisis. Such an environment undoubtedly influences one's ethical distrust of large...

In fact, many argue the system has gone too far in the opposite direction, and even small infractions can result in high payments to litigants, if there is a perception that the company 'can afford' to pay a great deal of money to an aggrieved plaintiff.
Expectations of driving safety have increased in America as well, in a way that could make a potential jury even more shocked by Ford's actions. Car seats are mandatory for children, as are seatbelts for all drivers in most states. In some areas, even driving with a cell phone is an offense. To drive in a potentially combustible car in the era of airbags seems unfathomable. But while morals have changed a great deal in America since the 1970s, this is one case that relates so fundamentally to common human decency, that even applying a so-called 'Period Eye' or historically contextualized analysis, suggests that Ford's actions were unethical.

Works Cited

De George. (2006). The Ford Pinto case. Business ethics, pp.298-299.

Leggett, Christopher. (1999, Spring). The Ford Pinto case. Law & Valuation.

Retrieved September 14, 2009 at http://www.wfu.edu/~palmitar/Law&Valuation/Papers/1999/Leggett-pinto.html

Newton & Ford. (2008). Chapter 4/Issue 15: Was Ford to blame in the Pinto case? Taking sides,

pp. 291-319.