Give me a grade

[UnderseaLcpl]

I really hate having to ask for your opinions on school-related matters that are my responsibility, but I would like the opinions of my fellow subsimmers on an assignment. I am a very poor student. It isn't that I don't understand the material; I just have a tendency to go way outside the scope of the assignment in order to achieve a comprehensive understanding of things, and I sometimes offend teachers, neither of which is good.

The following is an excerpt from an assignment that I recently failed. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but the Prof. was quite mean about it. He said that I obviously had no idea what was going on, and that if I continued to have this attitude I would fail the whole course. You guys are the smartest gang I hang out with, so I'd like your opinions. I'd especially like August's opinion. I'm just not sure whether this problem is because I'm missing something or because I'm missing something else.

Here is the assignment, to be completed in essay form, at least 500 wds.
*citation means places where I later inserted a proper citation, I just had to put it into proper format. The minimum was 2, and the course is Business Ethics, with source material from "Moral Issues in Business" by Williams, Shaw, and Barry (if anyone already has a copy)

Did Ford act unethically in the Pinto case?
Is American industry at too much risk
for lawsuits to remain competitive? Should lawsuits such as the one against Ford be disallowed or limited? Why or why not? Should we try to restrain, in this and other situations, the litigiousness that seems to characterize American life? How might we do this?
Will your answers to any of the above change now that the US government (you, the taxpayer) are part owners of the car companies? Does your ethical stance change if the government (or a private company partially owned by the government) is the party under discussion rather than a totally private company?

And here is my essay:

Before it is possible to answer any of the questions presented in the assignment the question must be asked as to whether or not any of the theories of ethics presented in the text provide a satisfactory answer to all the questions. My opinion is that they do not.
The problem comes from trying to measure an act or intention as being "ethical", or "unethical" when noone can agree on what those terms mean, exactly. Even in the most seemingly simple cases, ethicality can be difficult to determine. The problem lies not so much with the theory as with the practice.
Utilitariansim, even in the deontological sense, is right out because no person has the knowledge to act in the best way for all of society. Such a thing is no basis for a system of ethics. Ford could well have claimed that it was acting in the best interests of the public in the Pinto case, and it did, as evidenced by pp.89-90 of the text (citation) of the text. Deontological Utilitariansim(citation ) gives an easy out for people by simply claiming that they had good intentions. Though that may sound like an observation from a social justice point of view, it is true for all individuals. People tend to believe what they want to believe, and they often want to believe that they are not guilty of any injustice. Rule utilitarianism is similarly futile, mostly for the same reasons, but with the added burden of "who makes the rules and why?".
Egoism, Kan'ts ethics, and every consequentialist and nonconsequentialist theory described lend themselves to the same faults. Without perfect knowledge, it cannot be possible to act ethically in every case, and the ethicality of an act cannot reasonably be judged in every case, no matter what the theory. People also have different ideas about what is ethical and what is not, even in the face of a well-defined theory. Personally, I find the philosophical nature of ethics in any field to be a wild goose chase.
And yet, we still have things that are considered ethical and unethical; moral and amoral. Assuming the above is reasonable , why is this so? The answer, I believe, lies in a normative theory of ethics that is not described as such by the text, but mentioned incorrectly under the section concerning theories of social justice. Social justice and ethics are inextricably entertwined, as without a social system consisting of at least two people, there is no reason for ethics to even exist (religion excepted, of course).
Libertarianism (citation) in both its deontological and consequentialist forms, which are not specifically mentioned in the text(pp122-128), hold that all ethical behaviour stems from the basic principle that no person may ethically initiate the use of force (in excess, in the case of the consequentialist view) fraud, or coercion. Of course, people do these things all the time and there are mitigating factors to be considered, but I believe that the libertarian theory of ethics does well to serve as a baseline for all ethical philosophy, as it is impossible to perform an immoral act while adhering to these principles. True enough, it is possible to allow an immoral act to take place through inaction without violating the aforementioned principles, but mitigating circumstances may well again put us at an impasse. For instance, if a safe was about to drop on a man's head, and you could grab the rope, but doing so may put you in jepoardy, what is the ethical course of action? Maybe you save his life and maybe you don't. Maybe you get killed instead. Maybe the man is a drug dealer or murderer. Even from a deontological perspective, these are difficult questions, but libertarianism gives us a baseline from which to judge. If you did not cause the safe to fall (force through neglect), you cannot be held accountable for your inaction, though other may hold you accountable preemptively without coercing you, and you may modify your actions based upon this (you force and coerce yourself).
It is from this perspective that I would like to evaluate the Ford Pinto case.
From a libertarian perspective, Ford acted unethically, without question. Presumably, the buyers of Ford products did not want a car that would explode, and presumably, Ford did not say anything about the risks. Therefore, Ford committed fraud and should be held accountable.
With regards to the question of whether American industry is too much at risk for lawsuits to remain competitive, and whether or not we should restrain lawsuits, I can say only this: A lawsuit is a use of state force, coercion, and occasionally fraud against another party. Therefore it is inherently immoral unless precipitated by an act of force, coercion, or fraud. The problem with litigiouness is that it is an unrestrained use of force. Therefore, the solution is to make the plaintiff pay if they are wrong, which is not the case with the current system.( I will not go into specifics on the justice system here, as it is well outside the scope of this assignment.) The defendant can initiate countersuit, but the need to do so could be interpreted as a use of force by the plaintiff, and the whole suit itself is already unethical if no offense can be proven.
My answers and my ethical stance have absolutely nothing to do with what the US government is doing with automotive manufacturers or any other entity. For one thing, I am not really a part owner of them at all. If I am, where is my dividend and can I sell my share? I do, however, consider the government to be an inherently immoral agent, as it is based upon the use of force to achieve whatever ends are deigned necessary by someone who is not me. Simultaneously, I consider the rule of law to be sacrosanct, but that's another subject.

edit-the format is messed up. Pretend I used proper block paragraphs.