Keystone Case

In Keystone, more than one employee recognized their antidepressant drug “Trizon” has risk of suicide. However, Dr. Sarah Doyle, the physician and researcher with the Keystone; Mr. Santon , the supervisor of Keystone, and Linda Albright, the head of marketing at Keystome, all agree to hind the existence of risk of suicide on Trizon to the pubic. As individuals, who enter into a pharmaceutical company, these employees should take responsibilities not only toward their employers but also their customers and the society. Therefore, these Keystone’s employees’ behaviors are morally wrong since they fail to take responsibilities to customer, professional community and the society.

When an individual enter a workplace, he/she owes types of responsibilities to others. As employees who work within a pharmaceutical company, they definitely owe responsibilities to company’s customers since while customers purchase Trizon, they have rights to access all relevant information about Trizon’s side effects in order to protect their health and safety. The Keystone’s employees might argue that they use the classical shareholder view to determine their employees’ responsibilities, which is to act as agents of employer and to conduct business in accordance with the wishes of their employer. In this view, Dr. Sarah Doyle, Mr. Santon and Linda Albright only have duties to perform certain tasks at Keystone and just owe their employer fiduciary duties of loyalty, trust, obedience and confidentiality. They should keep Trizon’s suicide attempt confidential in order to achieve company’s profit. However, the stakeholder view objects this narrow view of employee responsibilities. In deontological view, employees are often vulnerable in relationship with employers. Keystone’s employers treat its employees as means to firm owner’s own ends is to treat employee as an object, to deny their autonomy and free will. Because of the strong fiduciary duties toward employers, Keystone’s employees...