Should Employees Have the Obligation of Reporting Employers if Their Products Are Harmful - Coursework Example

 Should Employees have the moral obligation of reporting their employers if their products are harmful to the public? Introduction The ethical question that is going to be raised in this paper is that should employees be morally obligated to report their employers if their product is harmful for the general masses? This question is of particular importance in this day and eras because the corporate world has been blinded by its one and only aim, of making profit. This has proven to be particularly harmful because products have been made which are harmful to people in the short run and the long run and if employees had reported their employees a lot of damage could have been avoided, but by far and large that has not been the case. Any product that is harmful for the masses is being advertised and marketed in such a manner that it seems as the most potent weapon for battling problems that consumers face but in return of using those products customers get a lot of complications and more problems in return, of particular importance here has been the pharmaceutical industry or the health care industry in general which has been producing and marketing products that can cause harm to the general public and that is only discovered in the long run when the damage has been done, had the employees of the company been morally obligated such a situation would never arise because they would be first one to report their employees and save the general public from their intentions. A lack of initiative in this particular area is also quite noticeable because not a lot of people have the courage to take on multi-million companies and their senior executives. This is of particular importance to me and the field of study that I have chosen to be in because millions of people get affected by such situations each and every day but the catch is- that they do not even know that what they are using is going to be harmful for them. This is something that should concern each and every individual of the society who has a moral character and some ethical values. The stance that people take on this question is that yes employees should be morally obligated because they would have the chance to save millions of people from harmful products and that is the best thing that one could do to serve humanity and also to fulfill ones moral and ethical values. It is also important for some people because they believe that an initiative in this regards needs to be taken and people who would step up first would be highly regarded by the society. On the other hand there are people who advocate that if employees start doing this then they would lose their jobs and the society is not in a position to provide jobs for them, why would anyone want to lose out on their living for a society that hardly is of any benefit to them? Another perspective that is taken in this regards is that if a product is harmful for the consumers, then most of the employees do not even know, only the higher management knows of the defects in the product and they have already been blinded by the profit motive and hence such an initiative by high level employees or top management is unthinkable. Building on this argument some people have reasoned that the transmission of such information regarding the product would be virtually impossible because on one hand there would be a company who would be investing millions and even billions of dollars into the marketing campaign for that product, on the other hand there would be one individual or a group of people who would be claiming that the product is harmful, who is more likely to get the message through to the masses? My stance on this issue is that employees should be morally obligated to report their employers and the society should encourage such behavior through some positive reinforcements which would be discussed further on in the paper. Over View of the Issue There have been a lot of products in the united states and other countries that have been marketed as the miraculous drug or the miraculous bar and they have proven to have had cancer causing or enhancing the possibility of cancer causing bodies in the human system, yet these products have repeatedly found their way on to the super store shelves and many people have fallen prey to the harmful effects of using these products. One prime example is that of smoking, companies promoted smoking in many a way, through marketing cigarettes and smokers as some of the most macho men on the face of this earth and before the governments all around the world were pressurized into banning cigarette commercials and making it mandatory for cigarette manufacturers to have a warning on the cigarette packets, there was not much awareness amongst the masses. Then there are companies which use sub standard raw materials in their products which make the products really harmful for the human body, the most recent example which comes to mind is the Chinese toy manufacturing company which had a high component of lead in its products and as a result of this sub standard material had to call back millions of its stock units from markets all around the world including the United States and more or less most of the European countries as well. As mentioned above the pharmaceutical industry is of extreme importance because of the nature of the industry itself and it is of much more ethical and moral concern because it is an industry which has been formed to save lives and not to ruin lives, so naturally the importance of being ethical and moral in such an industry is highly important. More so over this industry has been historically plagued with sub standard products which lead to various harmful side effects as a result there have been increasing tort based cases world-wide and in the United States as well. Stances That People Take As mentioned above some people do subscribe to the theory that employees have a moral obligation to report their employers if they find out about any product which might be harmful to the public because it is their moral obligation and the ‘ right thing’ to do under the given circumstances because one should rise above ones own personal interests and sacrifice them for the greater good of the people and the masses because it is the society at large that would suffer if one individual chose to stay mum on the subject just to save his own job on the other hand some people advocate and subscribe to the belief that though people may be morally obligated but they are bound by factors such as employment security and hence are forced to stay mum on such issues of critical importance. On the other hand there are people who believe that it is am impractical situation and hence there can be no moral obligation on the employees, they raise the question, if people sacrifice their jobs and their livelihood for the greater good of the society, does it give them any benefit? Does the society ensure that they would be rewarded for their high moral standards? Does the society ensure that they would get a job and they would not have to stay unemployed for a long time? This shows that there is immense need of promoting such behavior and increasing support for such programs and having positive reinforcement plans for people who take such initiatives or who have already done so. Personal Stance and Rachels Theory As mentioned before I personally subscribe to the view that employees should be morally obligated to report their employers who have been or are involved in producing products that are harmful to the society at large because as human beings we derive a lot of benefits from the society, in fact the whole concept of humanity is driven from this society based concept otherwise we are as good as animals. I subscribe to Rachels theory of ‘Divine Command’ which basically says that humans are morally obligated or the morals of humans are decided by religious literature and there is no religion in the world that does not urge humans to be moral and do the right thing even if that is the hardest choice that needs to be made, I believe in this because the society all around us subscribes to certain views because of religion and their religious beliefs. A large chunk of human morality has been derived from religious literature and hence this theory has pin pointed the motivation that we have as humans to do the right thing. The second theory that Rachel proposes is that of ‘psychological egoism’, people have underlying motives for what they do, even if they do not realize that they have some under lying motive, they would have one at the sub conscious level. For example when people help the needy, they do so because it makes them feel good about who they are, they are trying to achieve their own goals rather than making the society a better place to live in. With regards to the issue at hand what can be done is that this psychological ego could be played at and people who actually do take the initiative of reporting their employers should be given a hero like status and they should be treated as hero’s as well. They should be in the news and there should be lunches and dinners held in recognition of the heroic deed that they have done by reporting their employer and saving people at large. Conclusion People have the tendency to weighing the positives and benefits of any situation at the personal level, the society needs to promote behavior in which people are sacrificing their own jobs and monetary gains for the larger society, so that the benefits of such decisions seem to outweigh the negatives of such a situation. The two theories that have been used for the purpose of this paper are the psychological egoism and divine command theory, both of them which propagate that people would always have a personal reason for doing what is right than having the interest of the larger public in mind. The perspectives of people with regards to this ethical question are very clear, there is no grey area, either they are for it because it is the right thing to do or they are against it because the person who sacrifices, loses out on a lot of opportunities for no gain. References Arthur, Bernard. Morality: An Introuduction to ethics. 2nd. 1993. Print Fletcher, Joseph. Situation Ethics: The New Morality. 4th. 1997. Print Rist, John. Real Ethics. 3rd. 2002. Print Ambrose, Don. Ethics, Morality and Gifted Minds. 1st. 2009. Print. Read More