The Ethics of Food - Term Paper Example

? The Ethics of Food Ethical considerations with respect to the food industry are a maze of complex questions that pin moral responsibility on any number of different sources, whether consumers, producers, the media, the government, or scientists. In the increasingly intricate food production process, there are many steps in the process where things could be positively changed and such positive changes could be introduced by any of these ethical food sources. Ethics is the philosophical study of moral values and rules. Applied to food, this means a study of what values and rules ought to be embraced as the norm for the production and consumption of food through each step of the process. An ethics of food is particularly important because food is essential to human life. For instance, to deny a person food for any prolonged period will inevitably lead to that person’s death. Although the denial of a specific person food for a time is not subject to ethical debate, millions of people each year die of hunger that could be prevented in theory. Here, we will examine the sources of ethical duty within the food production process, starting with governments and ending with scientists. This analysis depends, in large part, on an overview of theory with a great deal of empirical application and comparison to real life. When dealing with an applied ethical issue such as the ethics of food, it is particularly important to bear in mind that one’s philosophical conclusions have very real and widespread effects on human life. Sources that serve as a general introduction to the ethics of food often take the form of a series of questions, of which there are always more than there are answers. All of these questions have something to do with the distinction between an ethical and an unethical act. For instance, a question might be “Is buying ‘local’ food always better for the environment?” (Prince, et al., 2007, p. 2). This question implicates food consumers most directly, but also food producers. The explicit moral value is the environment; namely, how does one best achieve what is best for the environment, which is taken to be morally superior to an act that degrades the environment. The moral duty implied for consumers in this question revolves around the issue of how one goes about helping the environment, and an answer to this question (if it exists) would make this moral duty more clear. Additionally, the question presumes some role of producers in helping the environment: namely, that by producing and selling foods locally, food producers can help the environment in ways that previous generations of producers have not been able to. Accordingly, every question posed in the ethics of food should be addressed in this manner: first, identifying to what or to whom the question implies we have a moral obligation to, secondly identifying the nature of that moral obligation, and thirdly specifically who bears that moral obligation. An additional preliminary comment is that moral obligations about food choices bear weight. The objection that food choice, or the ethics of food, does not really matter will not work. The majority of Americans deal with obesity, which affects the American workforce, healthcare costs, and a degraded environment. Unhealthy food choices lead to decreased brain function, developmental problems in children, and malnutrition from a lack of vital nutrients. Environmentally, poor diets compromise our resources by increasing the need for pesticides and fertilizers that corrupt lakes, streams, and oceans, creates disease in livestock, and releases greenhouse gases that cause irreversible damage in terms of global warming. At current trends, this kind of diet will lead to even more significant social problems in the future (Young & Leehr, 2009). In this sense, one cannot claim that food choices do not matter, or that ethics does not have a role in which direction Americans take. At this point, as Young and Leehr (2009) contend, it does not matter which side of the debate between agri-business and organic one supports; rather, all that matters is that we critically evaluate the ethics of food and how food influences our health and society. Private citizens can apply the methodology of analyzing ethical questions in terms of the various sources of moral obligation by looking critically at scholarly references. With regard to the government and its role in the ethics of food, an interesting case study is the application of the “ethical matrix” (EM), which refers to a concept that facilitates ethical deliberation and decision-making (Mepham, 2010, p. 18). It is based on the idea of a common morality and is intended to help non-philosophers consider the importance of ethical judgments arrived at by the intelligent consideration of all parties affected by a decision. Mepham (2010) considers how governments can employ the EM in order to reverse trends toward obesity. He bases the government’s role in reducing obesity on the desire to win support for policy interventions, but also the moral “ought” for governments to adopt “a stewardship model to protect the interests of the most vulnerable and seek to achieve equality in society, without overruling responsible personal choice” (Mepham, 2010, p. 27). From this standpoint, one can see the interconnectedness of food ethics with the more basic philosophical questions, such as the nature and responsibilities of governments. From the producer standpoint, and particularly on the business advertising end, there is the issue of children’s and parent’s rights. As Bakir and Vitell (2010) remark, the amount of advertising for food and beverages directed at children has increased by a large amount in the previous decades, which has prompted parents, governments, and the industry to debate not only the ethics of the food they are providing but also the way in which they provide it. From an ethical perspective, producers need to align their marketing and production practices with the moral intuitions of the public, as one might measure them with the ethical matrix. One observation that Bakir and Vitell (2010) make in concluding their findings is that food producers are characteristically slow to respond to the ethical concerns and wishes of the public, even though most eventually do when the public becomes loud enough to get their attention. The authors write, “Companies need to respond better to the food-related debates in society, particularly to those related to healthy eating and ethical food marketing” (Bakir & Vitell, 2010, p. 308). From this perspective, a food producer’s moral obligations can clearly be identified. On the other side of that equation, consumers too have definite ethical demands to meet, especially in terms of what they choose (or demand) from producers. In a study of the perception of citizens’ and farmers’ perceptions of animal welfare, Vanhonacker et al. (2008) discovered that “citizens evaluate the current state of animal welfare as rather problematic, while farmers report a more satisfactory evaluation in the present condition of farm animal welfare” (p. 126). What this implies is that private consumers have a relatively poor bank of information to draw from in making their “ethical” food choices. Therefore, despite the public image that farm animals are being abused and neglected by farmers, perhaps the real situation reflects a more benevolent treatment of animals, which would wrongly influence consumer behavior toward more malignant forms of treatment. Regardless of what is actually true, the case that Vanhonacker et al. (2008) raise in their piece is illustrative of the point that consumers need to make intelligent, well-informed choices about what they eat. Therefore, in addition to the moral obligations pinned on producers to respond ethically to the public and to their consumers, it is the role of consumers to stand behind these ethical demands. In addition, private citizens should be more receptive to scientific conclusions in conducting their debates about animal welfare (Vanhonacker, Verbeke, Poucke, & Tuyttens, 2008, p. 135). Although governments, food producers, and food consumers are the typical targets of moral obligations in these ethical considerations about food, one could also ask questions that implicate the media and scientists. Clearly, in order for consumers to make intelligent decisions about their food, they cannot be conducting all of the research themselves. This involves a process of scientific investigation and publication, which is the proper job of the media to relay these findings to the public. However, this is the ideal situation. A more practical (or pessimistic, depending on one’s perspective) view of the situation involves a popular media that is quick to jump on scientific findings (regardless of whether those findings are well supported) and to report them inaccurately to the public. The public, meaning consumers, take this information to heart and their buying decisions are consequently affected. Questions in the ethics of food like “How much oily fish do you need to eat to balance the known benefits of omega-3s against any possible risks from dioxins or other persistent environmental contaminants?” depend solely on the work of scientists (Prince, et al., 2007, p. 2). However, the media plays a role in what the public knows about omega-3 fatty acids by virtue of the fact that few private citizens read scientific literature in order to be more well-informed about food. An example of the media’s role in determining the public’s attitudes toward food, and thus their informed food choices, comes from an archival analysis of representation of genetically modified foods in the UK media from 2004. Augoustinos, Crabb and Shepherd (2010) found that food debates in the media are characterized as “battlegrounds” of competing interests: namely, the British government, the public, and the biotechnology corporations. Rather than serving as deliberative, inclusive, and democratic, these debates are values-based and emotionally charged. Each of these major parties served as rhetorical players by either portraying genetically modified foods as poison to the public or as boons to the political and economic interests of the British state. Regardless, the case study showed for the authors “the increasing politicization of science through controversial issues such as genomics, biotechnology, and more recently climate change” (Augoustinos, Crabb, & Shepherd, 2009, p. 112). Additionally, there is a role for scientists in the ethics of food. As the UK public debate over genetically modified foods showed, there is a pressing need for scientifically legitimate voices to drown out the influence of public interests that live to sway public opinion. As Prince et al. (2007) elaborates, diet gurus and disingenuous nutritionists tend to have more power to change the behaviors of consumers than legitimate doctors and academic experts. Advocacy of exotic products like olive oil for wrinkles and antioxidants in pomegranates is not something one finds in the scientific literature, but rather on the internet, in social circles, and in the food production industry most of all. Some of these claims, like the thought that “turmeric is highly protective against many forms of cancer, especially of the prostate” (Prince, et al., 2007, p. 16), border on dangerous for the public in the sense that they encourage consumers to change their behaviors in ways that reject mainstream scientific methods. Part of this is the responsibility of consumers, to critically evaluate the claims of the media; however, to an extent, scientists are responsible for answering the public’s questions about health. The strength of this moral obligation is up for debate, considering that the voices of bad science have become so loud. To address a question that was broached earlier, “Is buying ‘local’ food always better for the environment?”, one must analyze the moral obligations of each of the parties involved. First, there is the role of the government. In England, Prime Minister David Cameron has characterized local food as “food patriotism” (Prince, et al., 2007, p. 22). Nevertheless, this emotionally charged language is not very useful, nor is it consistent with the moral duties of a government with respect to how it incentivizes ethical food choices. From the producer standpoint, one could claim that by adopting a local production model, they can help save the environment and help improve local economies. This argument, however, has a counterargument: for example, that Caribbean and African banana producers are dependent solely on European consumers. From the perspective of the media, there is a definite responsibility to report the benefits (and disadvantages) of local production of foods without a clear bias toward one side of the debate or the other. Although there is a tendency for media to either support or oppose the current administration in any given democratic state, media must overcome this bias to give its audience the most accurate information possible. Likewise, consumers have an ethical obligation to make the best choices for their bodies and the environment based on the information available to them. This requires some semblance of an agreement between members of the same community about what is valuable and what our “ethical” actions should set out to achieve. Such considerations are only possible within the context of a society that shares in the same fate. In sum, the ethics of food is something that all people, from every different country in the world, should contemplate. Especially in the developed countries, where biotechnology is becoming increasingly present, the issues of how consumers, producers, media, governments, and scientists act in an ethical manner with respect to society’s food ethics. If we take into account the cliche that “we are what we eat”, then it is a matter of vital moral importance to evaluate the moral properties of modern society’s food production and consumption patterns, especially since those patterns seem to be leading down a path of obesity, idleness, and environmental degradation. An appropriate framework for analyzing questions regarding the ethics of food should first identify to what or to whom the question implies we have a moral obligation to, second to identify the nature of that moral obligation, and third specifically who bears that moral obligation. By answering each of those concerns, what is moral obligatory (and for whom) becomes much more clear. Works Cited Augoustinos, M., Crabb, S., & Shepherd, R. (2009). Genetically modified food in the news: media representations of the GM debate in the UK. Public Understanding of Science, 19, 98-114. Bakir, A., & Vitell, S. (2010). The ethics of food advertising targeted toward children: Parental viewpoint. Journal of Business Ethics, 91, 299-311. Mepham, B. (2010). The ethical matrix as a tool in policy interventions: The obesity crisis. In e. a. F.T. Gottwald, Food Ethics (pp. 17-29). New York: Springer Science & Business Media, LLC. Prince, R., Blanc, R., Abbott, D., Dimbleby, H., Hirst, C., Bradshaw, B., et al. (2007). The ethics of food. London: New Statesman. Vanhonacker, F., Verbeke, W., Poucke, E., & Tuyttens, F. (2008). Do citizens and farmers interpret the concept of farm animal welfare differently? Livestock Science, 116, 126-136. Young, S., & Leehr, J. (2009, October 18). It's time to talk about the ethics of food. Retrieved April 22, 2011, from StarTribute: http://www.startribune.com/business/64646227.html Read More