The Ethics of Food Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

The Ethics of Food - Term Paper Example 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 o f 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 â€Å"Is buying ‘local’ food always better for the environment?† (Prince, et al., 2007, p. 2). This question implicates food consumers mo st 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 addi tional 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 Yo ung and Leehr (2009) contend, it does not matter which side of the debate between agri-business