Ethical foodscapes?: premises, promises, and possibilities (original) (raw)
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Journal of Consumer Ethics, 2018
Welcome to this special issue of Journal of Consumer Ethics themed around Food and Ethical Consumption which has been my pleasure to edit. Having studied food and ethical consumption for almost 30 years – covering issues related to fairtrade food brands (Szmigin et al., 2007); farmers markets (McEachern et al., 2010), convenience and family food consumption (Carrigan and Szmigin, 2006), sustainable tourist food consumption (Carrigan et al., 2017), and most recently the role of generativity and family food sustainability (Athwal et al., 2018) – it is apparent that there is signifcant interest and growing concern among researchers and campaigners about how we produce and consume food, particularly in industrialised countries. Ideas about the ethics of food and consumption are contested, and ofen controversial, but they are also important to everyone. What we eat shapes our physical and emotional selves, and consumers or ‘citizens’ play multiple roles in our global food systems (Cura, 2017). Our food choices and understanding of food systems emerge from a complex landscape that includes what constitutes ‘good food’, where it comes from, what we should be eating, how to prepare and share it, and the politics of hunger, eating, getting, growing and wasting food (Goodman et al., 2017; Paddock, 2017; Evans et al., 2017).
Ethics and the politics of food
International Journal of Food Microbiology, 2007
In spite of sophisticated technological and scientific developments in food production and nutrition, efficient means of food distribution, and unprecedented availability of food in some parts of the world, food is contested like never before. Some consumers are concerned about food safety and ethics related to the food they buy, others are concerned because their means of livelihood hardly allows them to take on the role of consumers at all. Others still, lack the opportunity to be active co-participants in the governance and shaping of the local and global food system, and thus, feel disenfranchised. It is a paradox that amidst technological achievements, economic welfare, and global politics, the right to safe and healthy food for all remains so difficult to secure. Yet, this is precisely the case in the world today. ''The ethics and the politics of food'' was the title of the 6th conference of the European Society for Agricultural and Food Ethics (EurSafe), held in Oslo in June 2006. This special issue presents a selection of papers that were presented there. The original versions of these papers were printed in the Congress preprints. The current versions have been reviewed, revised, and expanded. One important lesson from the conference is that issues related to the ethics and the politics of food do not belong to a single discipline, but cut across the boundaries between philosophy, social sciences, and the natural sciences. What starts out as a concern about food risk and safety soon moves to important discussions in ethics, politics, and cultural values. Another important lesson is that food itself transcends boundaries between realms of modern society such as between production and consumption, science, technology, and politics, and nature and culture. This special issue reflects the transcendent, trans-disciplinary, and global character of this emerging field. Selecting the following set of articles, we have sought to capture some of the variety of empirical topics and analytic approaches that characterizes the contributions to the conference. Empirically, one can study the ethics and politics of food from the points of view of consumption, primary production, industrial production, policy making and regulation, or global organizations. Pressing issues of concern include proper land use, animal welfare, genetic modification
This chapter draws attention to the fact that food is not only a (bio)ethical concern but also a biopolitical concern. The growing anxieties regarding climate change, market-failure, and food security at local and global levels re-frames food ethics from consumer choice to wider political and structural issues. In the first part I outline the limitations of bioethical discourses of choice and responsibility surrounding food and health. In the second part I argue that much of the bioethical discourse ignores the biopolitical dimension of food systems by merely encouraging individuals and populations to make healthy food choices. I do not argue that bioethical analyses are redundant or should be ignored. Rather, in the third and final part I argue for the inclusion of biopolitics as a crucial corrective for bioethics to critically respond to concerns surrounding food and that together a substantial political and ethical analysis of food is possible.
A new Discipline in Philosophy: Food Ethics. Issues, concepts and Challenges
Food production and consumption involves ethics, as reflected in prohibitions, refutations, exhortations, recommendations, and even less explicit ethical notions such as whether a certain food product is natural. Food ethics has emerged as an important academic discipline and a branch of philosophy whose underlying goal is to define and elucidate food ethical problems. This article explores the ethics of food production and food consumption. It first presents a historical overview of food and the evolving gap between food production and consumption before discussing a number of quite pressing social concerns associated with the present-day food production system. It then considers concepts and approaches, including agrarianism and pluralism, in the context of two urgent food ethical problems: malnutrition and producing and eating meat. The article also examines food choice, the relationship between food ethics and politics, and the task of food ethics before concluding with a discussion of the future of food and food ethics.
Ethics of Food - Annotated Bibliography
The literature analyzing the ethics of food production, distribution and consumption is continually growing and expanding. The multi-disciplinary nature of this literature has the potential to leave readers disoriented by the scope or unaware of relevant research occurring in unfamiliar disciplines. The purpose of this bibliography is to provide an internet-based resource for researchers, teachers, students and the public interested in the ethics of food. Using short summaries, annotations and links this resource guides readers through the literatures addressing the ethics of food.Importantly, this resource does not attempt to provide an authoritative statement on particular issues, themes or debates but point readers to the relevant literature enabling independent inquiry. We have sought to balance breadth of entries with depth, selecting based on the influence of the entry on the ethical debate and analysis of human conduct in the production, distribution, preparation and consumption of food.
Ethical Rooms for Maneuver and Their Prospects Vis-à-vis the Current Ethical Food Policies in Europe
Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 2008
In this paper I want to show that consumer concerns can be implemented in food chains by organizing ethical discussions of conflicting values that include them as participators. First, it is argued that there are several types of consumer concerns about food and agriculture that are multi-interpretable and often contradict each other or are at least difficult to reconcile without considerable loss.
Ethics and Politics of Food; toward a deliberative perspective
Mystarting point in this article on clarifying ethical issues of food (in the broad sense, including agricultural products and processed foods) will be the distinction between, on the one hand, liberal ideas on autonomy and fairness and, on the other hand, communitarian ideas on values with respect to food that are part of the specific identity of a community. These two types of ideas are described generally rather well in the literature of theoretical ethics and indeed very often formulated, systematized, and justified as being principles and core values respectively. These ideas serve as fruitful starting points for a more detailed discussion about the ethical implications of controversies related to food. Using this distinction, we can inquire, as it were, into the significance and the weight of the arguments of advocates and opponents of the controversies on food. Next I will cover a critique of the liberal and communitarian views on food and present in two steps an alternative: first the perspective of Habermas and second a revision of his deliberative perspective. This is a broader perspective that considers such values as respect for the individual as a member of communities and the pluralism of lifestyles