Ethics of Food Production and Consumption - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 229

Chapter 9
Ethics of Food
Production and
Consumption
Michiel Korthals
Introduction of Food Ethics: What
Ethics Is and Is Not
“ Yo u should eat this healthy fruit salad!”; “ D o n' t eat this piece of pork!”; “A farmer
should take care of her cows!”; “It is unethical to confront children with junk food adver-
tisements.” With respect to eating and producing food, one is faced several times a day
with ethical expressions such as these. Everyday language on food is permeated with
prohibitions, refutations, exhortations, recommendations, and even less explicit ethical
notions such as “this is a natural product.” But people are confronted not only with these
personal ethical issues; worldwide hunger, animal abuse, fair and unfair trade, and the
role of competition between biofuels and food crops are recurrent topics in newspa-
pers and other media if not a daily reality for many. Food and production of food are
continuing and disturbing themes in the past, the present, and the future; although
nowadays they have more urgency than ever due to the increasing gap between produc-
ers and consumers which produces a lot of uncertainty on both sides (see the next two
sections).
Academic food ethics starts with these ethical issues to develop a critical analysis,
and in the end, to assist citizens in dealing with them. As a critical discipline, it takes
into account various standpoints with respect to agriculture and food, including less
dominant ones. However, although academic (food) ethics cannot always avoid moral
expressions, it tries to stay away from prescribing a set of answers. Instead, it develops,
sometimes provocatively, tools (concepts, strategies, approaches) required to reflect
clearly and effectively on the questions themselves. Moreover, in developing these tools,