What Shall We Eat? An Ethical Framework for Well-Grounded Food Choices

In production and consumption of food, several ethical values are at stake for different affected parties and value conflicts in relation to food choices are frequent. The aim of this article was to present an ethical framework for well-grounded decisions on production and consumption of food, guide...

Full description

Saved in:

Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Journal of agricultural & environmental ethics 2020-04, Vol.33 (2), p.283-297
Main Author:	Höglund, Anna T.
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Affected parties Agricultural Economics Animals Autonomy Conflicts Consumers Consumption Decisions Education Environmental ethics Environmental impact Ethical framework Ethics Evolutionary Biology Food Food consumption Food ethics Food production Pain Philosophy Plant Sciences Questions Theory of Medicine/Bioethics Value conflicts Values Working conditions
Online Access:	Get full text
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!

Description
Summary:	In production and consumption of food, several ethical values are at stake for different affected parties and value conflicts in relation to food choices are frequent. The aim of this article was to present an ethical framework for well-grounded decisions on production and consumption of food, guided by the following questions: Which are the affected parties in relation to production and consumption of food? What ethical values are at stake for these parties? How can conflicts between the identified values be handled from different ethical perspectives? Four affected parties, relevant for both production and consumption of food, were identified, namely animals, nature, producers and consumers. Working form a bottom-up perspective, several values for these parties were identified and discussed. For animals: welfare, not being exposed to pain and natural behavior ; for nature: low negative impact on the environment and sustainable climate ; for producers: fair salaries and safe working conditions ; and for consumers: access to food, autonomy, health and food as part of a good life . As several of these values can come into conflict when choices of what to eat should be made, the article argues for the need of weighing values from four different perspectives in food ethics dilemmas, namely duties, consequences, virtues and care. The suggested ethical framework can provide moral guidance to both producers of food and to consumers in a supermarket. Thereby, it can contribute to more well-grounded decisions concerning what to eat and make people feel a little bit more secure when reflecting over the question: What shall we eat?
ISSN:	1187-7863 1573-322X 1573-322X