The Morality of Food
Does food have moral value?
In the evidence-based and anti-diet nutrition space, many shout out “food has no morals”.
While the psychological toll of dieting and restriction is real, is it true that food has no moral value?
I think the only real consideration we get for this question is from the vegan community. I’m sure many if not all vegans would argue that yes, food has moral value. But what do we mean by “moral value”?
Values can be described as something we hold to be important and morals can be described as our standards of right or wrong. We can describe moral value as the importance by which that thing, event, person, etc. can be described in terms of right or wrong.
Some philosophers would argue food, as in the food that we consume beyond its nutritional worth, does have moral value. We see this in the field of food ethics.
Food Ethics
Unfortunately, food ethics is a newly emerging field in its own right. While the contemporary arguments over moral vegetarianism can be traced back to the 1970s, food ethics is a field in its own right. It can be connected to, but distinct from the issues of moral vegetarianism.
I will define food ethics as any ethical consideration and methods used to inquire about food products, production, distribution, and impact.
This would be wider than the concerns about the ethics of eating meat. Food ethics would be concerned with the environment, biotechnology, food distribution to poor populations/places, the production of food globally, and I’m sure more.
But does this mean an apple is inherently good or bad? I would argue food ethics is not concerned with the inherent quality of food, but with the context of that food.
For example, if the production of apples was through the exploitation of child labor in a developing country choosing to eat that apple might perpetuate that system of exploitation that we would see as wrong. Most of us probably do not agree with the use of child labor for producing apples.
Another example could be dairy, while dairy itself can be seen as a good source of calcium and not inflammatory the context in which cows are treated might be of ethical concern.
Focusing on the context of food allows us to think ethically about that food. We would then use the methods of ethics to come to conclusions about right or wrong about the food.
The inherent quality of that food from a nutritional perspective is inconsequential outside of the system by which that food is in. In other words, caring about the perfect diet from a nutritional science-based perspective is not the primary concern because it is descriptive rather than prescriptive.
Ethics 101
It is extremely difficult to explain the nuances of ethics to non-philosophers, but I will try.
Ethics is simply the study of right or wrong. We tend to act in the world with values that inform our beliefs about right or wrong, good and bad, these beliefs inform our actions. Typically, people want to know… how do I properly act in the world?
This question is so important it is often the basis of many religious movements and political ideologies. But for the sake of brevity, I will state philosophers have argued over ethics for centuries outside of religious and political institutions.
In ethics, there are two main components meta-ethics and ethical theory.
Meta-ethics is concerned with the metaphysical basis of ethics, this means- what do we mean by right or wrong? Typically, when we utter moral language we have some implicit meaning behind what we mean by “right” and “wrong”, meta-ethics wants to explore that.
Ethical theory is the application of concepts we get from meta-ethics. So once we define what right and wrong mean we try to apply that via an explanation of how to act morally.
There are three main ethical theories:
Utilitarianism
Deontology
Virtue Ethics
Ethical Theories
I will briefly describe the ethical theories and how they might apply to food ethics.
Keep in mind these are oversimplifications of these theories as there are many versions, alternatives, and alterations of them.
Utilitarianism (classic) describes an action as being right based on maximizing happiness for the majority. Now there are issues with this classic approach obviously, as maximizing the happiness of the majority can lead to questionable or apprehensive actions done to the minority.
This approach is most closely related to food ethics as many philosophical proponents of veganism, like Peter Singer, describe themselves as utilitarian.
Deontology states that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules and principles, rather than based on the consequences of the action. This is known as rule-based ethics.
Kant himself dismissed the idea of animals having moral agency. He saw animals as ends and instruments to be used for human consumption. Some philosophers contest this dismissal of animal rights by Kant and his philosophy.
Virtue ethics places emphasis on the moral character or virtues of the individual over moral rules (deontology) or the consequences of actions (utilitarianism). This idea comes primarily from Aristotle and Plato, a good person has certain virtues that allow them to be good.
Maybe a virtuous person would care that others are going through food poverty, maybe they would care about the environment, and perhaps they would question the treatment of animals in factory farm conditions.
Applying Ethics to Food
Even if we choose a theory and have all our meta-ethical terms labeled, applying idealistic ethical considerations to real-world problems is a job in itself.
It is extremely difficult to get people to act in accordance with our ethical rules, principles, or virtues all of the time or in instances we prefer.
While the ethicist can point out ethical considerations it is ultimately society, particularly government and industry, which shapes the course of the food landscape.
This is the issue with movements like ethical vegetarianism/veganism, the ethical arguments could be strong but come from an unconvincing place.
The purpose of this article is to outline the fact ethics can apply to food and some of the basic ethical considerations when talking about food. This isn’t an article on how to apply a particular theory to a particular problem.
That can and will be up for much debate. Nevertheless, the basis of morality is ambiguous. Trying to apply moral rules to others’ food choices will inherently restrict their ability as autonomous agents to choose how they want or like.
Maybe we could use moral calculus as seen in utilitarianism to decide which action represents more happiness, or we can use rules for dictating eating choices like we would in deontology. Perhaps we can impose the moral virtues of tolerance, moderation, fairness, and respect for dealing with food-related issues. However, these all run into their own problems.
While food ethics is a real field and should be taken seriously by everyone in the health space it is not a straightforward path.