Food Ethics and Professional Responsibility

Ethics in Food Science and Technology

• Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, deals with what is morally good and bad, and right and wrong.
• Food professionals need to consider ethical issues from agricultural production to commercialization, and consumption.

Importance of Food Ethics Education

• To understand consumers' ethical standards regarding food production and consumption.
• To address the growing public concern about unsustainable industry practices.
• To ensure food production complies with laws and regulations for consumer protection and public health.
• To make ethical decisions when faced with dubious ethical procedures.
• To engage in creating sound ethical policies and regulations.

Levels of Moral Problems

Simple Wrongdoing

• The solution is evident and does not require reflection with ethics theory.

Object of Legislation

• Solutions are referred to standards and laws.
• Regulated by law and implemented by government regulatory agencies.

Moral Dilemmas

• (Note: This section is not explicitly described in the provided text, but it is mentioned as one of the three levels of moral problems.)

Moral Dilemmas

• Moral dilemmas are issues and concerns that can arise in daily work, but are not fully studied and are not covered by laws and regulations.
• Professionals may have varying opinions on moral dilemmas, requiring thorough ethical decision-making.

Genetic Modified Organisms (GMOs)

• GMOs are organisms (plants, animals, or microorganisms) in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally by mating and/or natural recombination (WHO, 2014).

Ethics and Morality

• Ethics is the philosophy of moral values, studying and reflecting on what is right and wrong.
• Morality refers to society's standards of acceptable behavior.

Ethical Principles

• Our actions are guided by ethical principles.
• The Golden Rule is a well-known ethical principle: "Don't do unto others what you don't want others to do unto you."

Normative Ethics

• Normative ethics is the study of how we ought to act, morally speaking.
• It deals with questions about what is right and wrong, good and bad.
• Normative ethics is also known as moral philosophy.

Ethical Theories

• Consequential Theory (Teleological Ethics): considers the consequences of our actions.
• Non-consequential Theory (Deontological Ethics): focuses on the actions themselves, rather than their consequences.
• Alternative Approaches (Virtue Theory): emphasizes the character and moral virtues of individuals.

Consequentialism

• Consequentialism is a theory of morality that derives duty or moral obligation from what is good or desirable as an end to be achieved.
• Also known as Teleological ethics, from Greek "telos" (end) and "logos" (science).