Ethical rooms for maneuver and theirprospects vis á vis the current ethical food policies in Europe

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. Second, these consumer concerns are inherently dynamic because they respond to difficult and complex societal and technological situations and developments. For example, because of the rising concern with global warming, carbon dioxide absorption of crops is now attracting public attention, which means that new requirements are being proposed for the environmentally friendly production of crops. Third, there are different types of consumers, and their choices between conflicting values differ accordingly. Consumers use different weighing models and various types of information in making their food choices. Changing food chains more in accordance with consumer concerns should at least take into account the multi-interpretable, dynamic, and pluralist features of consumer concerns, for example, in traceability schemes. In discussing usual approaches such as codes, stakeholder analysis, and assurance schemes, I conclude that these traditional approaches can be helpful. However, in cases of dynamic, pluralistic, and uncertain developments, maintaining some pre-existing evaluating scheme or some clear cut normative hierarchy, such as codes or assurance schemes, can be disastrous in undermining new ethical desirable initiatives. Instead of considering ethical standards and targets as fixed, which is done with codes and schemes, it is more fruitful to emphasize the structure of the processes in which ethical weighing of relevant consumer concerns get shaped. The concept of ¿Ethical Room for Maneuver¿ (ERM) is constructed to specify the ethical desirable conditions under which identification and weighing of paramount values and their dilemmas can be processed. The main aims of the ERM are making room in all the links of the food chain for regulating and implementing the relevant consumer concerns by (1) balancing and negotiating, (2) supporting information systems that are relevant and communicative for various consumer groups and (3) organizing consumer involvement in the links of the food chain. The social and political context of agriculture and food production, particularly in Europe, gives ample opportunity for implementing several types of Ethical Rooms for Maneuver. Finally, I discuss several types of Ethical Rooms for Manoeuvre in the food chains that can be communicated by means of specific traceability schemes to less involved stakeholders with the potential consequence that the stakeholders will be motivated to be more involve

The good life: living for health and a life without risks? On a prominent script of nutrigenomics

Like all scientific innovations, nutrigenomics develops through a constant interplay with society. Normative assumptions, embedded in the way researchers formulate strands of nutrigenomics research, affect this interplay. These assumptions may influence norms and values on food and health in our society. To discuss the possible pros and cons of a society with nutrigenomics, we need to reflect ethically on assumptions rooted in nutrigenomics research. To begin with, we analysed a set of scientific journal articles and explicated three normative assumptions embedded in the present nutrigenomics research. First, values regarding food are exclusively explained in terms of disease prevention. Health is therefore a state preceding a sum of possible diseases. Second, it is assumed that health should be explained as an interaction between food and genes. Health is minimised to quantifiable health risks and disease prevention through food¿gene interactions. The third assumption is that disease prevention by minimisation of risks is in the hands of the individual and that personal risks, revealed either through tests or belonging to a risk group, will play a large role in disease prevention. Together, these assumptions suggest that the good life (a life worth living, with the means to flourish and thrive) is equated with a healthy life. Our thesis is that these three normative assumptions of nutrigenomics may strengthen the concerns related to healthism, health anxiety, time frames and individual responsibilities for health. We reflect on these ethical issues by confronting them in a thought experiment with alternative, philosophical, views of the good lif

Het opgespoetste imago van alcohol

Er komt maar geen einde aan het positieve gezondheidsnieuws over alcohol. Drink elke dag een paar glazen en je kans op prostaatkanker vermindert, net als je kans op hart- en vaatziekten, nierstenen, diabetes-2 en dementie. Ook Wageningse onderzoekers vinden aanwijzingen dat een beetje drank best gezond is. Maar niet iedereen is gelukkig met het opgepoetste imago van alcoho

Ethical challenges for the life sciences

In this book we will first discuss broader issues of ethics of the life sciences, which enable us later on to focus on the more specific issues. Therefore, we begin with two contributions on the ethical issues of working in organizations. A fruitful side effect of this start is that it gives a good insight into business ethics, a branch of applied ethics that until now is far ahead of ethics for life scientists. In the second part, ethics of activities directly connected with doing scientific research are discussed, like experimenting with animals and human beings, publishing, patenting, getting funds and selecting one’s research theme. Thirdly, we discuss the topic of animal ethics, which in the life sciences in particular requires discussion on the use of animals in experiments. Fourthly, several authors present their view on the relationship between science and society, i.e., the societal impact of the life sciences, like genetic, agricultural and food research. Fifthly, we discuss the issue of the impact of this applied field of ethics for academic ethics in general. We will finish with some new problems with which the life sciences are confronte