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Ethics Essay # 2
Please Choose One of the Following:
1) Lynn White contends that Christianity can explain our attitudes (western attitudes) toward nature even if we ourselves are not Christian. What is his argument? Why do we need to adopt a revised approach to Christianity in order to change our relationship with nature?
2) Compare and contrast Lynn White’s Christian view of nature with Gregory Cajete’s American Indian. Are there any places where they seem to agree or could Christianity arrive at similar environmental conclusions by a different route? Is one of these views preferable to the other?
3) John Stuart Mill has said that in a world of limited resources, “one person cannot get more without someone else getting less”, and by extension, one person cannot get more freedom without someone else getting less. Considering this, what do you think of Peter Singer’s notion that it is morally wrong for affluent people (this would still likely include many people in our middle class and up) to spend money on nonessential goods while others are starving? Are we morally obligated to reduce or alter our standard of living in order to help those who are suffering (even if by giving things up we simply make resources more available)? Do current environmental considerations give this suggestion more importance or acceptability? Explain.
4) Jan Narveson argues that we are not morally obligated to alleviate another’s suffering unless we have caused it directly? At first this may seem nearly obvious, but is the distinction between direct and indirect cause a strict and easily divided boundary? Is the distinction always clear? Should derivative consequences (otherwise seemingly indirect) create any moral obligations? Are there any examples to show that this division might be problematic? Just to get you started, we might think about the slave tomato pickers that Taco Bell was buying from. Do we as consumers have any responsibility in this situation if we continue purchasing? You don’t have to answer to this specific example, it is merely an example.
5) Explain how you think the issues covered in Environmental Ethics, Hunger and Poverty, and Nutritional Ethics are related. Include an answer to the following question: How do our personal choices impact not only ourselves, but also the lives of others and the environment in which we are all located? This question is open ended so that you can synthesize these areas in a way that speaks to you the most. You may use any of the information necessary to make your point (facts, statistics, reasoning, other peoples arguments, theories…etc.).
6) Vandana Shiva: “Food is in its very nature the place where ethics begins, because it is what connects us, our bodies, to the rest of the environment. Every other issue we can kind of put aside and think in a distant kind of way, but food becomes us. We are what we eat. So eating is the ultimate ethical act, it is the ultimate political act.” Explain and interpret what you think Shiva is saying here. How does this statement show how nutritional ethics, hunger and poverty, environmental ethics, and human rights are related (be specific)? Do you agree with this assessment and to what extent (explain your agreement or disagreement)? You can use any information that we have covered and the rest of Vandana Shiva’s radio broadcast transcript to assist you.
7) Food and Human Rights: In looking at Genetically Engineered (GE) foods in particular (though this is also true of Bovine Growth Hormones, and heavy pesticide usage), we discovered that there is a great deal of misinformation, and failure of government agencies to look out for the common good by ordering proper testing. Instead these agencies have weak standards and in many cases no recall powers to order dangerous foods off the market. This situation does not encourage the disclosure of accurate or true information and has even led to active efforts to keep this information away from public scrutiny. How and in what way is this incompatible with Kantian (deontological) rights based ethics? Why would it be necessary according to a Kantian view that we be made aware of and perhaps actively seek information about the sources of our food and the manner in which it is produced? Also, how do you think a Kantian would approach the genetic engineering of animals and other organisms including seeds in general?
8) Do you think that the notion of “treating life as an invention” in genetic engineering and the system of industrial agriculture, including CAFO’s, is an obstacle to the creation of an environmental ethic? If so, how and why? If not why not? Should an environmental ethic include animal rights? Is the development of an environmental ethic necessary and or inevitable?
9) Now that we have done this once, you can see how these questions and investigations are structured. Option 9 is an open option for you to make your own option if there is something you wanted to address in the readings that you don’t represented here in the options provided. Please check in with me if you intend to do this.
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