The Taste for Ethics: An Ethic of Food Consumption

ISBN-13: 9781402045530 / Angielski / Twarda / 2006 / 212 str.

Christian Coff

Opis

This book marks a new departure in ethics. In our culture ethics has first and foremost been a question of the good life in relation to other people. Central to this ethic was friendship, inspired by Greek thought (not least Aristotle), and the caritas concept from the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Later moral philo- phers also included man s relation to animals, and it was agreed that the m- treatment of animals was morally reprehensible. But no early moral teaching discussed man s relation to the origin of foodstuffs and the system that p- duced them; doubtless the question was of little interest since the production path was so short. The interest in good-quality food is of course an ancient one, and healthy eating habits have often been underlined as a condition for the good life. But before industrialization the production of this food was easy to follow. As a rule, that is no longer the case. The field of ethics must therefore be extended to cover responsibility for the production and choice of foodstuffs, and it is this food ethic that Christian Coff sets out to trace."

Recenzje

From the reviews:

"This book makes the case for an ethical understanding of food consumption. Christian Coff notes that a growing number of consumers are making ethics a central part of their food consumption choices. ... Coff's arguments and analyses are very intriguing and convincing. I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in understanding the difficult and complex nature of creating an ethical and values-based food system." (Michael A. Long, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, Vol. 22, 2009)

Spis treści

Foreword. Preface. Part I: Food and Ethics. 1. Eating, Society and Ethics. 1.1 The Intimacy of Eating and Digestion. 1.2 Eating in between Life and Death. 1.3 The Social Meaning of the Meal. 1.4 Food and Ethics in History. 1.5 Food Ethics and the Production History. Part II: The Intellectualisation of Food. 2. Food to Science: On the Intellectualisation of Food. 2.1 The Hermeneutic Approach of Early Natural History. 2.2 The Phenomenological Approach of Late Natural History. 2.3 Biology and the Invisible Characteristics of Life. 2.4 The End of Phenomenology in Biology. 3. The Storylessness of Food. 3.1 The History of Industrialisation of Agriculture. 3.2 Food Science and Gastronomy. 3.3 The Powerlessness of the Political Consumer. 3.4 The Hidden Production History of Food. 3.5 Do not Eat what you have not Read. Part III: Food Ethics and the Production History. 4. Tracing the Production History. 4.1 Short-Range and Long-Range Ethics. 4.2 Food as a Trace. 4.3 The Judgement of Taste and Morality. 4.4 The Trace as Presence and Lost Time. 4.5 History of Effect. 4.6 Production History and Mimesis. 5. Food Ethics as the Ethics of the Trace. 5.1 The Reliability of the Production History. 5.2 Food and Ethical Identity. 5.3 Food as a Trace of Nature. 5.4 Food Ethics of the Consumers. 6. Traceability and Food Ethics. 6.1 Fragmentation and Traceability. 6.2 Sociological Survey on Ethical Traceability. 6.3 Consumer Autonomy: Remembering the Other and Informed Choice. 6.4 Recognizing Consumers Recognizing Producers. References. Index. List of Tables and Figures. About the author.

Blurb

This book marks a new departure in ethics. In our culture ethics has first and foremost been a question of ‘the good life’ in relation to other people. Central to this ethic was friendship, inspired by Greek thought, and the caritas concept from the Judaeo-Christian tradition. But no early moral teaching discussed man’s relation to the origin of foodstuffs and the system that produced them; doubtless the question was of little interest since the production path was so short.

Before industrialisation the production of food was easy to follow. As a rule that is no longer the case. The field of ethics must therefore be extended to cover responsibility for the production and choice of foodstuffs, and it is this food ethic that Christian Coff sets out to trace. In doing so he shows how the focus of ethics can be expanded from its concern for the good life with and for others to cover the good life in fair food production practices, and how not least through using our integrity or life coherence we can reflect ethically, or caringly, about living organisms, ecological systems and our human identity.

From the foreword by Dr. Peter Kemp, Professor of Philosophy at the Danish University of Education