Ethical choices – easy or hard?
I’ve been having an interesting virtual chat with someone on The Compost Heap (a blog worth looking at!) who has the dilemma of whether to fly to New York on a shopping trip for the “trip of a lifetime” while espousing a “carbon neutral” lifestyle, and, if I read it correctly, being opposed to the political and economic system of US.
The conversation has brought up some ethical points which I think are important to address.
The end justifying the means.
Suggesting that if you want to do something you know to be wrong (but feel you can’t do anything about to make it right) you can somehow take an ethical holiday and do it anyway. The “trip of a lifetime” offset by a generally carbon neutral lifestyle. I can’t buy it. Firstly, if your principles say that US and all it stands for is abhorrent to you, it is nonsensical to suggest that such a trip could be a “trip of a lifetime.” Why does someone who is opposed to the economic system of US WANT to “go shopping” anyway!?! With the belief that carbon emissions are bad then ANY such trip, even on a humanitarian mission to a developing country, is still BAD for the planet. The end never justifies the means. It may EXPLAIN why you choose to do an action but it does not ethically justify it.
Which brings us on to ethical choices. Let’s agree that you cannot “justify” your flying in a plane on ethical grounds, it is always bad for the planet (which either is or isn’t true and either is or isn’t an issue of principle for you) if you choose to go shopping or to go on a trip to tell people about the evils of flying, or go to do development work in a crisis torn country – all of these can involve flying – none of them can be ethically justified on BUT I still think it’s pretty clear if you do choose one of them which would be the best one to pick – shopping. NO.
Touring telling people about flying – kind of openly hypocritical (in terms of ethical principles) and there are lots of other ways of getting the message across that do not involve so many carbon emissions.
Helping other people is the best reason you can give (in my opinion) for flying BUT that doesn’t make it any less detrimental to the planet.
Yes you do have to prioritise your ethical CHOICES. But you need to be clear on your ethical principles before you are able to make good ethical choices. Without knowing the rules of a game you will not play it well.
Statement: Ethical choices are hard to make.
This is not necessarily true. If the end does not justify the means then it NEVER justifies the means.
An alternative (but perhaps weaker) ethical stand point is to say “the end sometimes justifies the means” Okay, if this is your view you can get away with a lot more.
But this is perhaps confusing ethical choices with ethical principles.
I believe that there are some pretty clear and straightforward ethical principles and that the “hard” bit is that we in the West simply by living our lives, compromise these ethical standards. We don’t like the fact that we can’t live up to our OWN chosen principles, thus, we want to look at opt out clauses.
You can believe the following:
1) The end NEVER justifies the means
2) The end sometimes justifies the means
3) It doesn’t matter.
Position 1 is easy from the point of ethics. But hard to live by.
Position 2 is easier to live by – but does this make it RIGHT?
Position 3 is very easy, but explains why the world is the mess it is!
Substitute end justifies means for - it is wrong to kill people.
You can believe
1) It is ALWAYS wrong to kill people
2) It is sometimes/usually wrong to kill people
3) It doesn’t matter.
Same thing re each of the positions.
My stance is that position 1, the ethical position is the one to uphold. As an ethical position it is easy. The right thing to do simply IS the right thing to do.
I believe that if people would get their ethical principles straight then they could deal with the real life problems that conflict with their ethical principles and make good ethical choices, which would be healthier for the world in general than being slack, woolly or simply lazy/self interested by saying “well, you know, it’s not that simple, because
a) I face a dilemma here or
b) It doesn’t suit my interests or
c) I’m going to have to admit that I can’t live up to my ethical principles.
Let’s take the “killing people is wrong”
This seems pretty clear to me. Take it as your start point. You can make it as complex as you like from this point on, but the base note, the point we always return to is KILLING PEOPLE IS WRONG. (It is wrong to bring about the death of another person)
You can get philosophical and debate the semantics of “is letting people die or not doing anything to promote the life of people” the same as killing them. Come on – you KNOW it is. If (as I do) you hold the principle of life as being one of the highest then doing ANYTHING that brings about the death of ANYONE is the wrong thing to do.
The complexity? Is that simply by existing in my privileged western life I am in fact every day contributing to the death of other people (I am not religious so I will not further muddy the water with the word INNOCENT. It’s not relevant folks.)
The problem is not with ethics, or even with my own ethical principles. The problem is that given the system I live in, by default I am living in conflict with my ethical principles. Yes, this is hard. But because it’s hard doesn’t mean I should water down my principles. It means I should look at what I can do, and work harder to try and uphold my principles whenever I can. And I should always try and make the best ethical choice that I can. The choice that is the closest to my ethical principle, if it is not possible to be completely in accord with that principle would seem to be the one to go for.
I have the confidence to believe that the fault is not with my principles but with the system I live in. Therefore it is not my principles that have to alter, but the system. How can I alter the system? Maybe I can’t. But even if I can’t, it doesn’t make my principles wrong and so doesn’t mean I should abandon them.
Principles, you might say, are ideals to live up to. Choices are the practical decisions that we make every day. If you choices are in conflict with your principles then, my friend, you need to overhaul your principles.
How to choose your principles?
I’ll give you an illustration. Imagine if it were possible that at any minute a horn would blast with the instruction “all change” or if you like that someone could click their fingers and with the click ALL THE PEOPLE on the world got life-swaps. You never know WHO you might be when the swap is complete. I could be myself one minute, the next swap I could be a Guatemalan peasant or a New York trader. I have NO control over this. My question is – IF THIS SITUATION WAS REAL and you knew this not only could but would happen during your lifetime – would you live by different principles? I think that in this situation the stakes are so high that EVERYONE would be encouraged to embrace principles of equality. On a simple level – NO ONE wants to be starving to death or in fear of their life or a victim of torture, abuse, racism or oppression. Not one of us WANTS to live like this. So how can we accept that other people live like this? Because of what we do, or because of what we don’t do, or because of what we choose to ignore. It’s just not RIGHT.
So I choose my principles: I want to live a free, peaceful life, not being harmed and not harming others. I believe in the fundamental equality of human beings.
I cannot, in my everyday life, change the whole world round to this way of thinking and I have to accept that by my very position in the world I am complicit in others NOT being equal. What I CAN do is
a) make the best choices I can NOT to oppress others and
b) when my choices DO oppress others or I cannot choose to prevent this, I should stand up and admit that I am falling short of my ethical principles (whether or not this is my “fault”)
Each one of us cannot change the world. We can change ourselves. We can each try to make ourselves better, more holistically principled people who think about their ethical choices and try always to make the best ones they can (this is NOT the same as the end justifying the means)
And if enough people change themselves, the world will start changing.
It's early in the morning here and maybe I'm not at my philososphical best, but this blog is not meant to be an academic philosophical post, more an insight into how one can attempt to make choices, and live by ethical principles, so I'm trying to explain as clearly as I can at any time, what I think and what my position is. Not polished, but perhaps thought provoking. The key point is EVERYONE has to work out their own principles and make their own choices - I'm not making choices for others, simply trying to give an insight into a process which is the one I use. Of course it's largely a thought process and so writing it down can make it lose something in the translation. But I'm just doing the best I can to explain myself.
Sunday, 8 April 2007
Monday, 19 March 2007
the ethics of chocolate
In 2001, I believe as a result of watching a BBC documentary on child slavery in chocolate production, I started paying attention to what chocolate I ate. In fact I just stopped eating chocolate that was not fair trade. It was really easy. Every time I was tempted by a Mars Bar or the like I just thought of the slave labour that was producing it. Suddenly chocolate didn’t seem so appealing.
At the time, Fair trade chocolate wasn’t that easy to find, and I switched to Green and Black. However, I recently discovered that Green and Black have been bought out by Cadbury’s, so I realised I had to do some more research and I embarked upon a virtual journey to work out how Fair Trade their chocolate is.
Cadbury’s site, while extensive, mentions nothing about Fair Trade. Green and Black’s site is little better. You do discover that actually it’s only the Mayan Gold brand which is Fair Trade, so it is NOT safe to assume that any Green and Black chocolate is free from slave labour. Although there are other indications that “organic” chocolate tends to come from non slave labour countries…. But me, I like to be more sure than that. I also have a problem when someone is producing both Fair Trade and NON Fair Trade products.
A quote from Green and Black’s website tells us:
“We operate as a stand alone business with founder Craig Sams remaining as Chairman. Cadbury Schweppes are now able to enhance the brand's success by further adding their indepth knowledge of cocoa production to ensure the continued supply of quality, organic cocoa ongoing to support our even increasing range of products”
Well, you pay your money and you take your choice, but this doesn’t comfort me that the product comes to me as a result of a fairly traded enterprise.
My point is that you need to do a lot more than simply buy Fair Trade from your average supermarket if you actually want to do any good. You need to become more informed about all stages of the process and then you need to make informed choices about WHERE you shop as well as WHAT you buy.
I guess it’s a question of how far you are prepared to go for Fair Trade chocolate. Personally, I find that I don’t want to buy even purportedly Fair Trade goods from a company I do not consider to be ethical in the larger sense. Perhaps I might believe that they may, if not lie to me, not exactly be telling me the whole truth and that while I may like the chocolate, I may not actually be doing anything that useful for the people I actually want to prevent being exploited. I think we have to look beyond the words “organic” and “fair trade” and think about the people who are selling us this stuff. IF Green &Blacks really is Fair Trade chocolate then I’ll buy it from someone who I consider has ethical company policies – but it all shows that you have to be not just aware of the fashion of the end product but of the chain it comes along and try to make sure that every stage is as FAIR to all as it can be.
I certainly won’t be rushing out to M&S to buy fair trade chocolate, whether it has a label on it or not, because I don’t intend to swell their corporate coffers.
At this stage, in the UK it seems to me from my research, that at this present time, the only chocolate you can guarantee is fairly traded comes from Kuapa Kokoo which at the present seems to be the only one I can really find that is up to my standard of ethics. I’m sure they aren’t perfect but it does mean that it’s just Divine chocolate for me for the foreseeable future. They are part of the Day Company. Of course even here there can be problems because Day Company supplies Starbucks and let’s put it this way, you wouldn’t find me in a Starbucks. But at least that relationship seems to be the right way round. And it won’t help the cocoa producers in Africa if we all stop buying ALL chocolate. It might help them if we all demanded Fairly Traded chocolate though.
This is my opinion. This is my belief. This is my lifestyle choice and my code of ethics. You need to get your own and live up to your own. That’s why you need to do the work yourself, to discover for yourself what you think about it. Don’t just take my word for it, find out about it for yourself. But, remember we all have a choice – CHOOSE to buy from people who are ONLY ethical in their principles, not the easy option of the ethical fashion brand from your usual evil empire company.
If you want to delve a little deeper (as I did) into what is actually going on to CHANGE the slave labour situation, since 2001 is quite a long time ago as far as I’m concerned. Okay, the body set up to look into all this in 2001 is called the Cocoa Initiative. What are they doing? A lot of promises, as far as I can see, not a lot of action. Their website is horrifically out of date on all the SUBSTANTIVE issues such as their financial reports (2004) newsletters (a year old) and anything to do with what sort of progress they ACTUALLY might be making.
Now I’d have thought that a body like this, if they are running a serious pilot project and aiming to make a serious change, might use their website to show what progress they are making. I’ve worked on pilot projects. I know the good and the bad of them, and I know it’s possible for websites to be kept up to date…. Perhaps they should have factored in someone to do that work – or perhaps they cynically assumed that as long as people heart the words Pilot Project they assume something is being done. I’m afraid I don’t. A one day consultative meeting in 2004 somehow just doesn’t cut it with me I’m afraid.
We need to PROBE more folks. We need to FOLLOW through on things. Promises of action are one thing, we know all about them, we hear them from our governments all the time. But what is actually happening. I want to know HOW MANY fewer slaves there are, how much less SLAVERY is involved in my chocolate. Sure, just me stopping buying non fair trade chocolate won’t change anything.
However, if EVERYONE did, they’d have to pay a fair price and change their practices now wouldn’t they? It’s easy enough. If knowing that a slave is growing your chocolate isn’t enough to stop you eating it, then I can’t help you. You have to ask yourself whether you can happily carry on eating the end result of slave labour. If you can, you can. If you can’t – do something about it.
I accept that compromise is the order of the day. I accept that it is often very difficult to actually do the right thing in one’s consumer and lifestyle choices. No one said that doing the right thing was the easy thing though. My own personal ethical dilemmas include the following:
I’m not a Christian, but I’d rather buy from Traidcraft or Oxfam than from Tesco’s or Marks and Spencers. I’d rather buy from someone committed to ONLY fair trade goods.
I live in the real world too, of course. I HAVE to buy a product from Nestle’s as part of my daily regime for my chronic condition. I have medication from Proctor and Gamble. What does this mean? It means, that I, like all of us, are on one level hypocrites. What I will not be is a willing hyprocrite. Whenever I CAN feasibly avoid doing something I know is wrong, I make that choice. And I undertake my own version of penance for the wrongs I am forced to commit by dint of the fact that I DO live under Western capitalism. But eating non Fair Trade chocolate? That’s not a life and death issue for me. I really can take it or leave it. I have to make the right choice there. I hope you can make the right choice too. Not the right choice for YOU but the right choice FOR EVERYONE on the planet. Wherever possible. Try. Then try a bit harder. Then do SOMETHING positive to change things. Please.
Find out more about the “ethics” of eating chocolate:
Facts and figures will be yours to find if you google chocolate and slavery.
Links I’ve found while doing research include
Chocolate producers sites:
www.cadbury.co.uk
http://www.greenandblacks.com/
http://www.divinechocolate.com/
http://www.dubble.co.uk/
http://www.kuapakokoogh.com/ "the best of the best" as their tagline states.
i don't think Mars and Nestles will cry at being denied their websites up here... I'm sure you can find them easily enough.
Fair Trade issues
http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/ps130505.htm links to update (from 2005) on Green and Black.
http://www.transfairusa.org/content/about/n_070201.php is a link to an article about chocolate
http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/cocoa/retailers.html
http://www.cocoainitiative.org is a link to the organisation set up to look into the issue. This is a deeply unsatisfying site!
Slavery issues
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/01/book_review_bit.php is a link to a book review called Bitter Chocolate
http://www.chocolatework.com/chocolate-slavery.htm
http://www.foodrevolution.org/slavery_chocolate.htm
http://www.truevisiontv.com/slavery.html is the link to the people who made the documentary I saw in 2001.
At the time, Fair trade chocolate wasn’t that easy to find, and I switched to Green and Black. However, I recently discovered that Green and Black have been bought out by Cadbury’s, so I realised I had to do some more research and I embarked upon a virtual journey to work out how Fair Trade their chocolate is.
Cadbury’s site, while extensive, mentions nothing about Fair Trade. Green and Black’s site is little better. You do discover that actually it’s only the Mayan Gold brand which is Fair Trade, so it is NOT safe to assume that any Green and Black chocolate is free from slave labour. Although there are other indications that “organic” chocolate tends to come from non slave labour countries…. But me, I like to be more sure than that. I also have a problem when someone is producing both Fair Trade and NON Fair Trade products.
A quote from Green and Black’s website tells us:
“We operate as a stand alone business with founder Craig Sams remaining as Chairman. Cadbury Schweppes are now able to enhance the brand's success by further adding their indepth knowledge of cocoa production to ensure the continued supply of quality, organic cocoa ongoing to support our even increasing range of products”
Well, you pay your money and you take your choice, but this doesn’t comfort me that the product comes to me as a result of a fairly traded enterprise.
My point is that you need to do a lot more than simply buy Fair Trade from your average supermarket if you actually want to do any good. You need to become more informed about all stages of the process and then you need to make informed choices about WHERE you shop as well as WHAT you buy.
I guess it’s a question of how far you are prepared to go for Fair Trade chocolate. Personally, I find that I don’t want to buy even purportedly Fair Trade goods from a company I do not consider to be ethical in the larger sense. Perhaps I might believe that they may, if not lie to me, not exactly be telling me the whole truth and that while I may like the chocolate, I may not actually be doing anything that useful for the people I actually want to prevent being exploited. I think we have to look beyond the words “organic” and “fair trade” and think about the people who are selling us this stuff. IF Green &Blacks really is Fair Trade chocolate then I’ll buy it from someone who I consider has ethical company policies – but it all shows that you have to be not just aware of the fashion of the end product but of the chain it comes along and try to make sure that every stage is as FAIR to all as it can be.
I certainly won’t be rushing out to M&S to buy fair trade chocolate, whether it has a label on it or not, because I don’t intend to swell their corporate coffers.
At this stage, in the UK it seems to me from my research, that at this present time, the only chocolate you can guarantee is fairly traded comes from Kuapa Kokoo which at the present seems to be the only one I can really find that is up to my standard of ethics. I’m sure they aren’t perfect but it does mean that it’s just Divine chocolate for me for the foreseeable future. They are part of the Day Company. Of course even here there can be problems because Day Company supplies Starbucks and let’s put it this way, you wouldn’t find me in a Starbucks. But at least that relationship seems to be the right way round. And it won’t help the cocoa producers in Africa if we all stop buying ALL chocolate. It might help them if we all demanded Fairly Traded chocolate though.
This is my opinion. This is my belief. This is my lifestyle choice and my code of ethics. You need to get your own and live up to your own. That’s why you need to do the work yourself, to discover for yourself what you think about it. Don’t just take my word for it, find out about it for yourself. But, remember we all have a choice – CHOOSE to buy from people who are ONLY ethical in their principles, not the easy option of the ethical fashion brand from your usual evil empire company.
If you want to delve a little deeper (as I did) into what is actually going on to CHANGE the slave labour situation, since 2001 is quite a long time ago as far as I’m concerned. Okay, the body set up to look into all this in 2001 is called the Cocoa Initiative. What are they doing? A lot of promises, as far as I can see, not a lot of action. Their website is horrifically out of date on all the SUBSTANTIVE issues such as their financial reports (2004) newsletters (a year old) and anything to do with what sort of progress they ACTUALLY might be making.
Now I’d have thought that a body like this, if they are running a serious pilot project and aiming to make a serious change, might use their website to show what progress they are making. I’ve worked on pilot projects. I know the good and the bad of them, and I know it’s possible for websites to be kept up to date…. Perhaps they should have factored in someone to do that work – or perhaps they cynically assumed that as long as people heart the words Pilot Project they assume something is being done. I’m afraid I don’t. A one day consultative meeting in 2004 somehow just doesn’t cut it with me I’m afraid.
We need to PROBE more folks. We need to FOLLOW through on things. Promises of action are one thing, we know all about them, we hear them from our governments all the time. But what is actually happening. I want to know HOW MANY fewer slaves there are, how much less SLAVERY is involved in my chocolate. Sure, just me stopping buying non fair trade chocolate won’t change anything.
However, if EVERYONE did, they’d have to pay a fair price and change their practices now wouldn’t they? It’s easy enough. If knowing that a slave is growing your chocolate isn’t enough to stop you eating it, then I can’t help you. You have to ask yourself whether you can happily carry on eating the end result of slave labour. If you can, you can. If you can’t – do something about it.
I accept that compromise is the order of the day. I accept that it is often very difficult to actually do the right thing in one’s consumer and lifestyle choices. No one said that doing the right thing was the easy thing though. My own personal ethical dilemmas include the following:
I’m not a Christian, but I’d rather buy from Traidcraft or Oxfam than from Tesco’s or Marks and Spencers. I’d rather buy from someone committed to ONLY fair trade goods.
I live in the real world too, of course. I HAVE to buy a product from Nestle’s as part of my daily regime for my chronic condition. I have medication from Proctor and Gamble. What does this mean? It means, that I, like all of us, are on one level hypocrites. What I will not be is a willing hyprocrite. Whenever I CAN feasibly avoid doing something I know is wrong, I make that choice. And I undertake my own version of penance for the wrongs I am forced to commit by dint of the fact that I DO live under Western capitalism. But eating non Fair Trade chocolate? That’s not a life and death issue for me. I really can take it or leave it. I have to make the right choice there. I hope you can make the right choice too. Not the right choice for YOU but the right choice FOR EVERYONE on the planet. Wherever possible. Try. Then try a bit harder. Then do SOMETHING positive to change things. Please.
Find out more about the “ethics” of eating chocolate:
Facts and figures will be yours to find if you google chocolate and slavery.
Links I’ve found while doing research include
Chocolate producers sites:
www.cadbury.co.uk
http://www.greenandblacks.com/
http://www.divinechocolate.com/
http://www.dubble.co.uk/
http://www.kuapakokoogh.com/ "the best of the best" as their tagline states.
i don't think Mars and Nestles will cry at being denied their websites up here... I'm sure you can find them easily enough.
Fair Trade issues
http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/ps130505.htm links to update (from 2005) on Green and Black.
http://www.transfairusa.org/content/about/n_070201.php is a link to an article about chocolate
http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/cocoa/retailers.html
http://www.cocoainitiative.org is a link to the organisation set up to look into the issue. This is a deeply unsatisfying site!
Slavery issues
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/01/book_review_bit.php is a link to a book review called Bitter Chocolate
http://www.chocolatework.com/chocolate-slavery.htm
http://www.foodrevolution.org/slavery_chocolate.htm
http://www.truevisiontv.com/slavery.html is the link to the people who made the documentary I saw in 2001.
Thursday, 1 March 2007
Virtual ethics
Hi,
Having just signed on to start writing for The Compost Heap blog, I find myself with a blog site, and as a writer, how can I resist yet another virtual opportunity. Sometimes I think I should never have been taught to type - it's like being a concert pianist to me and I can do it for hours on end (with feeling!) I am, by trade, a professional writer BUT I am also a non-capitalist. Note not an ANTI-capitalist, but a non-capitalist. I'm trying to work out ways in which one can still live in a western capitalist market economy and NOT get sucked in. It's my greatest ethical dilemma and doubtless will form the backbone of many posts here.
Previously I've been kind of dubious about blogs - too many ignorant people venting too many ill-formed opinions, BUT my attitudes have been slightly changed over the last few months.
Since November I've been working on a diary (blog) called 40 years on. This is part of my website www.projectjam.co.uk which is a tribute site to Che Guevara, what with this being the 40th anniversary of his murder in Bolivia. Anyway, I set myself the task (among other things) of keeping a daily online journal to parallel the Bolivian Diary written by Che himself. My intention was to gain more information about world events. You can access that blog at the following link http://diary.projectjam.co.uk The site is keeping me pretty busy at the moment, but it has also opened my eyes to a lot of things which I feel NEED talking about.
So -what will I do with this blog? Hopefully I'll post up articles/comments on ethical issues of our day. We'll see. Forgive me for thinking this, but it seems like this is probably a better option than joining Second Life... I don't need to be an avatar thanks, I'm quite happy being me.
Check out my diary and website - Chapter 4 of my online novel is due to be posted on 2nd March!
Having just signed on to start writing for The Compost Heap blog, I find myself with a blog site, and as a writer, how can I resist yet another virtual opportunity. Sometimes I think I should never have been taught to type - it's like being a concert pianist to me and I can do it for hours on end (with feeling!) I am, by trade, a professional writer BUT I am also a non-capitalist. Note not an ANTI-capitalist, but a non-capitalist. I'm trying to work out ways in which one can still live in a western capitalist market economy and NOT get sucked in. It's my greatest ethical dilemma and doubtless will form the backbone of many posts here.
Previously I've been kind of dubious about blogs - too many ignorant people venting too many ill-formed opinions, BUT my attitudes have been slightly changed over the last few months.
Since November I've been working on a diary (blog) called 40 years on. This is part of my website www.projectjam.co.uk which is a tribute site to Che Guevara, what with this being the 40th anniversary of his murder in Bolivia. Anyway, I set myself the task (among other things) of keeping a daily online journal to parallel the Bolivian Diary written by Che himself. My intention was to gain more information about world events. You can access that blog at the following link http://diary.projectjam.co.uk The site is keeping me pretty busy at the moment, but it has also opened my eyes to a lot of things which I feel NEED talking about.
So -what will I do with this blog? Hopefully I'll post up articles/comments on ethical issues of our day. We'll see. Forgive me for thinking this, but it seems like this is probably a better option than joining Second Life... I don't need to be an avatar thanks, I'm quite happy being me.
Check out my diary and website - Chapter 4 of my online novel is due to be posted on 2nd March!
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