Food Ethics as Relational Ethics

This chapter reviews and discusses the problems that an ethics of eating and drinking has to address. First, it shows that such form of ethics falls within the category of applied ethics. Then, it tackles the issue of what can or cannot be considered food, and if it is right and good or not, and to what extent, that a living being—be it an animal or a plant—may be considered food. In this sphere, the animalist, vegetarian and vegan positions are discussed. Then the food making methods and technology are reviewed. In this context, the global food production system and the problems it raises, that is, the problems of security throughout the food chain (food security), health (food safety), environmental care, are investigated. Lastly, the issues of equal access of all human beings to food resources and the so-called “food citizenship” are discussed. To deal with all these issues and handle all the different food dilemmas that they arouse, the chapter does not provide a ready-made solution nor does it offer any one-sided assumption, but it finds a standard method and perspective. The method is the one that calls us to broaden our perspective and look at all these matters in their entirety and interconnection. The perspective that allows us to productively address these issues by making choices that entirely depend on us it is the one of relational ethics: an ethics that points to ways to sustain and nurture well-balanced relationships among all the subjects, human and non-human, that act in the world. If we take that perspective, we notice that the acts of eating and drinking become veritable propellers for such relationships, which human beings are in charge of protecting.