Ethics

There’s a gag in there somewhere, in which Daffy Duck said he’d bought a new house in Chelmsford, in that county just north east of London, but I’d probably get into trouble if I were to explain.

Some time ago, I think I mentioned that the best way to find out what you think about something is to write about it. Actually, I tend to find out when I’m out on my bike, and then I forget what I was thinking about before I get home and sit down, so this may not be as joined-up as it was when I was ploughing into a 40mph headwind this morning.

Ethics.

In my last post, I opened a bit of a can of worms. Not real worms. That would have been inappropriate. Imaginary worms, but the can was opened, nonetheless. I was poking fun at PETA. I make no apology, since their corona virus anagram nonsense was, and still is, ridiculous. I was not poking fun at those who choose to follow a vegan diet, but at an organisation which claims to represent their ideals. It seemed to me that PETA had undermined the integrity of the average vegan Joe and Joanna. Nevertheless, conversations prompted by my thoughts and scribblings, further prompted me to consider the question of ethics.

The question of ethics is essentially a human construct which differs across countries, societies, religions, and so on. My ethics are different to your ethics. We develop our personal ethics over time. Because they differ, we make different choices about what is right and wrong, good and bad, acceptable and unacceptable. This has become increasingly apparent to me since moving to and settling in a foreign land with a particularly alien culture (from a Western perspective).

Without getting too bogged down in the philosophicality (I know, that’s not even a word but I like the sound of it) of ethics, I have been thinking about this all day and wondering where and why the lines are drawn. I don’t have the answers, but these are the kind of questions I’ve been pondering.

Is it okay to buy cheap(er) products made in developing countries where it is fairly apparent that child labour and sweatshops still exist?

Is it okay to run cars and motorcycles in our daily lives, or fly round the world to take a holiday when we know that pollution and climate change are affecting the planet? Should we be eating fruit and vegetables that have to be flown in, or shipped on huge vessels which create enormous levels of pollution? Why aren’t we eating locally-grown produce or growing our own food in our substantial gardens?

Should we be buying oil from Middle Eastern regimes which have questionable records on human rights and women’s rights? Should we be supporting cycle races in these same countries?

Should we be using the planet’s valuable energy resources to be producing and processing ‘ethical’ food products to look and taste like meat? Back home, Greggs famously made the news recently for launching a vegan sausage roll. That sounds like madness to me. Imagine the energy going in to making/processing quorn. Why not simply stuff some pastry with mushrooms or carrots or sprouts?

Should we recognise cultures around the world that sustain lifestyles which we, (and by we here I generally mean white, Western, middle-class, and well-educated people), find distasteful and/or primitive? What right have we to judge ancient customs and practices, simply because they don’t conform to (primarily) Western norms? Think cannibalism, think eating dogs, think child brides, think slavery. I’m pretty sure they all still exist to a greater or lesser extent.

Should we take advantage of the rules in sport to gain an unfair advantage? Recent history in my own sport, cycling, has clear evidence that teams and riders are stretching and abusing the rules, and this has been widely described as unethical. Think TUEs. What are the ethics of sport? Should I stop watching cycling?

At what point do our ethics stop being important and we turn a blind eye? It seems to me that we are selectively ethical. It is easy to find supporting evidence to confirm our ethical beliefs – this is bad, that is good – but that depends on our own particular ethical stance in the first place, and it is all but impossible to change such beliefs.

I had loads of other stuff buzzing around in my brain, but now it’s gone, so I’ll call it a day.