On Nov 28, 2009, at 8:06 PM, Adil Godrej wrote:
A person living on Rs 2/day (about 4 cents) in India typically has one meal of rice every two days. No matter how ethical he is, he "cannot afford to be ethical" in those circumstances. Telling him that it is unethical to eat genetically-modified rice, even if that is all he can get, is a sure way to let him die. Yet, there are people who'd rather that such poor people die than allow GM rice to be available. These that the flag-wavers I was talking about. Should I be on the side of such flag wavers? In your words, "hell no". Let there be enough food so that there is no need to grow GM foods, then talk about getting the GM stuff out of the food supply. This requires sufficient income for people so that they have a choice. Would it surprise you to know that the poor often have equally good ethics as those who are better off?
Here the relevant issue is who is being unethical? The starving person is certainly making an ethical decision to reject suicide. The problem is with the people who are falsely claiming that there is something wrong with GM. They conveniently neglect to acknowledge that humans have been genetically modifying plants and animals for 1000s of years. Everything we eat is GM and has been for a very long time.
On Nov 28, 2009, at 8:06 PM, Adil Godrej wrote:
I hope you now understand what I meant when I said "cannot afford to be ethical". It was shorthand for those in such dire straights that they have no time for ethics.
This is where we part. I don't see any situation where one "cannot afford to be ethical". If that were truly the case then the starving person you described would simply kill their neighbor and eat them. Problem solved. Have you observed this to be the case? I suspect that the starving person is possibly the most ethical of individuals. They are starving because they reject the unethical alternatives.
************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
