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Contention One: The Status Quo

The United States embargo uses food as a weapon against Cuba while constructing a narrative of Cuban moral inferiority and American dominanceFazzino, 10 - Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska Fairbanks. M.S., Sustainable Systems, Slippery Rock University, December 1999; J.D., University of Florida Levin College of Law, 2007; and Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Florida, 2008 (David V., “WHOSE FOOD SECURITY? CONFRONTING EXPANDING COMMODITY PRODUCTION AND THE OBESITY AND DIABETES EPIDEMICS,” Drake Journal of Agricultural Law, 15 Drake J. Agric. L. 393, LexisNexis)//HALIt's important for our nation to build--to grow foodstuffs, to feed our people. Can you imagine a country that was unable to grow enough food to feed the people? It would be a nation that would be subject to international pressure. It would be a

nation at risk. And so when we're talking about American   agriculture, we're really talking about a national security issue.  This concern over the relationship between food security

and national security by the former President is obvious, considering that the United States has utilized food as a weapon; perhaps the most notable example is the embargo on   Cuba . n24 The Cuban embargo has forced individual families and the Cuban government to make due with fewer ties to global circuits of food production and distribution. n25 The embargo led to an increase in the number of policies, programs, and measures to enhance food security by relying on local and national food production programs. n26 Similarly, the United States has been responsible for the imposition of Coalition Provisional Authority Order 81 in Iraq, which imposes World Trade Organization-friendly intellectual property rights, including limitations on the rights of farmers to use seeds from the previous season's  [*400]  harvest. n27 Coalition Provisional Authority Order 81 could undermine food security for farmers unable to afford required seed purchases if patented material is found among seeds which have been saved from the previous

season.  When the operational definitions of food security are limited to measuring how much food is created and distributed, then the United States emerges as a superior nation in terms of its overall food security and food surpluses. n29 At the same time, the relative inability of so-called less developed countries to meet the caloric needs of their populace--due to chronic or acute instability in environmental, economic or political sectors--is described as vulnerability and reflective of their inferiority. n30 Those in international development circles would also point to the poor transportation infrastructure in these less developed countries, which limits the distribution of

food to areas that may be in the greatest need of food assistance. n31 In the United States, the temporal unfolding of science and technology is perceived as leading directly to the continual emergence of progress. n32 Notions of this superiority are reflected in the literature concerning food production and security where the locus of food insecurity is consistently placed in the so-called less developed world, while the United States occupies the role of provider and breadbasket of the world.   n33   The stated superiority of the U.S. international agro-industrial complex is intimately connected with economics and politics; it is a historically produced discourse. n34

Access to food is a moral responsibility—we are obligated to ensure it even in the face of human extinctionWATSON 1977 (Richard, Professor of Philosophy at Washington University, World Hunger and Moral Obligation, p. 118-119)These arguments are morally spurious. That food sufficient for well-nourished survival is the equal right of every human individual or nation is a specification of the higher principle that everyone has equal right to the necessities of life. The moral stress of the principle of equity is primarily on equal sharing, and only secondarily on what is being shared. The

higher moral principle is of human equity per se. Consequently, the moral action is to distribute all food equally, whatever the consequences . This is the hard line apparently drawn by

such moralists as Immanuel Kant and Noam Chomsky—but then, morality is hard. The conclusion may be unreasonable (impractical and irrational in conventional terms), but it is obviously

moral. Nor should anyone purport surprise; it has always been understood that the claims of morality—if

taken seriously—supersede those of conflicting reason. One may even have to sacrifice one’s life or one’s nation to be moral in situations where practical behavior would preserve it. For example, if a prisoner of war undergoing torture is to be a (perhaps dead) patriot even when reason tells him that collaboration will hurt no one, he remains silent. Similarly, if one is to be moral,

one distributes available food in equal shares (even if everyone then dies). That an action is necessary to save one’s life is no excuse for behaving unpatriotically or immorally if one wishes to be a patriot or moral. No principle of morality absolves one of behaving immorally simply to save one’s life or nation. There is a strict analogy here between adhering to moral principles for the sake of being moral, and adhering to Christian principles for

the sake of being Christian. The moral world contains pits and lions, but one looks always to the

highest light. The ultimate test always harks to the highest principle—recant or die—and it is pathetic to profess morality if one quits when the going gets rough. I have put aside many questions of detail—such as the mechanical problems of distributing food—because detail does not alter the stark conclusion. If every human life is equal in value, then the equal distribution of the necessities of life is an extremely high, if not the highest, moral duty. It is at least high

enough to override the excuse that by doing it one would lose one’s life. But many people cannot accept the view that one must distribute equally even in f the nation collapses or all people die. If everyone dies, then there will be no realm of morality. Practically speaking, sheer survival comes first. One can

adhere to the principle of equity only if one exists. So it is rational to suppose that the principle of survival is morally higher than the principle of equity. And though one might not be able to argue for unequal distribution of food to save a nation—for nations can come and go—one might well argue that unequal distribution is necessary for the survival of the human species. That is, some large group—say one-third of

present world population—should be at least well-nourished for human survival. However, from an individual standpoint, the human species—like the nation—is of no moral relevance.

From a naturalistic standpoint, survival does come first; from a moralistic standpoint—as indicated above

—survival may have to be sacrificed. In the milieu of morality, it is immaterial whether or not the human species survives as a result of individual behavior.

This equality is a side constraint—regardless of consequences, we cannot take any course of action if it is unjustRAWLS 1971 (John, philosopher, A Theory of Justice, p. 3-4)

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions as truth is of systems of thought.

A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue;

likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. It does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum of advantages enjoyed by the many. Therefore in a just society the liberties of equal citizenship are taken as settled; the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests. The only thing that permits us to acquiesce in an erroneous theory is the lack of a better one; analogously, an injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice.

Being first virtues of human activities, truth and justice are uncompromising .

We must refuse to sacrifice one group to prevent a bad consequence—intervening actors mean that our responsibility does not extend to the effects of the plan—only the moral act of feeding hungry peopleGEWIRTH 1983 (Alan, philosopher, Human Rights: Essays on Justification and Applications, p 230-231)

A third distinction is between respecting other persons and avoiding bad consequences. Respect for persons is an obligation so fundamental that it cannot be overridden even to prevent evil consequences from befalling some persons. If such prevention requires an action

whereby respect is withheld from persons, then that action must not be performed, whatever the consequences. One of the difficulties with this important distinction is

that it is unclear. May not respect be withheld from a person by failing to avert from

him some evil consequence? How can Abrams be held to respect the thousands of innocent persons or their rights if he lets them die when he could have prevented this? The distinction also fails to provide for degrees of moral urgency. One fails to respect a person if one lies to him or steals from him; but sometimes the only way to prevent the

death of one innocent person may be by stealing from or telling a lie to some other innocent person. In such a case, respect for one person may lead to disrespect of a more serious kind from some other innocent person. 7. None of the above distinctions, then, serves its intended purpose of defending the absolutist against the consequentialist. They do not show that the son’s refusal to tortures his mother to death does not violate the other persons’ rights to life and that hes is not morally responsible for their deaths.

Nevertheless, the distinctions can be supplemented in a way that does serve to establish these conclusions. The required supplement is provided by the principle of the intervening action.

According to this principle, when there is a causal connection between some person A’s

performing some action (or inaction) X and some other person C’s incurring a certain harm Z, A’s moral responsibility for Z is removed if, between X and Z, there intervenes some other action Y of some person B who knows the relevant circumstances of his action and

who intends to produce Z or show produces Z through recklessness. The reasons for this removal is that B’s intervening action Y is the more direct or proximate cause of Z and, unlike

A’s action (or inaction), Y is the sufficient condition of Z as it actually occurs. An example of this principle

may help to show its connection with the absolutist thesis. Martin Luther King Jr. was repeatedly told that because he led demonstrations in support of civil rights, he was morally responsible for the disorders, riots, and deaths that ensued and that were

shaking the American Republic to its foundations. By the principle of the intervening action, however, it was King’s opponents who were responsible because their intervention operated as the sufficient conditions of the riots and injuries. King might also have replied that the Republic would not be worth saving if the price that had to be paid was the violation of the civil rights of black Americans. As for the rights of the other Americans to peace and order, the reply would be that these rights cannot justifiably be secured at the price of the rights of blacks.

Intervening actors will solve their impact but not oursSHIELDS 1995 (David, research associate, Peace and Conflict Studies Program at UC Berkeley, The Color of Hunger: Race and Hunger in National and International Perspective, p. 1-2)

Imagine, for a moment, that unknown terrorists have detonated a crude atomic device in a large urban area. One hundred and fifty thousand people are instantly incinerated, about the same number that died in the bombing of Hiroshima. Moreover, immediate death is only the tip of the tragic iceberg; hundreds of thousands more

are left with various debilitating injuries and diseases. Then, just three days later, a second atomic device is detonated spreading a similar level of death and destruction to another city. And then, after three more days, yet another bomb explodes. Let us take our thought experiment one step further. Imagine, now,

how the world would respond to such an unparalleled crisis. Picture the massive human and economic resources that would be marshaled. A monumental, highly coordinated, and unanimously supported effort would be galvanized, aimed at achieving one goal—finding and eliminating the terrorists.

World attention would be riveted to the crisis; a massive public outcry would demand effective action and would settle for nothing less than an end to the threat. Politicians the world over would talk of little else. The above scenario, of course, is fiction. Well,

partly. It is fiction only with respect to the instrument of death and the quality of the response. In reality, hunger is the weapon, and it claims the lives of more people every three to

four days than died in the bombing of Hiroshima. But the response to this massive crisis is shocking in its near nonexistence, leading some to refer to hunger as the “silent emergency.” Despite its unparalleled infliction of misery, suffering, and death,

hunger is calmly dispassionately accepted within the citadels and cathedrals of power as simply part of the present world order.

Even if consequentialism is generally good, we must have moral side constraints—some immoral actions must never be allowed no matter what the consequences areNAGEL 1979 (Thomas, Philosopher, Mortal Questions, p 58-59)

Many people feel, without being able to say much more about it, that something has gone seriously wrong when certain measures are admitted into consideration in the first place. The fundamental mistake is made there, rather than at the point where the overall benefit of some monstrous measure is judged to outweigh its disadvantages, and it is adopted. An account of absolutism might help us to understand this. If it is not allowable to do certain things , such as killing unarmed prisoners or civilians, then no argument about what will happen if one does not do them can show that doing them would be all right. Absolutism does not, of course, require one to ignore the consequences of one’s acts. It operates as a limitation on utlitiarian reasoning, not as a substitute for it. An absolutist can be expected to try to maximize good and minimize evil, so long as this does not require him to

transgress an absolute prohibition like that against murder. But when such a conflict occurs, the prohibition takes complete precedence over any consideration of consequences. Some of the results of this view are clear enough. It requires us to forgo certain potentially useful military measures, such as the slaughter of hostages and prisoners or indiscriminate attempts to reduce the enemy population by starvation, epidemic infectious diseases like anthrax and bubonic plague, or mass incineration. It means

that we cannot deliberate on whether such measures are justified by the fact that they will avert still greater evils, for as intentional measures they cannot be justified in terms of any consequences whatever. Someone unfamiliar with the events of

this century might imagine that utilitarian arguments, or arguments of national interest, would suffice to deter measures of this sort. But it has become evident that such considerations are insufficient to prevent the adoption and employment of enormous antipopulation weapons once their use is considered a serious moral possibility. The same is true of the piecemeal wiping out of rural civilian

populations in airborne antiguerrilla warfare. Once the door is opened to calculations of utility and national interest, the usual speculations about the future of freedom, peace, and economic prosperity can be brought to bear to ease the consciences of those responsible for a certain number of charred babies.

Utilitarianism may be generally correct, but moral side constraints are critical for the theory to work—otherwise it violates its own framework by descending into large-scale murderNAGEL 1979 (Thomas, Philosopher, Mortal Questions, p 56)

In the final analysis, I believe that the dilemma cannot always be resolved. While not every conflict between absolutism and utilitarianism creates an insoluble dilemma, and while it seems to me certainly right to adhere to absolutist restrictions unless the utilitarian considerations favoring violation are overpoweringly weighty and extremely certain – nevertheless, when that special condition is met, it may become impossible to adhere to an absolutist position. What I shall offer, therefore, is a somewhat qualified defense of absolutism. I believe it underlies a valid and fundamental type of moral judgment – which cannot be reduced to or overridden by other principles just as fundamental, it is particularly important not to lose confidence in our

absolutist intuitions, for they are often the only barrier before the abyss of utilitarian apologetics for large-scale murder.

The argument that survival outweighs sharing food relies on a misunderstanding of moral agency and justifies infinite atrocities—because no such agent as “the human species” exists, we are responsible only to individuals who are starvingWATSON 1977 (Richard, Professor of Philosophy at Washington University, World Hunger and Moral Obligation, p. 121-123)

Given that the human species has rights as a fictional person on the analogy of corporate rights, it would seem to be rational to place the right of survival of the species above that of individuals. Unless the species survives, no individual will survive , and thus an individual’s right to life is subordinate to the species’ right to survival. If species survival depends on the unequal distribution of food to maintain a healthy breeding stock, then it is morally right for some people to have plenty while others starve. Only if there is enough food to nourish everyone well does it follow that food should be shared equally.

This might be true if corporate entities actually do have moral status and moral rights. But obviously, the legal status of corporate entities as fictional persons does not make them moral equals or superiors of actual human persons. Legislators might profess astonishment that anyone would think that a corporate person is a person as people are, let alone a moral person. However, because the legal rights of corporate entities are based on individual rights, and because corporate entities are treated so much like persons, the transition is often made. Few theorists today would argue that the state of the human species is a personal agent. But all this means is that idealism is dead in theory. Unfortunately, its

influence lives, so it is worth giving an argument to show that corporate entities are not real persons. Corporate entities are not persons as you and I are in the explicit sense that we are self-conscious agents and they are not. Corporate entities are not agents at all, let alone moral agents. This is a good reason for not treating corporate entities even as fictional persons.

The distinction between people and other things, to generalize, is that people are self-conscious agents, whereas things are not. The possession of rights essentially depends on an entity’s being self-conscious, i.e., on its actually being a person. If it is self-conscious, then it has a right to life. Self-consciousness is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for an entity’s being a moral equal of human beings; moral

equality depends on the entity’s also being a responsible moral agent as most human beings are. A moral agent must have the capacity to be responsible, i.e., the capacity to choose and to act freely with respect to consequences that the agent does or can recognize and accept as its own choice and doing. Only a being who knows himself as a person, and who can effect choices and accept consequences, is a responsible moral agent. On these

grounds, moral equality rests on the actuality of moral agency based on reciprocal rights and responsibilities. One is responsible to something only if it can be responsible in return. Thus, we have responsibilities to other people, and they have reciprocal rights. If we care for things, it is because people have interests in them, not because things in themselves impose responsibilities on us. That is, as stated early in this essay, morality essentially has to do with relations among people, among persons. It is nonsense to talk of things that cannot be moral agents as having

responsibilities; consequently, it is nonsense to talk of whatever is not actually a person as having rights. It is deceptive even to talk of legal rights of a corporate entity. Those rights (and reciprocal

responsibilities) actually pertain to individual human beings who have an interest in the corporate entity. The State or the human species have no rights at all, let alone rights superior to those of individuals. The

basic reason given for preserving a nation or the human species is that otherwise the milieu of morality would not exist. This is false so far as specific nations are concerned, but it is

true that the existence of individuals depends on the existence of the species. However, although moral behavior is required of each individual, no principle requires that the realm of morality itself be preserved. Thus, we are reduced to the position that people’s interest in preserving the human species is based primarily on the interest of each in individual survival. Having shown above that the principle of equity is morally superior to the principle of survival, we can conclude again that food should be shared equally even if this means the extinction of the human race . Is there no way to produce enough food to nourish everyone well? Besides cutting down to the minimum, people in the West might quit feeding such nonhuman animals as cats and dogs. However, some people (e.g., Peter Singer) argue that mere sentience—the capacity to suffer pain—means that an animal is the moral equal of human beings. I argue that because nonhuman animals are not moral agents, they do not share the rights of self-conscious responsible persons. And

considering the profligacy of nature, it is rational to argue that if nonhuman animals have any rights at all, they include not the right to life, but merely the right to fight for life. In fact, if people in the West did not feed grain to cattle, sheep, and hogs, a considerable amount of food would be freed for human consumption. Even then, there might not be enough to nourish everyone. Let me remark that Stone and Singer attempt to break down the distinction between people on the one hand, and certain things (corporate entities) and nonhuman animals on the other, out of moral concern. However,,

there is another, profoundly antihumanitarian movement also attempting to break down the distinction. All over the world, heirs of Gobineau, Goebbels, and Hitler practice genocide and otherwise treat people as non-human animals and things in the name of the State. I am afraid that the consequences of treating entities such as corporations and nonhuman animals—that are not moral agents—as persons with rights will not be that we will treat national parks and chickens the way we treat people, but that we will have provided support for those who would treat people the way we now treat nonhuman

animals and things. The benefits of modern society depend in no small part on the institution of corporate law. Even if the majority of these benefits are to the good—of which I am by no means sure—the legal fiction of corporate

personhood still elevates corporate needs above the needs of people. In the present context, reverence for corporate entities leads to the spurious argument that the present world imbalance of food and resources is morally justified in the name of the higher rights of sovereign nations, or even of the human species, the survival of which is said to be more

important than the right of any individual to life. This conclusion is morally absurd. This is not, however, the fault of morality. We should share all food equally, at least until everyone is well-nourished. Besides food, all the necessities of life should be shared, at least until everyone is adequately supplied with a humane minimum. The

hard conclusion remains that we should share all food equally even if this means that everyone starves and the human species becomes extinct. But, of course, the human race would survive even equal sharing, for after enough people died, the remained could be well-nourished on the food

that remained. But this grisly prospect does not show that anything is wrong with the principle of equity. Instead, it shows that something is profoundly wrong with the social institutions in which sharing the necessities of life equally is “impractical” and “irrational.”

Utilitarianism does not apply to hunger—accepting starvation undermines our status as moral actorsSHIELDS 1995 (David, research associate, Peace and Conflict Studies Program at UC Berkeley, The Color of Hunger: Race and Hunger in National and International Perspective, p. 49)One of the great myths about hunger is that it can be adequately studied objectively. In the academic halls of the great

universities, hunger, when it is not ignored, is turned into a topic, a problem to be investigated. It is subjected to theoretical analysis, statistical manipulation, and policy review. Scientific papers are delivered at professional meetings, dissertations are written, and careers are made in the study of hunger. In the corridors of government, hunger, when it is

not ignored, is turned into a topic for partisan debate. Politicians issue position statements, bureaucrats shuffle papers and people, and technocrats design assistance programs like an architect designs a building. I am not

suggesting that these are entirely barren efforts, but by themselves they fail to come to grips with the most basic challenge posed by the existence of hunger. To genuinely know hunger, one must break with the objectivist mode of knowing, returning to it only after experiencing the subjective immediacy of hunger’s threat. Hunger is ugly and tragic.

The hungry person, simply by virtue of his or her existence, is a fundamental protest against the moral integrity of our society and culture. More basic yet, the ravaged bodies of the hungry call into question our own humanity. How can we claim full personhood when we have allowed such a situation of massive suffering to go uncorrected? Hunger cannot be studied objectively because our very soul is called into question by the approaching victim of hunger. Until we are grasped in our innermost core by the wrenching protest of the walking death

called hunger, until we are pulled into a struggle of solidarity and militant resistance, until we are ready to burst with an anguished outcry of “Stop, this can’t go on!” then we cannot understand hunger . We misunderstand hunger when we turn the hungry person into one more object of study.

The threat of extinction cannot outweigh moralityCALLAHAN 1973 (Daniel, institute of Society and Ethics, The Tyranny of Survival, p. 91-3)

The value of survival could not be so readily abused were it not for its evocative power. But abused it has been. In the name of survival, all manner of social and political evils have been committed against the rights of individuals, including the right to life. The purported threat of Communist domination has for over two decades fueled the drive of militarists for ever-larger defense budgets, no matter what the cost to other social needs. During World War II, native Japanese-Americans were herded, without due process of law, to detention camps. This policy was later upheld by the Supreme Court in Korematsu v. United States (1944) in the general context that a threat to

national security can justify acts otherwise blatantly unjustifiable. The survival of the Aryan race was one of the official legitimations of Nazism. Under the banner of survival, the government of South Africa imposes a ruthless apartheid, heedless of the most elementary human rights. The Vietnamese war has seen one of the greatest of the many absurdities tolerated in the name of survival: the destruction of villages in order to save them. But it is not only in a political setting that survival has been evoked as a final and unarguable value. The main rationale B. F. Skinner offers in Beyond Freedom and Dignity for the controlled and conditioned society is the need for survival. For Jacques Monod, in Chance and Necessity, survival

requires that we overthrow almost every known religious, ethical and political system. In genetics, the survival of the gene pool has been put forward as sufficient grounds for a forceful prohibition of bearers of offensive genetic traits from marrying and bearing children. Some have even suggested that we do the cause of survival no good by our misguided medical efforts to find means by which those suffering from such common genetically based diseases as diabetes can live a normal life, and thus procreate even more diabetics. In the field of population and environment, one can do no better than

to cite Paul Ehrlich, whose works have shown a high dedication to survival, and in its holy name a willingness to contemplate governmentally enforced abortions and a denial of food to surviving populations of nations which have not enacted population-control policies. For all these reasons it is possible to counterpoise over against the need for survival a "tyranny of survival." There seems to be no imaginable evil which some group is not willing to inflict on another for sake of survival, no rights, liberties or dignities which it is not ready to suppress. It is easy, of course, to recognize the danger when survival is falsely and manipulatively invoked. Dictators never talk about their aggressions, but only about the need to defend the fatherland to save it from destruction at the hands of its

enemies. But my point goes deeper than that. It is directed even at a legitimate concern for survival, when that concern is allowed to reach an intensity which would ignore, suppress or destroy other fundamental human rights and values. The potential tyranny survival as value is that it is capable, if not treated sanely, of wiping out all other values. Survival can become an obsession and a disease, provoking a destructive singlemindedness that will stop at nothing . We come here to the fundamental moral dilemma. If, both biologically and psychologically, the need for survival is basic

to man, and if survival is the precondition for any and all human achievements, and if no other rights make much sense without the premise of a right to life—then how will it be possible to honor and act upon the need for survival without, in the process, destroying everything in human beings which makes them worthy of survival.

To put it more strongly, if the price of survival is human degradation, then there is no moral reason why an effort should be made to ensure that survival. It would be the Pyrrhic victory to end all Pyrrhic victories.

Number of people killed is a bad ethical calculusHOLT 2006 (Jim, frequent NYT contributor, “Math Murders,” New York Times, March 12)

Counting the dead is a paradoxical business. Suppose I told you that around 150 million people have died over the last century in wars, genocides, man-made famines and other atrocities. This number might evoke in you a certain

horror. But it is, of course, only a wild guess. Its very vagueness lends it an air of unreality. Yet what purpose would be served by making it more precise? Where mass death is concerned, the moral significance of scale seems to be one of those things that our brains aren't equipped to handle. A single life may have infinite value, but the difference between a million deaths and a million and one strikes us as negligible. The moral meaning of death counts is further obscured by

their apparent lack of objectivity. Take the war in Iraq. How many Iraqi civilians have died as a consequence of the American invasion? Supporters of the war say 30,000, a number that even President Bush finally brought himself to utter late last year. Opponents of the war say more than 100,000. Surely there must be a fact of the matter. In practice,

though, there are only competing methodologies and assumptions, all of which yield different numbers. Even if we could put politics aside and agree on one, it would be hard to say what it meant. Does it matter, for instance, that the higher estimate of 100,000 is the same order of magnitude as the number of Iraqi Kurds that Saddam Hussein is reckoned to have killed in 1987 and 1988, in a genocidal campaign that, it has been claimed, justified his forcible removal? ''It is painful to contemplate that despite our technologies of assurance and

mathematics of certainty, such a fundamental index of reality as numbers of the dead is a nightmarish muddle,'' wrote Gil Elliot in his 1972 volume, ''The Twentieth Century Book of the Dead.'' Figuring out the number of man-caused deaths is rarely as straightforward as counting skulls in a mass grave. You can kill people with bombs, guns and machetes, but there are also more indirect ways: causing them to die of starvation, say, or of exposure or disease. (The disease need not be indirect -- witness the radiation victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.) Of the nearly two million Cambodians killed by the Khmer Rouge, for instance, perhaps half were executed outright. By contrast, in the ongoing civil war in the Congo -- the deadliest conflict since World War II -- 2 percent of the estimated 3.9 million victims have died of direct violence; the rest perished when their subsistence-level lives were disrupted by the

war. Quantifying man-made death thus means, at the very least, having an idea of the rate at which people die naturally. And that entails recordkeeping. In 17th-century Europe, registers kept by church parishes -- dates of baptisms, marriages and burials -- made it possible to gauge the devastation caused by the Thirty Years' War, which was deadlier for civilians than for soldiers. The last century, strange to say, has not always

matched this level of demographic sophistication. Even in the case of Nazi Germany, supposedly a

model of efficiency, the implementation of the Final Solution was so chaotic that the number of victims can be known only to the nearest million. If our methodology of

counting man-made deaths is crude, our moral calculus for weighing the resulting numbers is even cruder. Quantification, it is often thought, confers precision and objectivity. Yet it tells us very little about comparative evil. We feel that Hitler was every bit as evil as Stalin, even though Stalin was far more successful in murdering people (in part because he had a longer run). Mao may have been more successful still; in their recent book, ''Mao: The Unknown Story,'' Jung Chang and Jon Halliday estimate that the Chinese leader was responsible for ''well over 70 million deaths,'' which would come to nearly half of the total

number of man-made deaths in the 20th century. In relative terms, however, Mao is easily eclipsed by Pol Pot, who directed the killing of more than a quarter of his fellow Cambodians. Raw death numbers may not be a reliable index of evil, but they still have value as a guide to action. That, at least, is the common-sense view. It is also part of the ethical

theory known as utilitarianism, which holds that sacrificing x lives to save y lives is always justified as long as y is greater than x. This utilitarian principle is often invoked, for example, in defense of President Truman's decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed between 120,000 and 250,000 Japanese civilians, on the

assumption that the death toll would have been worse had the war been prolonged. Yet some thinkers (like the

British philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe) have questioned whether, morally speaking, numbers really count. In a choice between saving 5 lives and saving 10, they ask,

why should we be dutybound to act in behalf of the greater number? Because, you say, it would be worse for 10 people to die than for 5 people. They reply: Worse for whom? Arithmetic misleads us into thinking that deaths aggregate the way numbers do. Yet in reality there are only individuals suffering. In a dilemma where the deaths of one group of people or another is unavoidable, why should someone have to die merely by reason of being in the smaller group? This sort of skepticism about the significance of numbers has some perverse consequences.

It implies that all atrocities have an equal command on our moral attention, regardless of scale. Yet a refusal to aggregate deaths can also be ethically salubrious. It helps us realize that the evil of each additional death is in no way diluted by the number of deaths that may have preceded it. The ongoing bloodbath in Darfur has, all agree, claimed an enormous number of victims. Saying just how many is a methodological nightmare; a ballpark figure is a

quarter of a million, but estimates range up to 400,000 and beyond. Quantitatively, the new deaths that each day brings are absorbed into this vast, indeterminate number. Morally, they ought to be as urgent as those on the first day of the slaughter . ''What is the moral context in which we should see those killed by violence? There exists a view that one violent death has

the same moral value as a thousand or a million deaths. . . . The killer cannot add to his sin by

committing more than one murder. However, every victim of murder would claim, if he could, that his death had a separate moral value.'' Source: ''The Twentieth Century Book of the Dead,'' by Gil Elliot (1972)

These ethical rules apply to states, not just individualsNAGEL 1979 (Thomas, Philosopher, Mortal Questions, p 89-90)

Both of these sources of public morality generate limits to what a public official may do in

the conduct of his office, even if he is serving institutional interests. It is easy to forget about those limits, for three reasons. First, restrictions against the use of public power for private gain can seem like a moral cushion

that insulates whatever else is done officially from moral reproach. Second, the fact that the holder of a public office takes on an obligation to a particular group may foster the idea that he is obliged not to consider anything except the interest of that group. Third, the impersonal morality of public institutions, and the moral specialization that inevitably arises given the complexity of public actions, lead naturally to the establishment of many roles whose terms of reference are primarily consequentialist. Lack of attention to the context that is necessary to make these roles legitimate can lead to a rejection of all limits on the means thought to be justified by ever greater ends. I have argued that these are all errors. It is important to remember that they are moral views: the opinion that in certain conditions a certain type of conduct is permissible has to be criticized and defended by moral argument. Let me return finally to the individuals who occupy

public roles. Even if public morality is not substantively derivable from private, it applies to individuals. If one of them takes on a public role, he accepts certain limitations on what he may do. As with any obligation, this step involves a risk that he

will be required to act in ways incompatible with other obligations or principles that he accepts. Sometimes he will have to act anyway. But sometimes, if he can remember them,

he will see that the limits imposed by public morality itself are being transgressed,

and he is being asked to carry out a judicial murder or a war of unjust aggression. At this point there is no substitute for refusal and, if possible, resistance. Despite the impersonal character of public morality and its complex application to institutions in which responsibility is partly absorbed by the moral defects of the institution

through which he acts; but the plausibility of that excuse is inversely proportional to the power and independence of the actor. Unfortunately this is not reflected in our treatment of former public servants who have often done far worse than take bribes.

This is particularly true in the case of foodKENT 2005 (George, Freedom From Want: The Human Right to Adequate Food, p 1)

People have a right to adequate food, and to be free from hunger, as a matter of international law. The right is articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights; the Convention on the Rights

of the Child; and several other international instruments. States and the governments that represent them, and other parties as well, have obligations to ensure that the right is realized. States that are parties to these agreements have made a commitment to ensure the realization of the right.

War is particularly unpredictableFONT AND RÉGIS 2006 (Joan Pere Plaza i Font UAB – Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona – Spain Dandoy Régis UCL – University of Louvain – Belgium “Chaos Theory and its Application in Political Science” IPSA – AISP Congress Fukuoka, 9 – 13 July 2006 http://www.sciencespo.site.ulb.ac.be/dossiers_membres/dandoy-regis/fichiers/dandoy-regis-publication18.pdf)

Betts (2000) observed a useful application of chaos to strategy and international security. In his view, doubts about government’s capacity to cause intended effects through strategy are reinforced by the chaos theory, given the fact that the strategy results do not follow plans. The complexity and the contingency preclude controlling causes well enough to produce desired effects and little connection between the design and the denouement of strategies is observed. The author stressed that, in this

case, the chaos theory emphasizes how small, untraceable events produce major changes,

referring to the ‘butterfly effect’ characteristic. Chaos theory sees war as a nonlinear system that produces ‘erratic behaviour’, through disproportionate relationships between inputs and outputs or synergies, and in which the whole is not equal to the sum of the parts (Beyerchen, 1992). However, Betts conceded that chaotic nonlinearity is common in war strategies, but neither absolute nor pervasive. “If chaos theory meant that no prediction is possible, there would be no point in any analysis of the conduct of the war” (Betts, 2000: 20). Those who criticize social science approaches to strategy for false confidence in predictability cannot rest on a rejection of prediction altogether without negating all rationale for strategy. Finally, one should mention that the nonlinear perspective misrepresents the structure of the problem as the military strategy seeks disequilibrium, a way to defeat the enemy rather than to find a mutually acceptable price for exchange. More precise but still rhetorical examples of the application of the chaos theory in the field of the international relations can be found in the example of the spontaneous and mass revolutions as the Iranian revolution of 1978-79 that is considered a massive rupture of chaotic uncertainties and bifurcations into unpredictable dynamical changes in a political system (Farazmand, 2003:341), similarly to the

predictions made on the post-castro environment in Cuba (Radu, 2000). A single man – Adolf Hilter – was considered as the ‘butterfly’s wing’ that could cause the German system to bifurcate from democracy to totalitarism (Peled, 2000:31). Similarly, the events of

September 2001 in the United States, the appearance of the Macedonian Alexander that ruled

the Persian Empire are assessed as good examples of how small scale chaotic events can lead to large scale chaotic consequences with far reaching implications . (Farazmand, 2003:353). But political scientists do not only use metaphors for describing political and IR phenomena. For

example, Saperstein (1988) studied empirically whether the development of SDI in the United States would lead to a transition from an offensive to a defensive mode of strategy from ICBM attacks. His complex model appears to be

sensitive to noise and even chaotic. The outcomes of the system clearly show erratic oscillations and predict an undesired escalation of risk of strategic intercontinental nuclear war in the case of the development of SDI. They confirmed that, in the political science field, the transition from predictability to chaos in deterministic mathematical system is possible.

Contention Four: No Impact

Great power war is obsolete and small conflicts will not escalateMANDELBAUM 1999 (Michael, Professor of American Foreign Policy, Johns Hopkins University; Director, Project on East-West Relations, Council on Foreign Relations, “Transcript: is Major War Obsolete?” Transcript of debate with John Mearsheimer, CFR, Feb 25, http://www.ciaonet.org/conf/cfr10/)My argument says, tacitly, that while this point of view, which was widely believed 100 years ago, was not true then, there

are reasons to think that it is true now. What is that argument? It is that major war is obsolete. By major war, I mean war waged by the most powerful members of the international system, using all of their resources over a protracted period of time with revolutionary geopolitical consequences. There have been four such wars in the modern period: the wars of the French Revolution, World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. Few though they have been, their consequences have been monumental. They are, by far, the most influential events in modern history. Modern history which can, in fact, be seen as a series of aftershocks to these four earthquakes. So if I am right, then what has been the

motor of political history for the last two centuries that has been turned off? This war, I argue, this kind of war, is obsolete; less than impossible, but more than unlikely. What do I mean by obsolete? If I may quote from the article on which this presentation is based, a copy of which you received when coming in, “ Major war is obsolete in a way that styles of dress are obsolete. It is something that is out of fashion and, while it could be revived, there is no present

demand for it. Major war is obsolete in the way that slavery, dueling, or foot-binding are obsolete. It is a social practice that was once considered normal, useful, even desirable, but that now seems odious. It is obsolete in the way that the central planning of economic activity is obsolete. It is a practice once regarded as a plausible, indeed a superior, way of achieving a socially desirable goal, but that changing conditions have

made ineffective at best, counterproductive at worst.” Why is this so? Most simply, the costs have risen and the benefits of major war have shriveled. The costs of fighting such a war are extremely high because of the advent in the middle of this century of nuclear weapons, but they would have been high even had

mankind never split the atom. As for the benefits, these now seem, at least from the point of view of the major

powers, modest to non-existent. The traditional motives for warfare are in retreat, if not

extinct. War is no longer regarded by anyone, probably not even Saddam Hussein after his

unhappy experience, as a paying proposition. And as for the ideas on behalf of which major wars have been waged in the past, these are in steep decline. Here the collapse of communism was an important milestone, for that ideology was inherently bellicose. This is not to say that the world has reached the

end of ideology; quite the contrary. But the ideology that is now in the ascendant, our own,

liberalism, tends to be pacific. Moreover, I would argue that three post-Cold War developments have made major war even less likely than it was after 1945. One of these is

the rise of democracy, for democracies, I believe, tend to be peaceful. Now carried to its most extreme conclusion, this eventuates in an argument made by some prominent political scientists that democracies never go to war with one another. I wouldn’t go that far. I don’t believe that this is a law of history, like a law of nature, because I believe there are no such laws of history. But I do believe there is something in it. I believe there is a peaceful tendency inherent in democracy. Now it’s true that one important cause of war has not changed with the end of the Cold War. That is the structure of the international system, which is anarchic. And realists, to whom Fareed has referred and of whom John Mearsheimer and our guest Ken Waltz are perhaps the two most leading exponents in this country and the world at the moment, argue that that structure determines international activity, for it leads sovereign states to have to prepare to

defend themselves, and those preparations sooner or later issue in war. I argue, however, that a post-Cold War innovation counteracts the effects of anarchy. This is what I have called in my 1996 book, The

Dawn of Peace in Europe, common security. By common security I mean a regime of negotiated arms limits that reduce the insecurity that anarchy inevitably produces by transparency-every state can know

what weapons every other state has and what it is doing with them-and through the principle of defense dominance, the reconfiguration through negotiations of military forces to make them more suitable for defense and less for attack. Some caveats are, indeed, in order where common security is concerned. It’s not universal. It exists only in Europe. And there it is certainly not irreversible. And I should add that what I have called common security is not a cause, but a consequence, of the major forces that have made war less likely. States enter into common security arrangements when they have already, for other reasons, decided that they do not wish to go to war. Well, the third feature of the post-Cold War

international system that seems to me to lend itself to warlessness is the novel distinction between the

periphery and the core, between the powerful states and the less powerful ones. This was

previously a cause of conflict and now is far less important. To quote from the article again, “ While for

much of recorded history local conflicts were absorbed into great-power conflicts, in the wake of the Cold War, with the industrial democracies debellicised and Russia and China

preoccupied with internal affairs, there is no great-power conflict into which the many local conflicts that have erupted can be absorbed. The great chess game of international politics is finished, or at least suspended. A pawn is now just a pawn, not a sentry standing guard against an attack on a king.”

No accidental wars and irrationality doesn’t support their impactMUELLER 2009 (John, prof of poli sci at Ohio State, Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al-Qaeda, p. 101)

Robert Jervis points out that " when critics talk of the impact of irrationality they imply that all such deviations will be in the direction of emotional impulsiveness, of launching an attack , or of taking actions that are terribly risky. But

irrationality could also lead a state to passive acquiescence." In moments of high stress and threat, people can be said to have three psychological alternatives: (1) to remain calm and rational, (2) to refuse to believe that the threat is imminent or significant, or (3) to panic , lashing out frantically and

incoherently at the threat. Generally, people react in one of the first two ways. In her classic study of disaster behavior, Martha Wolfenstein concludes, "The usual reaction is one of being unworried ."52 In addition, the historical record suggests that wars simply do not begin by accident . In his extensive survey of wars that have occurred since 1400 , diplomat-historian

Evan Luard concludes, " It is impossible to identify a single case in which it can be said that a war started accidentally; in which it was not, at the time the war broke out, the deliberate intention of at least one party that war should take place." Geoffrey Blainey, after

similar study, very much agrees: although many have discussed "accidental" or "unintentional" wars, "it is difficult," he concludes, " to find a war which on investigation fits this description ." Or, as Henry Kissinger has put it dryly, " Despite

popular myths, large military units do not fight by accident ."33

Embargo is the causeThe US caused the food crisis in Cuba- even before the embargo US policies created dependence that structurally decimated the country (read the right to food includes domestic ability card)Collins et al., 89 (Joseph Collins- the cofounder of the Institute for Food and Development Policy, Michael Scott- researcher on agrarian reform and director of overseas programs for Oxfam America, Medea Benjamin- nutritionist with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the Swedish International Development Agency, “No free lunch: food & revolution in Cuba today”, Institute for Food and Development Policy, Jun 1, 1989, 11-24, jld)

Dependence on the United StatesUp to now we have only hinted at what was a major stumbling block for Cuba’s development: its extreme dependency on the United States. The Platt Amendment,

forced into the Cuban constitution in 1901 during U.S. military occupation, gave the United States the right to intervene whenever it decided a government was not ‘adequate.” The United States landed troops in Cuba in 1906, 1912, and 1917. Even alter the

Platt Amendment was eliminated from the constitution in 1934, the U.S. government remained the dominant influence in internal Cuban politics, “Until the advent of Castro, the United States was so overwhelmingly influential that [ . . the American Ambassador was the second most Important man in Cuba, sometimes even more important than the president Cuban

dictator Batista],” former Ambassador Farl E. T. Smith later testified. Much of the Cuban economy was in the hands of U.S. companies and U.S. investments ran the gamut:

manufacturing, commerce, petroleum refining, agriculture, mining, transportation, electricity, tourism. On the eve of the revolution, there were over one billion dollars in U.S. corporate holdings In Cuba’’—or one-eighth of the total U.S. investment in Latin America, making Cuba second only to Venezuela. U.S. firms directly employed about 160,000 workers in Cuba itself. Americans owned nine of Cuba’s ten largest sugar mills in 1955, produced 40 percent of the island’s sugar, and controlled 54 percent of the total grinding capacity.’° Cuban branches of U.S. banks held almost a quarter of all bank deposits.” ‘The telephone service was a monopoly of American Telephone and Tele graph.” The U.S-owned Cuban Electric Company had a virtual monopoly on electric power—and charged rates even higher than those in the United States. ‘ Standard Oil, Shell. and Texaco refined imported crude ail. Procter and Gamble. Colgate-Palmolive, Firestone. Good1” Goodyear. Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, Canada Dry, and Orange Crus1’ all had subsidiaries in Cuba. U.S. citizens, often connected to the

Mafia, also owned many of the island’s hotels and ran the thriving gambling casinos and drug trade. “A relatively small group of American businessmen have In their grasp vast economic power by the mere act of making business decisions,” declared a study of U.S. investments in Cuba on the eve of the revolution, Every year the U.S. Congress made the single most important decision to the Cuban economy—the “quota” of Cuban sugar that could

be imported into the U.S. market at the relatively high prices of tJ.S. domestic producers. Over a 35 year period, Cuba exported about 60 percent of its sugar production to the United States. Cuba’s economy was not only dependent on a single crop but on a single customer. Cuba’s potential to produce consumer goods for its own people was undercut by the U.S. sugar quota. Cuba was granted preferred entry into the US. market for some of its sugar, its rum, and its leaf

tobacco; in exchange, Cuba had to open its doors to US. goods. Duties were abolished for many U.S. goods and lowered on many more; internal taxes on

goods of U.S. origin were lowered or lifted; and quantity restrictions on imports of US. goods were virtually eliminated. Restrictions on the conversion of pesos into dollars were prohibited so that profits made on the Cuban market could readily be

taken “home” to the United States.5’ Not only did an average of 80 percent of Cuba’s imports come from a single trading “partner,” but the Cuban economy also became totally dependent on imports. “Every conceivable type of goods was imported,” noted OflC LIS, economist, “from corn flakes to tomato paste; from nails and tacks to tractors, trucks. and automobiles; from thread to all types of clothing; from goods for Sears and other department stores to accessories for the home, fertilizers and insecticides for agriculture, and materials and equipment for Industry and construction.” A 1934

memorandum by liS. Secretary of State C4rdell Hull argued that U.S. policy should actively discourage Cuba’s agricultural diversification in order to maintain it as a favorable market for U.S. foods and raw materials.” But the subsequent U.S. sugar quota system made “active” discouragement unnecessary for the realization of Hull’s goal.

Enforced dependency on the United States gave rise to a number of the ironies of underdevelopment that marked pre- revoluton Cuba.

An exporter of raw sugar, Cuba imported candy.” Cuba exported tomatoes but imported virtually all its tomato paste. Cuba exported fresh fruit and imported canned fruit, exported rawhide but imported shoes. It produced vast quantities of tobacco but imported cigarettes. (So many Ameri can brands were imported that in 1959, nine of Cuba’s twenty- four cigarette factories were not functioning. )‘ To add insult to injury, even “Havana” cigars were increasingly manufactured in the United States; Cuba exported leaf tobacco as raw material for the US. cigar companies that shifted manufacturing operations from Cuba to Florida in part because of high US.

tariffs on Cuban manufactured cigars.’ Rather than develop Its productive capabilities, investments shifted to nonproductive areas like tourism, real estate, and import-export. Cuba became a market to be milked for all it was worth. Little was invested in its future; In fact, between 1952 and 1958 there was a net disinvestment of $370 million and the per capita gross national product declined. Under the US. quota system Cuba received a comparatively good price for its sugar (though for only a part of its total production). But there was little prospect that Cuba’s share of the US. market would grow. Indeed, throughout the l940s and 1950s, the amount of Cuban sugar purchased by the

United States consistently declined. At the same time, the quota system undercut any movement toward food self-reliance. More impor tant, the concentration of control over the nation’s agricultural resources, as well as the economy as a whole, prevented the creation of jobs that could have meant food security for the hun dreds of thousands of poor Cuban families.

The US created the condition for a food crisis- supply cycles, sabotage, structural capacityCollins et al., 89 (Joseph Collins- the cofounder of the Institute for Food and Development Policy, Michael Scott- researcher on agrarian reform and director of overseas programs for Oxfam America, Medea Benjamin- nutritionist with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the Swedish International Development Agency, “No free lunch: food & revolution in Cuba today”, Institute for Food and Development Policy, Jun 1, 1989, 11-24, jld)

Supply Lags Behind Demand

But supply failed to keep pace with the growing demand. Overall agricultural production was handicapped by the flight to the United

States of administrative and technical personnel, an elite unwilling to adjust to the new changes. The consequent lack of organization and technical experience on the newly created people’s (arms and cooperatives lowered production. The Eisen howcr administration’s 1960 embargo on most exports to Cuba seriously

disrupted the island’s agriculture, which had become dependent on the United States for farm machinery, fertilizers, pesticides, seeds, and other inputs. In addition, the Central Intel ligence Agency fostered acts of sabotage, including burning fields and slaughtering cattle, Such

sabotage, as well as repeated military attacks culminating In the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961,

forced Cuba to divert scarce human and material re sources into defense, exacting a toll on production. As if all nus were flot enough, a severe drought in 1962 rurttier aggravated food production problems (See chapter 9 for further discussion of production problems in the early years.) In a reversal of the pre- 19i9 pattern, shortages became more

chronic in the cities than in the cournryside. Finding ever fewer consumer goods to buy, especially imports from the United States, tenants and sharecroppers had little need for cash and thus produced less for the market.’ Consequently, there was less food In the cities. Viandas in particular began disappearing from city marketplaces. Plantains (cooking bananas) were no longer trucked

in daily to Havana bw consumed in the eastern provinces where they were grown.” Shortages often triggered more shortages since the lack of one item meant greater demand for others. By mid-1961. when taro, a usually abundant root crop, became scarce, people bought out sweet potatoes, putting pressure on the supply of white pota toes, and so on.” The disruption of normal imports further aggravated supply problems, As we discussed in chapter 1, Cuba had bccome de pendent on the import of large quantities of food—wheat, rice, beans, lard, poultry, dairy

products, and eggs. even onions and garlic. With over 70 percent of these imports coming from the United States.2” the abrupt embargo on U.S. trade with Cuba left the country in dire straits. Taicc the case of pork lard. While such an example might seem odd, the fact is that Cuba consumed prodigious quantities of lard, importing about 85 percent of it from the United States.2’ In a desperate search for substitute suppliers, the Cuban govern. ment found to its dismay that not only were prices significantly higher elsewhere (partly due to steeper transpon costs) but no where outside of the United States could enough lard be found On such short

notice!2 The U.S. embargo created a myriad of additional import prob. ‘ems. Since Cuba ‘as so chj to

the United States, its ports and Warehouses had been designed for frequent short hauls by small ferryboats from florida and New Orleans. Once those sources of SuPply were cut off, Cuba found itself ill-equipped for trans oceanic trade.

The US blockade is responsible for rationing and destruction of food choices in CubaAlvarez, 2k, University of Florida, Department of Food and Resource Economics (Jose Alvarez “Overview of Cuba's Food Rationing System” 10/28/00 http://www.fred.ifas.ufl.edu/cubanag/sugar.php) //NGWhile many supporters of the Cuban regime blame the U.S. economic sanctions (that the Cubans refer to as a blockade) against Cuba as the main culprit, almost all of the detractors place the burden on the inefficiencies of the socialist system. Given the importance of this issue in terms of the hardships it has represented to the population on the island for more than 40 years, the two points of view deserve careful analysis. As stated above, for supporters of the Cuban regime, the United States is the culprit. The following quote is very revealing because it blames the United States for the suffering of the Cuban people under the rationing system, and because it states (for the first time, to our knowledge) the cost of

administering such a system: As a consequence of the U.S.-imposed economic blockade, Cuba was forced to establish a rationing system for basic food and industrial products. This has brought serious limitations to

consumers and their choice availability. Since the establishment of the economic

blockade, consumers have had to adapt themselves to the limits of quantity and of choice offers that are available, instead of choosing according to preference and custom. Cuba also had to establish a whole Government-agency organization, called Consumer's Register Control Office, to keep accurate records of consumers, quotas and ration booklets all over the country. The operation of this control system results in an increase in annual budget expenditures of 7,000,000 Cuban pesos, not including control expenditures over wholesale and retail commerce, to ensure compliance with the established regulations (León Cotayo, 1991, pp. 59-60). Thus, the cost of administering the food rationing system around 1990 is set at seven million Cuban pesos (around US$300,000), which must be larger now. At any rate, the figure represents a high monetary price the Cubans have to pay to support a rationing system that has been in effect for more than 40 years. In terms of the additional costs of the economic sanctions, the Cuban government has provided some figures. For example, in an official report submitted to the United Nations, it is reported that, in the year 2000, Cuba had to pay an additional 38 million dollars to purchase food as a result of the price differentials between the United States and alternative markets. In addition, the costs of financing around 63% of the food imports in the same year demanded expenses greater than $50 million. Under normal conditions, these expenses would not have been greater than $19 million (this information is contained in a report the Cuban government sent to the United Nations on July 17, 2001, and placed on the La Nueva Cuba website). The previous report was rebutted by a Cuban independent journalist (Espinosa Chepe, 2001). According to him, Cuba devotes between $800 million and $900 million, more than 20% of its import capacity, to the purchase of food that could be very easily produced in the country. Such purchases, which do not satisfy the needs of the population, are made abroad as the result of the inefficiency that exists in the agricultural sector. That state of affairs, he says, is not the result of any embargo but a consequence of the commanding incompetence. There is no question about the unequivocal damage that U.S. economic sanctions have had on the Cuban economy. However, they are far from being the main reason for the current state of affairs. One has to distinguish between the Cuban economy in general and “a rationing system for basic food and industrial products” as quoted above. To blame U.S. economic sanctions for the existence of a rationing system of basic food products is not a very sound argument to justify Cuba's socialist system. It is an admission that Cubans cannot even produce what grows very easily on Cuban soil. If one lists the food products that have been rationed since 1962, it becomes evident that almost all of them were in abundance before the 1959 revolution and were produced domestically. Granted, some

Cubans have been unable to consume a wide variety of food products because of the high prices under the rationing system, but there have been periods in which the abundance of several products have demonstrated the feasibility of returning to a stable and ample food supply. Examples include the proliferation of FrutiCuba (a chain of

government stores) which was devoted exclusively to selling fruits and vegetables in the mid-1960s, free farmers' markets in the 1980s, the free agricultural markets after 1994, and the new food outlets. These testify to the ability of Cuban farmers to produce abundant food supplies despite U.S. economic sanctions.

Domestic production could do away with the food rationing system. It is very relevant to recall that, when the Soviet bloc was subsidizing the Cuban economy to the tune of five billion dollars per year, food was still rationed in Cuba.

Status quo ensures Cubans starveRoman, 13 (Alexis Romay, Translating Cuba provides translation of Cuba blogs 4/11/13 “The Cuban Diet and the Politics of Hunger” http://translatingcuba.com/the-cuban-diet-and-the-politics-of-hunger-alexis-romay/ )//NGToday I didn’t need my morning coffee. I woke up to a pair of articles about the profound socio-economic crisis in Cuba, which became acute in the early nineties with the collapse of the socialist bloc. What those champions of euphemism called “The Special Period.” One of the articles, in Spanish, was published by that usually faithful friend of Cuba’s Granma newspaper, El País, from Madrid; the other, in English, appeared in The Independent, from

London.¶ Both were based on a study published today by the British Medical Journal. About what? Hunger. But not the infamy of starving a population.

That’s in poor taste. About hunger as a cure for obesity. The thesis that unites them is

simple: while we ate cabbage as appetizer, main course and dessert —the first person plural is intentional: I experienced this first-hand—, we were doing a favor to the nutritionists and cardiologists of the first world, who then would go around shouting to the four winds that the lower the body weight, the lower the cardiovascular mortality. “A textbook example in real life,” declared a Spanish scientist who wasn’t part of the “experiment,” although what he really wanted to say is: “they were dying

of hunger, but not of heart disease.”¶ It turns out that when Cubans were fainting on their bikes, or being overcome by polyneuritis —a severe inflammation of multiple nerves— or simply dying from lack of food, this was part of a long-range plan: to demonstrate to the British Medical Journal, to the international press —and to the world at large— that if you take food and transportation away from a population, the trouser sizes of men and women will be drastically reduced. One can’t but wonder why they don’t also recommend trying bulimia and anorexia.¶ Although separated by language, both articles have in common a contempt for the Cuban

people, and they remind one of the great achievements of tropical totalitarianism: The Castro brothers have not only created a theme park so that those who love far off utopia have an island as a

point of reference and place to visit; even before that, they have made Cuba into a giant laboratory where every human being is a guinea pig.

Current food sanctions are wreaking havoc on CubaAlternative Insight, 7 - presents articles on world issues, (“The Politics of Starvation: An Updated Survey” July 2007 http://www.alternativeinsight.com/Politics_of_Starvation-Recent.html)//NGThe United States imposed an embargo against Cuba almost immediately after the 1960 Cuban revolution.

Forty plus years of embargo have not succeeded in accomplishing the policies for which the United States claims it instituted the embargo -

compensation to U.S. firms nationalized by Cuba and the overthrow of the Castro regime. The only result of the embargo has been deprivation of the unfortunate Cuban people. Cuban expropriation of American property and its land reform policies motivated the United States into decreasing Cuba's sugar subsidy and implementing an embargo that intended to deny Cuba of spare parts for the U.S.

machinery that powered the Cuban economy. The Soviet Union aided Cuba in these unfortunate years by purchasing sugar at inflated market prices and forwarding strategic materials to the island. Cuba's alliance with the Soviet Union strengthened Uncle Sam's determination to cripple Cuba by the use of embargo. Although the reasons for the embargo faded with the years

and became totally unnecessary after the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States' determination to overthrow the Castro government increased its economic warfare. In 1992, congress passed The Cuba Democracy Act, which forbade United States subsidiaries to trade with Cuba and deprived the island of $700 million in trade, 70% of which had been in food and medicine. The Act also prohibited U.S. citizens to spend money in Cuba, but allowed private groups to deliver food and medicine. Although the United Nations General Assembly on November 2, 1995, voted 117 to 3 to recommend an end to the U.S. embargo against Cuba, President Clinton on March 12, 1996 signed into law The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, otherwise known as The Helms-Burton Act. This Act imposed penalties on foreign companies doing business in Cuba, permitted U.S. citizens to sue foreign investors who make use of American-owned property seized by the Cuban government and denied investors in Cuba all entry into the U.S. A tightened embargo reinforced Cuba's suffering after Russia withdrew subsidies. The pre-90's Cuba has been credited with eliminating hunger and malnutrition and wiping out infectious diseases. The World Health Organization (WHO) complimented

Cuba for its public health system. Cuba of the mid-90's portrayed another image. The American Association for World Health and the American Public Health Association determined that the embargo caused significant deterioration in Cuba's food production and health care:

Cuba was banned from purchasing nearly 1/2 of new drugs on the market.

Physicians had access to only 890 medications, down from 1,300 in 1989.

Deterioration of water supply increased water borne diseases. Daily caloric intake dropped by 33% between 1989 and 1993. New Jersey Congressman Torricelli predicted that his Cuban Democracy Act would bring Castro's downfall within one year. That did not happen. Humanitarians, such as Congressman Torricelli, have been eager to take advantage of the sufferings of the Cuban people for political purposes rather than affording the people a means to recover from their tragedy.

No alt causes – The Cuban embargo is the biggest contributor to starvationKirkpatrick 96, MD; 32 years of experience and practices in Anesthesiology - Pain Medicine; (Anthony F. Kirkpatrick, November 30, 1996, The Lancet “Role of the USA in shortage of food and medicine in Cuba” Vol. 348, Pg. 1491)//JES

This argument rings hollow. First, even if Cuba can buy food elsewhere, the inclusion of food in the US trade embargo remains in violation of international law. Second, a small amount of food is donated by US organisations, 4.10 but that is a poor substitute for removing provisions that prohibit its sale. Third, although Cuba can buy food elsewhere, it must often pay higher transportation costs than would be the case with the nearby USA. Fourth, in 1992, the US Government ignored the warning of the American Public Health Association that the tightening of the embargo would lead to an abrupt cessation of supplies of food and medicine to Cuba resulting in widespread “famines”.4 In fact, 5 months after the passage of the Act the worst epidemic of neurological disease this century due to a food shortage became widespread in Cuba.12 More than 50 000 of the 11 million inhabitants were suffering from optic neuropathy, deafness, loss of sensation and pain in the extremities, and a spinal disorder that impaired walking and bladder control. 11–13 Furthermore, as recently as November, 1995, WHO reported more people with neurological disease in Cuba due to malnutrition.14

Embargo causes food shortages in Cuba and increases costs of medicineGarfield 97 - the American game designer who created Magic: The Gathering; professor of public health and nursing at Columbia University; visiting professor at the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in the U.K. and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden (Richard Garfield, February 1st 1997, The Lancet “USA and shortage of food and medicine in Cuba” Volume 349, Issue 9048, Page 363 http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2805%2962871-1/fulltext)//JESKirkpatrick (Nov 30, p 1489)1 outlines the difficulties of economic embargoes, which have been much used in hostile foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. Although humanitarian exemptions to most embargoes exist on paper, they are seldom observed. Most globalised drugs, as Kirkpatrick points out, are available only from US sources. More pervasively, transport and market dislocations cause increased

costs for all medicines that are purchased: in Cuba this is calculated to be equivalent to a 30% surcharge than if there were no embargo . US and Cuban-American groups claim that it is not the embargo but Cuba's economic limitations that reduce access to medical supplies. If this were the case, they would not demand on-site verification or prosecute pharmaceutical companies that provide humanitarian goods to Cuba. The burden of proof is not on Cuba that the embargo threatens health and wellbeing. The chain of events that results in unnecessary deaths is long and no so-called smoking gun may exist to prove an embargo to be the sole cause. We did not wait for proof of deaths to act in the embargo against the regime in Haiti. The USA provided food and medicines for up to a quarter of all Haitians at the height of that embargo. If an embargo is the right tool in the USA's fight against Cuba, then the USA should demonstrate that it is doing everything possible to limit collateral effects among the general population.

Even if food restrictions don’t directly cause crisis – Other embargo aspects make them even worseGarfield and Santana 97 – professor of public health and nursing at Columbia University.[1] He has been visiting professor at the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in the U.K. and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden AND Sarah gets to write with the guy who made magic the gathering (Richard Garfield & Sarah Santana, January 1997, American Journal of Public Health, “The Impact of the Economic Crisis and the US Embargo on Health in Cuba” Vol. 87, No. 1 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1380757/pdf/amjph00500-0017.pdf)//JESWe examined trends in health and health care in Cuba during the 1990s. Only changes in the cost of medicine and the unavailability of medicines produced in the United States can specifically be ascribed to the embargo. However,

there are temporal trends that further suggest that the embargo contributes to increasing health threats and the decline of some health indicators. While not the sole cause of these ills, the embargo is shown to make the supply of essential goods more costly, more difficult, and more time- consuming to procure and maintain.

The Cuban embargo is a has promoted suffering and death for decadesAAWH 97 - founded in 1953 as a private, nonprofit charitable and educational organization, and serves as the US. Committee for the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Its purposes are to inform the American public about major health challenges that affect people both here and abroad, and to promote cooperative solutions thatemphasize grassroots involvement. In carrying out its mission, AAWH works with a variety of public and private health-related organizations, including the Department of Health and Human Services/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as with WHO and PAHO. Guidance is provided by the association’s officers and board of directors (American Association for World Health, March 1997, “Denial of Food and Medicine: The Impact Of The U.S. Embargo On The Health And Nutrition

In Cuba" http://www.cubasolidarity.net/aawh.html)//JES

After a year-long investigation, the American Association for World Health has determined that the U.S. embargo of Cuba has dramatically harmed the health and nutrition of large numbers of ordinary Cuban citizens. As documented by the attached report, it is our expert medical opinion that the U.S. embargo has caused a significant rise in suffering-and even deaths-in Cuba. For several decades the U.S. embargo has imposed significant financial burdens on the Cuban health care system. But since 1992 the number of unmet medical needs patients going without essential drugs or doctors performing medical procedures without adequate equipment-has

sharply accelerated. This trend is directly linked to the fact that in 1992 the U.S. trade embargo-one of the most stringent embargoes of its kind, prohibiting the sale of food and sharply restricting the sale of medicines and medical equipment-was further tightened by the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act.

State key

The state is key to take action Künnemann and Epal-Ratjen, 4 – Rolf is the Human Rights Director of FIAN International Sandra is the  Coordinator for UN Affairs at FIAN International (Rolf, Sandra, “The Right to Food: A Resource Manual for NGOs,” AAAS Science and Human Rights Program, http://shr.aaas.org/pubs/pdfs/RT_Food.pdf)//HALFulfilment-bound obligations require the state to take necessary measures to guarantee deprived groups’ access to adequate food and food-producing resources. Obligations to fulfil therefore come into play in situations where individuals and/or communities lack adequate food or food-producing resources. Part A dealt with people who are vulnerable because their access to food or

resources is threatened. Part Be now enters the realm of the (already) hungry and malnourished. The absence of hunger and malnutrition was identified as the core content of the right to food. There is every reason to give them priority in the struggle for

the right to food. In most cases, hunger and malnutrition are the results of poverty—not of a general lack of food in a country or area. India, for example, the nation with the largest number of malnourished—has huge amounts of grain rotting in the godowns, because the starving people next door cannot buy them. People could, of course, plant food for themselves—but they lack the resources: Land, inputs and an agrarian policies supporting small holder agriculture. Instead agribusiness is about to displace even more peasant farmers. People could, of course, work to earn money. In most countries, however, jobs providing a decent pay are lacking. Moreover, some people won’t be able (or should not be expected) to work even if they had the chance to do so (the elderly, children, labor-scarce households)—and therefore need transfers. This background is the reason why the following section deals with income poverty much more than with the general availability of food. General availability of food is, of

course, a human rights issue as well, but it is secondary in the current context, as there is more than enough food available in general—but not for the poor who lack the

land, the capital, the jobs and the state policies which would allow them to feed themselves. Ultimately the human right to food includes guaranteeing access to food for each person. For persons and groups who cannot provide for themselves this implies a states’ obligation to provide

food or—better—income which buys whatever is needed most, including food. The right to food implies more—it implies providing access to land and other resources, and

it requires in addition facilitating policies so that people can make use of these resources to feed themselves. Human rights are an individual concept. For this

matter judges must eventually be able to adjudicate to an individual malnourished claimant access to food and resources and provide immediate relief. This implies the existence of specific transfer programs—in terms of land, work, income and food. These programs are a necessary part of implementing the human right to food for the largest and most severely affected “vulnerable group”—the hundreds of millions of landless and jobless.

Considering the necessity and urgency of the task the state is under an obligation to organize society-wide sharing of food and resources.

Withholding food is morally intolerablePeffer, 3 – Professor in Philosophy from UC San Diego, PhD from University of Arizona in Moral, Social and Political philosophy (Rodney, “WORLD HUNGER, MORAL THEORY, AND RADICAL RAWLSIANISM,” Special Issue:

“Topics in International Moral Theory,” International Journal of Politics and Ethics, vol. 2, no. 4, 2003)//HALHunger, starvation, malnutrition, under-nutrition, and absolute poverty are widespread phenomena on our planet. Recent estimates are that, on average, each year about one million people (mostly children) starve to death, about 10 million succumb to complications from severe malnutrition or under-nutrition (often dying from infections easily warded off when not

malnourished or under-nourished), and some 1.2 billion people live in absolute poverty (i.e. poverty so severe that their basic needs for adequate nutrition, potable water, minimally decent housing and clothing, and basic health care and sanitation are not met on a continuing basis).

But, by all reliable accounts, there is presently more than enough food to feed everyone on our planet and – in almost all cases of large-scale famine – more than enough food to meet everyone's nutritional needs in the very countries or areas suffering famine.i Yet people continue to starve, to be malnourished, and otherwise to live in absolute poverty. This is morally appalling - and intolerable.

The food restrictions on Cuba are an act of using food as a weapon—it is imperialistic Fazzino, 10 - Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska Fairbanks. M.S., Sustainable Systems, Slippery Rock University, December 1999; J.D., University of Florida Levin College of Law, 2007; and Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Florida, 2008 (David V., “WHOSE FOOD SECURITY? CONFRONTING EXPANDING COMMODITY PRODUCTION AND THE OBESITY AND DIABETES EPIDEMICS,” Drake Journal of Agricultural Law, 15 Drake J. Agric. L. 393, LexisNexis)//HALIt's important for our nation to build--to grow foodstuffs, to feed our people. Can you imagine a country that was unable to grow enough food to feed the people? It would be a nation that would be subject to

international pressure. It would be a nation at risk. And so when we're talking about American   agriculture, we're really talking about a national security issue.  This concern over the relationship between food security and national security by the former

President is obvious, considering that the United States has utilized food as a weapon; perhaps the most notable example is the embargo on   Cuba . n24 The Cuban embargo has forced individual families and the Cuban government to make due with fewer ties to global circuits of food production and distribution. n25 The embargo led to an increase in the number of policies, programs, and measures to enhance food security by relying on local and national food production programs. n26 Similarly, the United States has been responsible for the imposition of Coalition Provisional Authority Order 81 in Iraq, which imposes World Trade Organization-friendly intellectual property rights, including limitations on the rights of farmers to use seeds from the previous season's  [*400]  harvest. n27 Coalition Provisional Authority Order 81 could undermine food security for farmers unable to afford required seed purchases if patented material is found among seeds which have

been saved from the previous season.  When the operational definitions of food security are limited to measuring how much food is created and distributed, then the United States emerges as a superior nation in terms of its overall food security and food surpluses. n29 At the same time,

the relative inability of so-called less developed countries to meet the caloric needs of their populace--due to chronic or acute instability in environmental, economic or political sectors--is

described as vulnerability and reflective of their inferiority. n30 Those in international development circles would also point to the poor transportation infrastructure in these less developed countries, which limits the distribution of food to areas that may be in the greatest need of food

assistance. n31 In the United States, the temporal unfolding of science and technology is perceived as leading directly to the continual emergence of progress. n32 Notions of this superiority are reflected in the literature concerning food production and security where the locus of food insecurity is consistently placed in the so-called less developed world, while the United States occupies the role of provider and breadbasket of the world.   n33   The stated superiority of the U.S. interna tional agro-industrial complex is intimately connected with economics and politics; it is a historically produced discourse. n34

Carrying capacity

Carrying capacity is fundamentally inaccurate—proves life boat ethics are morally wrongPeffer, 3 – Professor in Philosophy from UC San Diego, PhD from University of Arizona in Moral, Social and Political philosophy (Rodney, “WORLD HUNGER, MORAL THEORY, AND RADICAL RAWLSIANISM,” Special Issue: “Topics in International Moral Theory,” International Journal of Politics and Ethics, vol. 2, no. 4, 2003)//HAL[1] Although "carrying capacity" is ambiguous, I believe that on any coherent rendering of

the concept it is demonstrably false that the earth has exceeded its carrying capacity or will do so in the near future (barring some unforeseen catastrophe), as Garrett Hardin and other Neo-Malthusians

contend.ii Perhaps the most devastating argument against the Neo-Malthusians' position, however, exposes a crucial blurring of a vital distinction from which they illegitimately proceed to derive their conclusion that wealthier countries ought not to aid starving people in the poorest societies (since they have exceeded their "carrying capacity"). As William Aiken has elegantly argued, the position often fails to distinguish between the "biological limit" definition of this expression and the "socio-economic limit" definition. While there

is a strongly established – and relatively clear – "carrying capacity" thesis in population dynamics theory within the discipline of biology, this cannot be directly extended to the "carrying capacity" of humans since human survival and health are vastly effected by the overall socio-economic arrangements within which they live: from the local village or neighborhood to international social, economic, and political arrangements. As Aiken states: International purchasing power extends a nation's carrying capacity because this is not a biological limit – it is a complex social, economic and political limit. It is not fixed by "nature" but by trade practices (for example, protective tariffs, currency exchange rates, concessionary prices, multinational corporation interests, militarily motivated "loans") by the international market in terms of who has what to sell (goods, resources, alliances), who wants to buy it, what price you can get for what you have to sell, and by the influence of international interests on indigenous production and distribution (for example, neo-colonialism with its emphasis upon the mass

production of nonfood export crops).iii If oil is discovered within its territory, the supposed limit on population suddenly bolts upward to whatever extent the oil reserves last. A nation's carrying capacity is a by-product of the market [or other prevailing economic arrangements] – nothing more. It is never merely a biological limit.iv Moreover, as Amartya Sen and others have demonstrated, it is hardly ever the case that mass starvation occurs from a literal lack of food within

particular societies.v As they argue, famines and starvations are not the consequence of lack of food but of lack of social entitlements to food; i.e. the lack of an adequate entitlement system to adequate nutrition. In fact, many countries have actually exported significant amounts of food during the very periods in which starvation was occurring.vi These facts are extremely

important since they disprove Hardin's argument that we on this planet are now in a "lifeboat" situation and that "lifeboat ethics" permits (or even

requires) those who are fortunate enough to be in the lifeboats – i.e. those in

the wealthy countries (or, more accurately, the wealthy wherever they may live) – not to aid the starving, especially the starving in the worst-off nations.

Providing food is an a-priori – integration of food ethics into politics is necessary to move towards a world worth living inMepham et al, 96, Director of the Centre for Applied Bioethics at Nottingham University. He has published widely in the fields of bioethics and applied biology. (Ben Mepham, Andrew Belsey – Centre for Applied Ethics, University of Wales, Ruth Chadwick – Center for Professional Ethics, University of Central Lancashire Michael Crawford, Director of the Institute of Brain Chemistry at Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children; Nigel Dower, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen; Keb Ghebremeskel studied chemistry at the University of Addis Ababaa and received his doctorate in nutritional biochemistry at the University of Wales; Leslie Gofton is Lecturer in Behavioral Science at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. John S. Marsh CBE is a graduate of Oxford and Reading Universities. Between 1957 and 1977 he was successively Research Economist. Erik Millstone is Senior Lecturer in Science and Technology Policy at Sussex University. “Food Ethics” 1996)//NG

It is hardly a matter of contention that there are ethical issues related to food. We all need food, in adequate quantity and of adequate

quality, to survive and maintain health. The fact that millions of people in the world are severely malnourished, often to the point of starvation, while others devote substantial time and effort to losing weight by dieting, is evidence enough that something is awry with the ethics of food provisioning. But ethical concerns are by no means confined to such striking examples of injustice. The production of food in modern agricultural practice often has damaging effects on the environment, in terms of soil erosion, chemical pollution and loss of species. The exploitation of animals for food is thought by some to be ethically unacceptable under any conditions and by others to seriously infringe their welfare when animals are reared in intensive systems. Food production, processing and marketing also have significant effects on its safety for human consumption, and such concerns are compounded by the

adoption of modem biotechnologies which offend the public sense of propriety. Food is so basic a human need that it readily becomes the focus or means of expression of a whole range of other human concerns, both beneficent and maleficent. Thus, food habits serve both to strengthen cultural bonds and to emphasize intercultural differences: food supply is an important element of foreign aid, but trade in food can also be a means of subordination, or even a weapon of war. Food is essential to the sustenance of life, but it can be a source of disease and death. The underlying assumption motivating the compilation of this collection of essays is that the interrelatedness of such concerns and their centrality to human well-being merits the promotion of an

interdisciplinary approach to food which has an explicitly normative objective. Consideration of 'food ethics` might thus promote more appropriate ways of thinking about human well-being and autonomy, and facilitate the practical and political changes which need to be introduced if we are not only to achieve a more just global society, but indeed if we are to hand onto our successors a world which is worth inheriting. Each of the chapter authors has addressed his subject by first identifying the social, economic or scientific issues and then proceeding to analyse their ethical dimensions. (The absence of women authors is incidental: none of those invited to contribute was able to accept.) All authors have concluded their chapters with suggestions for changes in line with the ethical principles discussed. Readers are not. However, presented with a set of ‘codes of ethical practice'. Rather, they are encouraged to reflect on the ethical implications of those aspects of the food industry with which they are most directly concerned, and with their relationships to other aspects of the food chain, with a view to informing sound ethical judgements. ‘Ethics’ can be considered at several levels, from abstruse meta-ethical theory, at one extreme, to codes of practice, at the other. The aim here is to occupy the middle ground in which ethical theory is applied to practical concerns: but such insights need to be interpreted more explicitly in the contexts of professional practice. Nigel Dower considers the question of global hunger from the perspective of people in Western developed

countries, and in the light of FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation) predictions that by 2010 AD chronic malnutrition will continue to afflict over 600 million people. The persistence of hunger presents a major moral challenge not only because it undermines human welfare and dignity, but because its existence is clearly avoidable. Dower examines several

‘theories of obligation’, each of which supports the claim that we have a moral duty to

ameliorate world hunger. However, as indicated by John Marsh, the ways in which we address that task are

by no means unproblematical. Food trade, being perceived as a largely self-serving activity, might seem to be ethically less worthy than provision of aid, which ostensibly expresses altruistic motives. In

practice, the complications of both aid and trade undermine this simple distinction and imply that there is need for close analysis of the motives and effects of both, if we are to make progress in the alleviation of world hunger.

Starvation is inevitable but we have an obligation to act – the 1AC’s public sharing of values creates moral educationMepham et al, 96, Director of the Centre for Applied Bioethics at Nottingham University. He has published widely in the fields of bioethics and applied biology. (Ben Mepham, Andrew Belsey – Centre for Applied Ethics, University of Wales, Ruth Chadwick – Center for Professional Ethics, University of Central Lancashire Michael Crawford, Director of the Institute of Brain Chemistry at Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children; Nigel Dower, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen; Keb Ghebremeskel studied chemistry at the University of Addis Ababaa and received his doctorate in nutritional biochemistry at the University of Wales; Leslie Gofton is Lecturer in Behavioral Science at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. John S. Marsh CBE is a graduate of Oxford and Reading Universities. Between 1957 and 1977 he was successively Research Economist. Erik Millstone is Senior Lecturer in Science and Technology Policy at Sussex University. “Food Ethics” 1996)//NG

At a recent conference, the prediction was made that in 2010 AD chronic malnutrition in the 93 developing countries would afflict about 637 million people. This was seen as an improvement on the figure of 781 million in 1988/9 (and 941

million in 1969/71).’ It is, in fact, a quite shocking statistic. It represents an awful lot of people who in the next fifteen years will be malnourished or starving, many dying prematurely of these causes.

We have to ask ourselves the following question: if this level of malnutrition remains in fifteen years’ time, will it be there because we cannot avoid it, or because we allow it to continue? To put it in away reminiscent of Augustine`s question about God and the existence of evil in the world: will it exist because we cannot prevent it or because we will not prevent it? By ‘will’ here I do not mean ‘deliberately aim at’, of course, but more modestly *allow to happen because of policies which we know have unwanted but

preventable consequences`. I am not saying that all poverty and hunger in the future could be prevented. But insofar as the trends in the future depend upon earlier decisions-individual, institutional, political-we have to ask: could those decisions have been different so that there would have been less hunger? If they could have been, should they have been? In this chapter, I suggest that the prediction above relies on an unduly pessimistic assessment of the possibility of generous human motivation. Delegates at the United Nations Summit in Copenhagen (March l995) on "˜social development` agreed, since they adopted a ten-year plan to meet the basic needs of virtually every human being on earth. The prediction is based on a number of assumptions-about food production, new methods of agriculture, new areas of co-operation, inputs from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and levels of giving by private individuals. Reductions in global hunger will certainly be seen as the goal of many agents, for example, food scientists and aid officials, but also the general outcome of other developments, economic and technological. The key question to be asked is: in addition to the efforts already being made to reduce world hunger, and assumed in the prediction, by governments, agencies, international bodies, NGOs and concerned individuals, could

significantly more be done to bring about further reductions? I want to argue that much more could be done and given that it could be done, ought to be done, Governments, international organisations and businesses could do a lot more. But, beyond a small but significant degree of latitude within which officials can work, what they can do depends

upon certain conditions. International organisations could make hunger/poverty reduction an even higher priority in their activities if governments agreed that they should. Governments could do a lot more if their citizens wanted them to do so. Business companies could do a lot more (for example. to make sure that their economic activities did not causes poverty or hunger) if those

they are answerable to-their shareholders-determined that they should do so, and consumers of their

products sent signals by their consumer preferences. Can people, then, act in ways that will improve on the prediction above? I suggest that they can. because the prediction is based on the premise that, whatever efforts are currently envisaged for reducing hunger, there is a continued commitment to affluence in the North. i.e. in the rich countries of the world, and thus to levels and kinds of aid programme consistent with this commitment. But if people were to accept the following three propositions, then there

could be significant action (beyond that assumed in the prediction).3 The three propositions are:

that as moral beings we have significant duties to help other people who suffer:

that hunger is a particularly extreme form of suffering; and that we should see the scope of our obligations as global.

This chapter defends these three propositions. But, it may be thought, almost everyone already accepts all three, and as a result of this a certain amount is done and supported, as

indicated above. This, however, is questionable. First, to the extent that we accept them, we may still for a variety of reasons show moral weakness and do nothing or very little. Whatever theorists may say about the nature

and reality of "˜free will`, there is an obvious sense in which people choose whether to act morally or to act otherwise, out of self-interest or immediate inclination. Second, we may not have fully grasped the implications of our moral ideas. And this is partly why an explicit enquiry such as this is of use in sharpening our understanding. Both moral motivation and moral understanding are, in any case, strengthened by reciprocity, solidarity

and publicly shared values. Third, there are a significant number of thinkers who do not accept one or other of the propositions, who reject or

marginalise the duty to help others, who do not see hunger as of particular moral importance, or who deny the global scope of our obligations. Whether we see such views as false or as merely unacceptable, the point remains that

if such thinkers were persuaded otherwise, the potentiality for action would be much improved. The practical importance of moral education for global citizenship needs to be recognized, not just because of global poverty but because of the need for peace and sustained environmental protection.

Starvation dehumanizesMepham et al, 96, Director of the Centre for Applied Bioethics at Nottingham University. He has published widely in the fields of bioethics and applied biology. (Ben Mepham, Andrew Belsey – Centre for Applied Ethics, University of Wales, Ruth Chadwick – Center for Professional Ethics, University of Central Lancashire Michael Crawford, Director of the Institute of Brain Chemistry at Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children; Nigel Dower, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen; Keb Ghebremeskel studied chemistry at the University of Addis Ababaa and received his doctorate in nutritional biochemistry at the University of Wales; Leslie Gofton is Lecturer in Behavioral Science at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. John S. Marsh CBE is a graduate of Oxford and Reading Universities. Between 1957 and 1977 he was successively Research Economist. Erik Millstone is Senior Lecturer in Science and Technology Policy at Sussex University. “Food Ethics” 1996)//NG

Before we look directly at the question of why we ought to do something about hunger, we need to consider a prior question: what is it about hunger which makes it a bad state of affairs to be in?¶ The evils of hunger¶ We can identify the following factors, all of which are bad. Hunger involves physical pain and suffering, loss of vitality and energy, lack

of health in the body, in particular current illnesses and diseases, and a proneness to these conditions. It leads to maldevelopment, physically and mentally, especially in children, early death, directly or via diseases and illness or greater proneness to accidents, loss (or lack) of control over one’s life to a high degree, plus associated feelings of helplessness. Because of its primacy in terms of the need to avoid hunger, it involves an extreme form of poverty through lack of resources for pursuing meaningful activities in life. It involves loss/ lack of dignity/self-respect.

Hunger is a unique form of suffering – the fact that its avoidable and a pre-requisite to wellbeing makes it a moral imperativeMepham et al, 96, Director of the Centre for Applied Bioethics at Nottingham University. He has published widely in the fields of bioethics and applied biology. (Ben Mepham, Andrew Belsey – Centre for Applied Ethics, University of Wales, Ruth Chadwick – Center for Professional Ethics, University of Central Lancashire Michael Crawford, Director of the Institute of Brain Chemistry at Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children; Nigel Dower, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen; Keb Ghebremeskel studied chemistry at the University of Addis Ababaa and received his doctorate in nutritional biochemistry at the University of Wales; Leslie Gofton is Lecturer in Behavioral Science at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. John S. Marsh CBE is a graduate of Oxford and Reading Universities. Between 1957 and 1977 he was successively Research Economist. Erik Millstone is Senior Lecturer in Science and Technology Policy at Sussex University. “Food Ethics” 1996)//NGReasons for the special status of alleviating hunger

Two kinds of reason may be given for saying that hunger has a special moral status.

Neither, on its own, shows hunger to be uniquely different from other kinds of evil, but the combination gives it a special status so far as the normal setting of priorities for action

ought to be concerned.¶ First, if people are hungry, they are in a condition which undermines the possibility, or at least the likelihood, of their achieving other aspects of human well-being; that is, not being hungry is one of the preconditions (normally) of achieving other aspects of human well-being-enjoyable activities, control, relatively little suffering and the exercise of choices. ¶ Second, there is an important sense in which the evil of hunger is more readily avoidable than most other evils. If a person is hungry because he or she does not have access to food, it only takes others to provide it. Except for famine situations ‘lifeboat scarcity’ situations or other forms of

isolation, it takes only the intervention of others who are aware of the situation to enable a person to have food. Within a community where there is

enough food for all, and an awareness of who is or may be going hungry, the evil of hunger can be alleviated by the actions of others: indeed in most societies in the past, which by modern standards were not materially affluent, that at least would have

been done, however much uncontrollable diseases may have afflicted and killed many.¶ The irony is that in the modern world, with our extensive knowledge of global hunger, our extensive communication and transportation systems and the existence of food surpluses, we do not seem to be able to replicate the practices of past smaller societies of at least trying to ensure that everyone has enough of the one crucial thing it is in the power of others to provide—namely food. It is as though we have the technical ability to do so, but lack the psychological and institutional capacities. This is, of

course, an over-simplification, but it suggests that there are two related factors which are missing. We do not see ourselves morally as a global community or society in which those who are well-off have at least a minimum commitment to ensure, as far as is possible, that all have access to this precondition of

human well-being—adequate food. Second, the reason why we are psychologically and institutionally unable to meet the challenge is because most of us are not sufficiently persuaded by a

moral vision that tells us that this is really a pressing thing to do. What we need is a global ethic which spells out the idea that we have serious obligations towards all other human beings, obligations which cross societal and national frontiers.7

Starvation decimates agencyMepham et al, 96, Director of the Centre for Applied Bioethics at Nottingham University. He has published widely in the fields of bioethics and applied biology. (Ben Mepham, Andrew Belsey – Centre for Applied Ethics, University of Wales, Ruth Chadwick – Center for Professional Ethics, University of Central Lancashire Michael Crawford, Director of the Institute of Brain Chemistry at Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children; Nigel Dower, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen; Keb Ghebremeskel studied chemistry at the University of Addis Ababaa and received his doctorate in nutritional biochemistry at the University of Wales; Leslie Gofton is Lecturer in Behavioral Science at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. John S. Marsh CBE is a graduate of Oxford and Reading Universities. Between 1957 and 1977 he was successively Research Economist. Erik Millstone is Senior Lecturer in Science and Technology Policy at Sussex University. “Food Ethics” 1996)//NG

Onora O’Neill has presented a modern Kantian approach which can be summed up as follows: hunger and extreme poverty undermine the proper development and exercise of rational agency.8 They do so because the very poor are often

subject to coercion and deception (which fails to respect their rational agency) and more generally because extreme poverty deprives the poor of real autonomy. This requires us as moral beings to respect the poor as fellow rational agents in two ways: first, we must not deceive or coerce them, or be beneficiaries of others (such as multi-national

companies) who deceive or coerce them, and we must take action to prevent such coercion and deception (via, for example. political action). Second. we must act so as to enable the poor to develop and exercise their rational autonomy by appropriate action (political as well as individual acts of helping) —this is what is required by material justice. The difficulty with

this appealing position is that it locates the evil of hunger in the lack or loss of rational agency. Now this is clearly an important part of what hunger does to the poor (a part often neglected), but it is equally distorting to omit mention of the sheer physical suffering, disease, physical malfunctioning and disability, which are themselves also inherently evil.

Food is a fundamental right and restriction of food is immoralIslam, 81 – Associate Professor at the Faculty of Administration, University of Ottawa (Nasir, “Food Aid: Conscience, Morality, and Politics,” : International Journal, Vol. 36, No. 2, Food and Fuel (Spring, 1981), pp. 353-370, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40201960)//HALWhether starving people (particularly in distant lands) have a moral right to food and whether the rich have a moral obligation to provide it are very complex questions. The literature on the moral aspects of food scarcity tends to be vague, confusing, and often rhetorical. The fundamental problem as posed by Regan applies as well to food aid decisions: what are the correct moral principles which might guide the decisions (or actions) of free, rational beings?8 The question has preoccupied philosophers and moralists since the dawn of civilization, and it is not possible to deal with it here in any truly satisfactory manner. At the risk of being overly simplistic, however, it could be said that this fundamental question of normative ethics has been dealt with from two basically different philosophical approaches: the consequentialist and the non-consequentialist. The former, which is also called the technological approach, emphasizes the results of an action and regards an action to be wrong only if its consequences are wrong or harmful to someone. There are at least three types of technological

ethical theories: ethical egoism in which the only consequences that should be taken into consideration are those for the actor himself; ethical altruism where moral right or wrong depends on consequences to others (not the actor); and utilitarianism where the consequences to everyone concerned are the determinant of a moral act. The utilitarian principle calls for the greatest pos- sible balance of intrinsic good over intrinsic evil for everyone concerned.9 Non-consequentialist theories are often referred to as

deontological because they emphasize duty (deon). They state that moral right or wrong is not determined solely by results or consequences. Adherents of these theories

point out that the consequentialist approach does not deal with injustice - the wrong done to the individual (or a particular group) - in putting emphasis on the balance of intrinsic good as compared to intrinsic evil. Many deontologists, following Kant, have argued

that when someone is treated as a means and not an end, injustice is being done. Others simply be- lieve that injustice involves violation of basic moral rights. Moral rights are distinguished from legal rights in terms of their univer- sality, inalienability, and equality. Laws may be unjust, consequent- ly legal justice (enforcement of laws) is different from moral justice. Different concepts or rights, for example, rights as entitlements or claims, imply a justified constraint upon how others may act.10 Freedom from hunger is frequently regarded as a basic moral right which is not

derived from any other moral principle. A World Food Council document declares: 'Food is the most fundamental human need. Its availability to all persons is a basic tenet of civilization/ Nick Eberstadt maintains that freedom from hunger is essential for global food security. It must therefore be considered as the most basic of human rights. Although the consequent alleviation of hunger may give some satisfaction to the donors, it must be considered as an altruistic act without its reinforcing con- sequences. According to William Aiken, dire needs create rights. Involuntary deprivation must be mitigated particularly when the means to do so are available. This right may only be denied if the costs

are unreasonable. It is evident that no other rights can exist prior to freedom from hunger. Starving people cannot think of any other rights and duties.11 The affluent also have rights. They have a right to pursue their own goals and not provide aid. Aiken responds that the duty to benevolence is overriding, and consequently the right of the starv- ing to be aided takes precedence. Even if failing to help does not violate the right of the starving the affluent are obligated to do so.12 This emphasis on rights alone sometimes appears to be rather

misplaced. People tend to ignore that rights entail duties and obligations. When rights are violated, conscience becomes indignant, but the duties and responsibilities which must be fulfilled to alleviate the conditions that lead to violation of rights are forgotten. Humanity does not have a good record of respecting moral rights. The mere establishment of freedom from starvation as a moral right without any mechanism of enforcement will not, in my opinion, help the starving people. Because moral rights, even if established, are difficult to en- force, some writers have focussed on the moral obligations of the affluent to the starving poor.

The aff is a prerequisite to any impact—food distribution comes prior to survivalWatson, 77 - Professor of Philosophy @ Washington U, PhD from University of Iowa (Richard, World Hunger and Moral Obligation, p. 118-119)//HALThese arguments are morally spurious. That food sufficient for well-nourished survival is the equal right of every human individual or nation is a specification of the higher principle that everyone has equal right to the necessities of life. The moral stress of the principle of equity is primarily on equal sharing, and only secondarily on what is being shared. The higher moral

principle is of human equity per se. Consequently, the moral action is to distribute all food equally, whatever the consequences. This is the hard line apparently drawn by

such moralists as Immanuel Kant and Noam Chomsky—but then, morality is hard. The conclusion may be unreasonable (impractical and irrational in conventional terms), but it is obviously

moral. Nor should anyone purport surprise; it has always been understood that the claims of morality—if taken seriously—supersede those of conflicting reason. One may even have to sacrifice one’s life or one’s nation to be moral in situations where practical behavior would preserve it. For example, if a prisoner of war undergoing torture is to be a (perhaps dead) patriot even

when reason tells him that collaboration will hurt no one, he remains silent. Similarly, if one is to be moral, one distributes available food in equal shares (even if everyone then dies). That an action is necessary to save one’s life is no excuse for behaving unpatriotically or immorally if one wishes to be a patriot or moral. No principle of morality absolves one of behaving immorally simply to save one’s life or nation. There is a strict analogy here between adhering to moral principles for the sake of being moral, and adhering to Christian principles for the sake of being Christian. The moral world contains pits and lions, but one looks always to the highest light. The ultimate test always harks to the highest principle—recant or die—and it is pathetic to profess morality if one quits when the going gets rough. I have put aside many questions of detail—such as the mechanical problems of distributing food—

because detail does not alter the stark conclusion. If every human life is equal in value, then the equal distribution of the necessities of life is an extremely high, if not the highest, moral duty. It is at least high enough to override the excuse that by doing it one would lose one’s life. But many people cannot accept the view that one must distribute equally even in f the nation collapses or all people die. If everyone dies, then there will be no realm of morality. Practically speaking, sheer survival comes first. One can adhere to the principle of equity only if one exists. So it is rational to suppose that the principle of survival is morally higher than the principle of equity. And though one might not be able to argue for unequal distribution of food to save a nation—for nations can come and go—one might well argue that unequal distribution is necessary for the survival of the human species. That is, some large group—say one-third of present world population—should be at least well-nourished for human survival. However, from an individual standpoint,

the human species—like the nation—is of no moral relevance. From a

naturalistic standpoint, survival does come first; from a moralistic standpoint—as indicated

above—survival may have to be sacrificed. In the milieu of morality, it is immaterial whether or not the human species survives as a result of individual behavior.

Food key to VTLKünnemann and Epal-Ratjen, 4 – Rolf is the Human Rights Director of FIAN International Sandra is the  Coordinator for UN Affairs at FIAN International (Rolf, Sandra, “The Right to Food: A Resource Manual for NGOs,” AAAS Science and Human Rights Program, http://shr.aaas.org/pubs/pdfs/RT_Food.pdf)//HALLack of access to adequate food is one of the most fundamental forms of human deprivation. An individual can survive its worst form—the complete lack of food—for only a few weeks. In the case of lack of water, death will occur within a few days. Providing oneself with access to food has therefore always been one of the most fundamental human activities.

Secure access to adequate food and food-producing resources is a basic standard to which every human being is entitled. Hunger and malnutrition are the worst forms of severe food deprivation. There are less extreme forms as well. Consuming food that is inadequate food in quantity or quality can ruin one’s

health and lead to premature death. Inadequate food makes people unhappy, and

unable to lead active and fruitful lives. Food, moreover, is a source of pleasure. No wonder most people want not just food, but also good food. They want secure and sustainable access to this food to protect them from the horrifying prospect of hunger and food borne diseases. Access to food on a strictly individual basis, as was the case for Robinson Crusoe, alone on his desert island, is something that almost never happens. This is an individualistic myth celebrating the “self-made man”, who, in reality,

consumes the products of current society and earlier generations. Access to food is part of the life of one’s family, group, community, society, and state, and of global society and the community of states. Therefore, there is always a lot of interference with the food and food-producing resources of other people.

Willingly withholding food is oppression—it kills individual libertyKünnemann and Epal-Ratjen, 4 – Rolf is the Human Rights Director of FIAN International Sandra is the  Coordinator for UN Affairs at FIAN International (Rolf, Sandra, “The Right to Food: A Resource Manual for NGOs,” AAAS Science and Human Rights Program, http://shr.aaas.org/pubs/pdfs/RT_Food.pdf)//HALOn the one hand people co-operate and assist one another to obtain access to food and food-producing resources. On the other hand there is negative interference when people are in competition to feed

themselves. In the worst case some people or groups push others into food deprivation or keep them there: This is a form of food-related oppression. Control over the access to food and food-producing resources of other people and peoples is one of the most fundamental sources of power over them. For an act to be called oppressive, however, it is not necessary that deprivation be its purpose. It is sufficient that the actors could reasonably be expected to foresee the resulting deprivation and could have known that deprivation was the likely result or by-product. People experience food-related oppression differently from food deprivation, which results from natural calamities or resource limitations. Deprivation that is free of oppression does not necessarily affect people’s dignity. This usually not the case for food-related

oppression. Oppression is usually experienced as demeaning. Freedom refers to the absence of oppression—and, in the context of this manual, it means the absence of foodrelated oppression. Oppression refers to pushing people down to a point below the minimum human standard and/or keeping them there. Food-related oppression therefore comes in two different categories. The first category entails concerns acts that destroy people´s access to food or food-producing resources. The second category refers to acts or omissions that keep people excluded from food or food-producing resources. These two forms of food-related oppression are described in the sections that follow.

The rich and powerful continue to suppress food destroying liberty—the DA is an excuse for continued oppressionKünnemann and Epal-Ratjen, 4 – Rolf is the Human Rights Director of FIAN International Sandra is the  Coordinator for UN Affairs at FIAN International (Rolf, Sandra, “The Right to Food: A Resource Manual for NGOs,” AAAS Science and Human Rights Program, http://shr.aaas.org/pubs/pdfs/RT_Food.pdf)//HALMany people in the South, and also to some extent in the North, continually lack access to food and foodproducing resources. Their access to adequate food and

resources cannot be destroyed because it does not exist in the first place. To satisfy their food needs, they require access to the food available within the society as a whole. Beyond that, they need to be able to access food-producing resources, in the form of

natural resources, capital, and skills, in order to feed themselves. For people living in hunger and destitution, or forced to consume unhealthy or otherwise inadequate food, this is one of the most essential freedoms. The freedom of the hungry and malnourished and other deprived people to gain access to food and food-producing resources is all too often rejected and suppressed by the rich and powerful. Usually this is done in the name of efficiency, productivity, development and growth. Resources which would allow people to feed themselves are withheld from them, using the argument that

poor and deprived people make inefficient use of these resources, and that granting them this access such

moves would lower the overall productivity of society, and slow down growth. Excluding deprived people from the freedom to access food and resources existing elsewhere in society is an act of oppression—it means keeping them in a state of deprivation.

A utopian view of food ethics generates political innovationMeinhardt and Ingensiep, 10 (Marc, Hans Werner, “Food Ethics” -Food Ethics in a Globalized World – Reality and Utopia, April 15, 2010, pgs 1-14, SpringerLink, jld)

On the other hand it is obvious that we need something like an utopian view concerning global food problems. The word “utopia” leaves a bitter taste in a

world of around a billion starving people. It is time to remember that utopias were and still are timeless generators for future societies. Utopia delivers political innovation and ethical impulses for reflection. Therefore, in the second part of this contribution we will review some utopian seeds and dreams by authors stretching from the past to the

present. Their contributions enable heuristic comparisons for students and experts and allow constructive criticisms based on real facts. The third part gives a short reflection on the special problem of justice from a modern philosophical point of view. But now we introduce with a summary of the contributions to this book into the wide field of real problems in Food Ethics in a globalized world.

The right to food is distinct from being ‘fed’Hirsch et al., 10 (Armin Paasch, Frank Garbers, and Thomas Hirsch, “Food Ethics”- Agricultural Trade and the Human Right to Food: The Case of Small Rice Producers in Ghana, Honduras, and Indonesia, April 15, 2010, pgs 119-135, SpringerLink, jld)

Access to adequate food is a basic human right for every person. It is enshrined in article 25 of the General Declaration of Human Rights and article 11 of the International

Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) (UN 1976). The right to food, according to the authoritative interpretation of the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights

(CESCR), is not to be inter- preted in the narrow sense of being fed, but rather means access at all times – physical and economic – to “adequate food” and the ability to procure it. Food must be adequate in terms of quantity and quality, as well as being culturally accept- able. And the enjoyment of the right to food must not threaten the “attainment and satisfaction of other basic needs” such as health, housing, and education (UN 1999).

Food Ethics

Bad

Food ethics invite moral regression to the point of absurdity endangering all of humanityHardin, 74 – received a B.S. in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1936 and a PhD in microbiology from Stanford University in 1941. Moving to the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1946, he served there as Professor of Human Ecology from 1963 (Garret Hardin, 1974, "Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor" pgs. 86-76)//JESClearly, the concept of pure justice produces an infinite regression to absurdity. Centuries ago, wise men invented statutes of limitations to justify the rejection of such pure justice, in the interest of preventing continual disorder. The law zealously defends property rights, but only

relatively recent property rights. Drawing a line after an arbitrary time has elapsed may be unjust, but the alternatives are worse. We are all the descendants of thieves, and the world's resources are inequitably distributed. But we must begin the journey to tomorrow from the point where we

are today. We cannot remake the past. We cannot safely divide the wealth equitably among all peoples so long as people reproduce at different rates. To do so would guarantee that our grandchildren and everyone else's grandchildren, would have only a ruined world to inhabit. To be generous with one's own possessions is quite different from being generous with those

of posterity. We should call this point to the attention of those who from a commendable love of justice and equality, would institute a system of the commons, either in the form of a world food bank, or of unrestricted immigration. We must convince them if we wish to save at least some parts of the world from environmental ruin.

Single Instances bad

Single instances of ethical action only serve to satisfy guilt-addicts while reducing the need to change the ethics of the environmentHardin, 74 – received a B.S. in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1936 and a PhD in microbiology from Stanford University in 1941. Moving to the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1946, he served there as Professor of Human Ecology from 1963 (Garret Hardin, 1974, "Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor" pgs. 86-76)//JES“I feel guilty about my good luck,” say some. The reply to this is simple: Get out and yield your place to others. Such a selfless action might satisfy the conscience of those who are addicted to guilt but it would not change the ethics of the lifeboat. The needy person to whom a guilt-addict yields his place will not himself feel guilt about his sudden good luck. (If he did he would not climb aboard.) The net result of conscience-stricken people relinquishing their unjustly held positions is the elimination of their kind of conscience from the lifeboat. The lifeboat, as it were, purifies itself of guilt. The ethics of the lifeboat, persist, unchanged by the momentary aberrations.

i See Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981); Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze, Hunger and Public Action (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989); Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze, The Political Economy of Hunger (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990); and Frances Moore Lappe, et al., World Hunger: Twelve Myths, 2nd ed. (New York: Grove Press, 1998).ii See Garrett Hardin, "Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor," in William Aiken and Hugh LaFollette (eds.), World Hunger and Morality, op. cit. and "Carrying Capacity as an Ethical Concept," in George Lucas and Thomas Olgetree (eds.), The Moral Dilemmas of World Hunger (New York: Harper and Row, 1976).iii William Aiken, "The 'Carrying Capacity' Equivocation," in William Aiken and Hugh LaFollette (eds.), World Hunger and Morality, op. cit., pp. 23-24.iv Ibid., p. 20.v See the works cited in n. 1, especially Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom, op. cit., pp. 160-188.vi See Sen, Poverty and Famines, op cit., p. 161 on Bangladesh's exports during the 1973 famine and pp.131-153 for his analysis of that famine which, among other things, notes that the United States stopped food aid shipments to Bangladesh on the grounds that Bangladesh was selling jute (used to make gunny sacks) to Cuba. As Sen states, "only after Bangladesh gave in and sacrificed its trade with Cuba was the flow of American food resumed. By then the autumn famine was largely over": p. 136. Although this probably was a relatively small contributory cause of the starvation that occurred at that time, it does seem to have been part of the cause, with whatever moral culpability that may imply.