Ethics, Hunger and Food Policy

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Ethics, Hunger and Food Policy
Per Pinstrup-Andersen
2008 Kaiser Lecture University of Wyoming Feb.
20, 2008
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Last Resort Haiti, January 2008
Per Pinstrup-Andersen
2008 Kaiser Lecture University of Wyoming Feb.
20, 2008
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• In the next 45 minutes 800 children will die
• Half due to hunger and malnutrition
• It is preventable!
• Every fourth child in developing countries is
  malnourished
• Almost 3 times the U.S. population is hungry
• Life expectancy at birth in some developing
  countries is 36 years
• About a billion people are overweight or obese

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Rhetoric, Action Likely Outcome

• Rhetoric
• Action
• Prospects

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International Goals

• World Food summit Goals
• What is it?
• Is the world on track to achieve it?
• MDGs
• What is it?
• Is the world on track to achieve it?

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Progress Towards Achieving the MDG for Hunger
Alleviation

• Percentage of 104 countries that are
• On track 40
• Improving but not on track 30
• Constant or deteriorating 30
• Source WFP (2007)

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Global Progress Towards Meeting the WFS Goal
382 Million
412
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Global Progress Towards Meeting the WFS Goal
(Excluding China)
416 Million
315
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Globalization Ethics and Economics

• Efficiency vs. distribution
• Social justice Morale imperative or
  self-interest?
• Common values? Whose?
• Equality Goal or means to an end?
• Poverty, political freedom, conflict
• Trade negotiations vs. aid Fair trade?

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Globalization Rules, Standards

• Who sets them?
• Trade and subsidy policies
• Genetic engineering
• Animal welfare
• Food safety

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Power and Accountability

• National Policies and global spillovers
• Transnational corporations
• International institutions
• National and international NGOs
• Christian Aid vs. Oxfam
• Greenpeace vs CSPI
• Biofuel vs. food vs. cotton

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What Ethical Standards?

• Utilitarianism
• Deontological ethics
• Virtue ethics
• Human rights ethics

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A Social Welfare Function?

• Maximizing utility
• Relative weights?
• Poor vs. non-poor
• Different groups of poor
• Malnourished vs. well-nourished
• Current vs. future generations
• Humans vs. animals

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Deontology and Trade-offs

• Limitations to utilitarianism
• Singers argument
• General agreement
• Failure to implement
• 10 million child deaths

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Action vs. Failure to Take Action

• A utilitarian perspective on child death
• A deontological perspective
• My neighbors children
• My countrys children
• The Thorbecke hypothesis
• Genocide?
• Crime against humanity?

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Socially Sensitive Trade-offs

• Implicit but not explicit
• Poorest or less poor?
• Severely or moderately malnourished?
• Starving, iron deficient, or obese?

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Socially Sensitive Trade-offs (Cont)

• Child care vs. prenatal care?
• Corruption
• Illegal drug production
• Good nutrition, personal freedom, democracy

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Freedom from Hunger as a Human Right

• The UN declaration
• A right or a privilege?
• No enforcement, no penalty

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Other Rights Enforcement

• Property rights
• Animal rights
• International trade
• Legally enforceable rules
• Trade policy causing hunger and poverty
• International institutions
• WTO vs. UNICEF, ILO, and FAO

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Conclusion

• Moral imperative or enlightened self-interest?
• Deontological perspective
• Human rights perspective
• Utilitarian perspective
• Compassion as utility
• Economic interests
• Stability

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In the global village, someone elses poverty
very soon becomes ones own problem of lack of
markets for ones products, illegal immigration,
pollution, contagious disease, insecurity,
fanaticism, terrorism. UN
2001