Business Ethics
"the High Cost of High-Tech Foods case"
The cost of high-tech food continues to arouse debates over the ethical, moral, and practical impacts the foods have on the people, market, and economy. However, it is evident that the proponents and opponents of the motion do not seem to come to agreement as each holds their view right. The situation worsens due to the application of emotions in addressing the matter at hand. Evaluating the case in "The High Cost of High-Tech Foods" presents various ethical aspects arising about the subject of genetically modified food.
The opponents to the GMO present the case that the proponents are not honest in telling people the truth over the effects of the GMO. Thus, the first issue is honesty. Secondly, there is the legal issue of ethics arising in the concept. The legal issue claims that the proponents of the high tech foods do not meet the legal responsibility of ensuring safety for the consumers of their products (Carroll & Buchholtz, 2012). Additionally, the legal responsibility also emerges from the perspective that the GMO are not safety compliant. On the converse, the ethical issue arises in the aspect that the opponents are not fair. They are acting without basing their arguments on scientific research, hence unfair to the GMO proponents.
In my view, none of the groups is wrong. The proponents of genetically engineered foods have the corporate responsibility to act in fairness and ensure compliance to safety regulations, without exploiting the consumers. Additionally, they do not act in integrity, a principle in business ethics that wins the trust of the public. Similarly, the opponents of the proposed high tech foods have a basis for their argument, although they do not have the scientific prove. They argue on the aspect that the foods bring harm to the consumers, hence are not safety compliant. This way, they are right as business ethics dictate that a business must meet the legal and social responsibilities requirements in the product they launch. Therefore, both sides have equally sustainable arguments. In my view, the two sides can bridge the argument in this aspect. The procedure to employ in presenting the debate and arriving at a conclusive agreement is to take a joint stand, and do the scientific examination of the foods. This way, they both will see the impacts associated and consequently, settle on whether to allow the high tech foods or not allow them.
The GMO presents a basic solution to the arising food insecurity in the world today. Therefore, in practical, economic, and social perspective, the product is essential. If I was creating, the public policy for GMO, I recommend that the seeds undergo proper testing in the government lab to ensure safety and compliance to the legal standards of hybrid seeds. Therefore, the policy would mitigate the issue by ensuring the seeds are more like hybrid, rather than the current from which is raising controversial arguments. The process of establishing hybrid seeds entails taking the desirable characters in some seed species and grafting them into the other seed with quality features, making the seeds more productive, resistant to challenges of seed germination, and budding. Therefore, the hybrid seeds do not present negative aspects as is the case with the genetically modified foods.
Summary of the article
Globalization continues to effect changes in the technological, cultural, economic, and political entities of the world. The economic impact of the globalization process remains a contentious issue in relation to trade globalization and its outcome in alleviating poverty to facilitate equal opportunities in the world market (Veseth, 2013). The ethical issues in contention in the globalization of the economy are free trade and outsourcing. The anti-globalists present the opposing argument towards the activities taken by the forces of globalization, such as World Trade Organization among other regimes. The anti-globalists argue that the international institutions of trade, such as the World Bank undermine the sovereignty of the nation, making it beholden to transnational corporations. Moreover, multiculturalism interactions and immigrations lead to moral decline of the nation (Veseth, 2013). Therefore, the ethical issue in this regard is respect for the sovereignty of the poor nation, and moral decay due to international interactions through trade. The other argument presented by anti-globalists is that organizations such as World Trade Organization is undemocratic, and it is not compliant to environmental problems and labor conditions such as child labor and safety of working place of the people (Veseth, 2013). Therefore, the ethical issues relate...
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