Academic food ethics is vast, incorporating work from philosophy as well as anthropology, economics, environmental sciences and other natural sciences, geography, law, and sociology. Scholars from these fields, including some philosophers, have been producing work for decades on the food system, and on ethical, social, and policy issues connected to the food system. Yet in the last several years, there has been a notable increase in philosophical work on these issues—work that draws on multiple literatures within practical ethics, normative ethics, and political philosophy. This Handbook provides a sample of that philosophical work across multiple areas of food ethics: conventional agriculture and alternatives to it, animals, consumption, food justice, food politics, food workers, and food and identity. This Introduction provides a short history of food ethics, a brief overview of some core issues in food ethics, and an introduction to the essays in this Handbook.
Food Justice and a fair food future: An approach from the UK's Food Ethics Council