Ethics of the Food Relationship. The Case of Cultured Meat.

Abstract

The approach usually taken regarding what is a source of nourishment for human beings is usually a two-pronged approach. Either one focuses on individual taste, on what the subject needs or likes, or one ends up fetishizing the object, the source of food, and making it in some respects untouchable. The former is the position of the gourmand, the latter is that of those who, for various reasons, do not want to eat certain foods or even, in some cases, forbid it to others. The way we can get out of this alternative is to start again, even for our food decisions, not from the subject or object of the food relationship, but from the relationship itself: that is, from the fact that every being is a being in relationship, a being connected to another. And this applies not only to those who nourish themselves, but also to that which can offer nourishment. The way I will try to broaden the view in this paper will refer, as a concrete case study, to the issue of cultivated meat. I will show how, in order to understand it properly, a semantic broadening is necessary with regard to the terms we use to talk about it. I will show how this technological innovation can help us bring to light the underlying, universal and shareable ethical principles that allow us to truly understand what it means to eat “well.”