Moral and Instrumental Norms in Food Risk Communication

The major normative recommendations in the literature on food risk communication can be summarized in the form of seven practical principles for such communication: (1) Be honest and open. (2) Disclose incentives and conflicts of interest. (3) Take all available relevant knowledge into consideration...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of business ethics 2011-06, Vol.101 (2), p.313-324
Main Authors: Modin, Peter G., Hansson, Sven Ove
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal feeding behavior
Applied ethics
Bioethics
Business and Management
Business communications
Business Ethics
Communication
Conflicts of interest
Education
Ethical justification
Ethics
Euthanasia
Filosofiämnen
Food
food ethics
Food industry
Food safety
Genetically modified foods
Historisk-filosofiska ämnen
History and philosophy subjects
Honesty
HUMANIORA och RELIGIONSVETENSKAP
HUMANITIES and RELIGION
Incentives
instrumental norms
Management
Moral philosophy
Morality
Philosophy
Philosophy subjects
Principles
principlism
Quality of Life Research
Recommendations
Risk
Risk analysis
risk communication
Studies
Transparency
Utilitarianism
Virtue ethics
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The major normative recommendations in the literature on food risk communication can be summarized in the form of seven practical principles for such communication: (1) Be honest and open. (2) Disclose incentives and conflicts of interest. (3) Take all available relevant knowledge into consideration. (4) When possible, quantify risks. (5) Describe and explain uncertainties. (6) Take all the public's concerns into account. (7) Take the rights of individuals and groups seriously. We show that each of these proposed principles can be justified both in terms of more fundamental ethical principles and instrumentally in terms of the communicating agent's selfinterest. The mechanisms of this concordance of justifications are discussed. It is argued that the concordance is specific for areas such as food risks in which agents such as companies and public authorities are highly dependent on the public's trust and confidence. The implications of these findings both for moral philosophy and for practical food risk communication are discussed.
ISSN:0167-4544
1573-0697
1573-0697
DOI:10.1007/s10551-010-0724-6