Raymond Anthony: Am I Really Responsible for a Sustainable Food Future?

[Original Abstract from Lecture]

There is a presumption (or at least an intuition) that conscientious people have a moral duty to ensure a sustainable food future. I argue that we are NOT morally obligated to restrict our personal food choices in order to ensure a sustainable food future, even when we are implicated in causing an unsustainable outcome. The doubts I have about the moral relevance of our personal food choices towards sustainability hinges on our impacts as individuals on the global food system, which are seemingly both insignificant and diffuse that it would be essentially impossible to attribute any difference in the sustainability outcomes to our personal food choices. Given the imperceptibility of individuals’ actions towards a sustainable food future, anyone committed to it should calibrate carefully their pursuit of it against other important personal goals and be cautious about making significant sacrifices. Genuine solutions to problems related to ensuring a sustainable food future involve institutional changes instead of personal ones.