Corporate Decisions About Labeling Genetically Modified Foods

Macdonald, Cynthia; Whellams, Melissa

doi:10.1002/9780470692547.ch8

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…organizational objective but requires that legal and moral side-constraints be respected (Friedman, 1970;Goodpaster, 1991;Heath, 2014;von Kriegstein, 2016). In other words, pure standard-takers may look at the decision of whether to seek certification to a standard by focusing primarily on the question of whether it would be advantageous for them (MacDonald & Whellams, 2007). This, of course, should not obscure that businesses may be under independent moral obligations to avoid the behavior a particular standard seeks to curb.…”

Section: Standard-takersmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ethics of voluntary ethics standards

von Kriegstein,

MacDonald

2024

Business and Society Review

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Many nongovernmental forms of business regulation aim at reducing ethical violations in commerce. We argue that such nongovernmental ethics standards, while often laudable, raise their own ethical challenges. In particular, when such standards place burdens upon vulnerable market participants (often, though not always, SMEs), they do so without the backing of traditional legitimate political authority. We argue that this constitutes a structural analogy to wars of humanitarian intervention. Moreover, we show that, while some harms imposed by such standards are desirable, others are best thought of as a form of collateral damage. We thus look at the well‐developed literature on just war theory for inspiration and find that the principles of jus ad bellum and jus in bello contain many insights that can be fruitfully adapted to the case of nongovernmental standard‐setting. Consequently, we propose the Ius ad Normam—a set of principles that should guide would‐be standard‐setters in assessing whether imposing those burdens is ethically justifiable in particular cases. We also discuss how powerful multinational businesses often act simultaneously as standard‐takers and standard‐setters and explore the normative implications of this dual role.

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Section: Standard-takersmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ethics of voluntary ethics standards

von Kriegstein,

MacDonald

2024

Business and Society Review

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“…Some researchers believe that companies, in the absence of mandatory labeling requirements, have no ethical obligation to label GM foods based on three grounds (MacDonald & Whellams, 2007). First, without a legal standard or government intervention, there lacks a sufficient foundation from which to generate an ethical requirement to labeling.…”

Section: Arguments Against Mandatory Gm Food Labelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As noted above, Health Canada has declared GM foods to be just as safe as non-GM foods. MacDonald and Whellams (2007) asserted that companies have a positive obligation to act only when the health of consumers is at stake. Third, there is no industry consensus as to what standard practice surrounding labeling should be.…”

Section: Arguments Against Mandatory Gm Food Labelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Will California Proposition 37 Affect Genetically Modified Food Labeling Policy in the United States

2013

CUBR

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Foods derived from genetically modified (GM) crops include fruits, vegetables, and grains and are the result of a process by which foreign genes are spliced into a related or non-related species resulting in a genetically modified organism. Genetically modified foods have been a part of the food chain in the United States for more than a decade while incurring little of the controversy exhibited in European countries. Paralleling this divergence in consumer attitudes are differences in national policies regarding labeling of GM foods. While the countries of the European Union and others have adopted a policy of mandatory labeling of GM content the United States has followed a policy of voluntary disclosure. California Proposition 37 called for the implementation of mandatory labeling of GM foods within the state and has major implications regarding policy in the rest of the United States. This paper examines the literature regarding national policies toward GM food labeling in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, Japan and other economies and is followed by a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of GM labeling policies that has been developed in this research stream. The results of the recent election in California are presented and analyzed on a county by county basis. Finally, the implications for policy changes in the United States are explored.

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Corporate Decisions About Labeling Genetically Modified Foods

Cited by 2 publications

References 1 publication

The ethics of voluntary ethics standards

The ethics of voluntary ethics standards

Will California Proposition 37 Affect Genetically Modified Food Labeling Policy in the United States

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