"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/
During my brief introduction to philosophy at university, I made the passing acquaintance of Immanuel Kant and his categorical imperative. It sounded like a cool principle, though I couldn't get my head around how rationality played such a central role in determining one's duty.
In Geneva there's a choice of many kinds of coffee. There's mocha, Viennese roast, dark roast, espresso roast, arabica 100%, arabica/robusto.....you choose. There's bio, organically grown. And there's ethical coffee 'café éthique' or 'café équitable' (sic) cultivated and harvested by workers who apparently enjoy better working conditions in plantations with a conscience. There are organic bananas and ethical bananas and organic ethical bananas.
After World War II many boycotted German and Japanese cars. In the seventies many of us boycotted lettuce, then grapes to show solidarity for exploited farm workers who went out on strike, led by the courageous late César Chavez. *
From the seventies onward many people have boycotted Nestlé for their hard-sell of baby formula in poor countries with unsafe water supplies and implying that breast-feeding was less healthy for an infant. A cousin boycotts Walmart because of their poor treatment of workers, especially women. Others have boycotted DuPont, Monsanto, Reynolds and others for being defense contractors supporting US military aggression. Products such as Welch have been shunned because of known political affiliations. People have tried to boycot Chinese products (difficult), French, Iranian, Israeli and American imports--human rights abuses, political positions, government violence, tyranny, etc. ** Come to think of it, the original Boston Tea Party (the real American Tea Party) was a form of boycott.
The question is: if I want to act ethically and want think of myself as an ethical person (and most people do) how do I make consumer choices? And what effect will these choices have on 1) my life 2) on other people's lives?
Kant says it doesn't matter what the outcome is, the importance lies in the action itself based on one's interpretation of the true moral action, what one must do. In fact he wouldn't tell us to buy only ethical coffee in order to support poor workers. He would tell us to buy only ethical coffee because it is one's moral duty to do so.***
By purchasing one non-ethical and one ethical bag of coffee what am I doing? Hedging my bets? Buying myself an economy-class seat in heaven? (Also should I be calling the one that's not 'fair-trade' non-ethical? Is the fair-trade one really less exploitative? One could only know by going to the coffee plantations and checking out each situation personally).
For now I choose one bag of each. In so doing I'm soothing my conscience. I'm helping the fair-trade industry in a small way, but I'm not avoiding or boycotting the other. I'm not wholly good.
One bag for the taste buds, the other for the developing nations.
(Une pour les papilles, l'autre pour le tiers-monde).
One Mövenpick and one house ethical coffee.
Immanuel, please look the other way.
* His younger brother Richard, who died earlier this year, was invited to the White House by President Obama in 2010. During apartheid we boycotted South African grapes and Outspan oranges. César Chavez co-founded the United Farm Workers Union with Dolores Huerta. Also, during apartheid we boycotted South AFrican grapes and Outspan oranges.
** And of course for health (scare) reasons people have refused to buy British meat (BSE), US meat (hormones in cattle), Spanish and German (epidemic of food poisoning which turned out to be from consuming toxic sprouts). I've surely left out many others.
*** Kant said that we all experience an innate moral duty. The existence of the conscience and feelings of guilt and shame tell us when we violate this moral duty. He believed that our moral duty could be revealed to us through reason, objectively. His theory was based solely on duty. He said that to act morally is to perform one’s duty, and one’s duty is to obey the innate moral laws http://members.fortunecity.com/rsrevision/kantandthecatimp.html
