Genetically Modified Foods
For thousands of years people have gotten fruits, vegetables, and meats from natural sources. The crops had to be grown and cultivated, and the animals needed to be bred in order to produce enough for consumption. Plants can be naturally crossed and so can animals in order to produce the type of plant or breed of animal desired. In more recent years scientists and engineers have been able to select genes and traits from plants and animals and create the food that is desired with genetic engineering. There has been much debate on this topic as to whether it is ethical or not for scientists to use this method to produce our foods.
Genetic engineering has many pros as well as cons. To begin with, some of the benefits of GMF products are that the food can be made to be more nutritious, tastier, disease and drought resistant, pest resistant, longer shelf life, increased food supply, lower cost, faster growing. Some of the cons of using GMF products are that they may have harmful genetic changes, modified products may interbreed with natural products and out-compete them, making the natural products extinct. This has unpredictable environmental effects. (Medlineplus, 2012)
According to the Kant, when solving a dilemma we must be sure to use a universal law. We should always treat things as an end instead of as a means. For instance, in our lecture it states that if we feel that it is wrong to lie, we should never lie even if we know that it will be a negative consequence if we tell the truth. If I were to use this theory to solve this dilemma, then I would never use or endorse GM food products. The fact that most GM foods are not required to be labeled, allows the products to pass as natural products to its consumers. In a sense I feel like this is lying to the public, by omitting the truth. I also feel that due to the possible harmful changes these food products can be the cause of many diseases for...