Phil 211 Case Study
The following is a response to a real-world case study for Michael Griffin’s Phil 211 class. The case study response incorporates lecture material from the philosophy class to analyze the arguments of an ethical dilemma. In this particular case, I analyze the situation of a food bank in Vancouver East Side to see what the best solution is to their issue using logic developed over the course of Phil 211. This type of logic is demonstrated in many capacities in the real world, including in consulting, entrepreneurship, and policy work.
1. The Food Bank
Michelle is the director of a neighbourhood house in downtown Vancouver, a role she has been in for eight years. A neighbourhood house is like a community centre, in that it brings together local residents, offering opportunities for people to inexpensively gather, socialize, share food and experiences, and learn new skills like cooking and growing vegetables in the community garden. One of the services for which Michelle is responsible is the food bank, which provides non-perishable food items for people in need. The food bank regularly receives donations of high-calorie, high-fat, high-sodium, low-fiber, nutrient-poor foods: cans of baked beans, boxes of macaroni and cheese, ramen noodle backs, cans of pasta in sauce with meat of questionable quality, and so on.
Michelle knows many of the people who use the food bank regularly, and has seen a number of them becoming increasingly unhealthy over the years. Her clients have told her they’d like to eat better, and they know how to cook from attending the house’s free cooking classes, but they can’t afford to pay their rent and buy all the food they need for the week. Michelle doesn’t want to continue to provide them with food that contributes to ill health, and so she decides to ban donations of processed foods. She begins to refuse food donations that she determines to be nutrient-poor, telling would-be donors why the food bank can no longer accept these goods. The number of donations go down, and the food bank’s shelves begin to look bare.
Michelle’s associate, Tim, asks her to change her mind. He says that this decision can’t be right. Even though he recognizes Michelle’s good intentions, he argues that the bad consequences (low donations, bare shelves) surely outweigh her reasons.
How would you adjudicate Michelle and Tim’s argument? Do you think that there exists a solution that addresses both of their needs and values?
In your answer, try to consider the following guiding questions.
1. Articulate the primary values that motivate Michelle and Tim. (They may be motivated by different values).
2. Does Michelle’s decision really follow from the values that you have attributed to her? Does Tim’s argument really follow from the values that you have attributed to him? Why, or why not?
3. Can you articulate solutions that reconcile their values, or are they incompatible? How would you persuade Michelle and Tim to consider these solutions?
A Superior Food Bank Model
This case study poses a unique situation where Michelle, the director of the neighborhood food bank, and Tim, her food bank associate, both have good intentions but differ in the means of accomplishing what is best for their clientele. Michelle and Tim both have good arguments, however neither is perfect. Michelle cares more about how she helps people, especially in the long term, while Tim cares more about helping people in the short term, despite the means because he believes they justify the ends. This conflict between the approach of the two associates is a result of the model the food bank relies on to operate. A solution that can allow both Michelle to have the best means to feed her clientele, and Tim to feed as many people as possible exists in the form of a different donor sourced model – but first we need to analyze each argument to be able to persuade them to this new solution.
Michelle sees the negative impact of unhealthy, nutrient poor food donations on food bank clients, and wants to improve quality of life of the food bank users by not accepting low quality food donations. She does this under the presumption that this restriction would prevent food bank users from depending on low quality food. She could be motivated by her food bank’s reputation – as being known as a low-quality food provider may lower the public’s opinion of her facilities. However, Socrates argued that reputation is not an important value to chase as it will not lead to Eudemonia, which could be applied to this case for the food bank (Socrates 29D-E). Refusing unhealthy food may make her food bank look healthier, but it also looks and is emptier, thus it harms the average food bank user who now may receive healthier food, but becomes malnourished due to food scarcity. Tim on the other hand, sees that the food bank is turning away food from people who really need it. He argues that regardless of the quality, the unhealthy donations help those people survive and sustain themselves, which is more important than their long-term health outcome. Tim believes in a hierarchy of needs, where the need of immediate nourishment must be met first before one can focus on the quality of nourishment (Maslow).
We can see from Michelle’s actions that she values the quality of her impact on the food bank clientele. Michelle thinks that if the means of accomplishing something require an evil, in this case supplying unhealthy food, then the end is not justified. Michelle cares more about having a stronger positive impact on fewer people if it means improving their lives more dramatically. This means that Michelle values things like quality, long-term impact, justice, and accountability. Michelle prefers not to play a part in harming anyone if she can help it, thus although food scarcity is a large problem in Michelle’s community, if she only feeds a few people good quality food then she may feel that she is not responsible for the people who don’t have any food. However, if she feeds everyone low-quality food, she plays a part in contributing to their weakened health and thereby is accountable to a certain degree. We can see from Tim’s protests that he sees the food bank meeting an immediate need, whereby the users should be more transient, and the food reaches more people in order to have a greater impact through larger quantities. Thus, we can see that Tim values things like quantity, equality, the immediate need, and dedication to all. Tim thinks that not accepting the donations of the lower quality food is very detrimental to the community in the short term, as many people who can be otherwise helped are left hungry. Therefore, by being a place of community that is relied on for support and then not supplying people with something that could improve their situation, Tim sees that Michelle’s actions are hurting the community.
This is a hard-ethical question to answer. On the one hand, Michelle has good intentions for her food bank clientele who she seems to care about. She knows that accepting the lower quality food is harming the health of the food bank dependents in the long run and she wants to change that. Tim on the other hand, identifies that Michelle is being shortsighted, in that in trying to be well-intentioned, she is instead harming those whom she wishes to help. Tim’s solution is to start accepting the lower quality food again. However, Tim fails to see that Michelle has a point. The food that is lower quality has a long-term impact on the food bank clientele that could help perpetuate the cycle of poverty. Shouldn’t everyone in a modern society have the right not just to food, but to nutritious food that promotes the health and well-being of the individual? Is it ok to just feed the equivalent of garbage to those in poverty and tell them they should be grateful because they’re getting anything at all? This type of society scarily resembles Hesiod’s “Iron Age” of humanity. Where the sophist ideology of might makes right rules our justice system, and the weak – in this case the food bank clientele – suffer what they must (Hesiod 163 – 217). Malnourished individuals will have more health problems, difficulty achieving academic success and focusing in school, and may have a harder time escaping poverty. If we begin to think it is morally correct to supply those in need with the effective table scraps of our society it creates more barriers for them to climb up to a state of self-sufficiency.
Food banks, especially one as large as the center Michelle runs, would do far better if they form local partnerships with farmers and food wholesalers, and instead of collecting food donations, collect monetary donations from the public. They can use this food to then buy fresh and healthy food for their clientele directly from food supply partners in bulk. This will give them more control over their food donations, and importantly, the dollar value of every donation will be stretched beyond that of the average donor thanks to partnerships formed and the food bank’s bulk purchase ability. The food donation model currently run by Michelle where they accept food rather than money requires time and labour to sort out expired food, transport food, and warehouse the food. The type of food donated is often what people throw out after cleaning their pantries and thus is nutrient poor, low quality, and the diversity present in the food donations is non-existent outside of canned food. A new model of monetary donations would eliminate these problems, ensure that the shelves are stocked so Tim is happy and keep Michelle content because the food will be healthy and nutrient-rich, improving both the immediate and long-term health of food bank clientele.
Work Cited:
Hesiod. Works and Days. (AT Id)
Maslow, Abraham H. Toward a Psychology of Being. Lushena Books, 2014.
Socrates. Apology.