Is Safe Food Good Food? Reconciling science and ethics with a virtuous approach to food law and policy

Dans le cadre des Midi-conférences des jeunes chercheurs, le Regroupement Droit, Changements et Gouvernance est heureux de présenter la conférence de Sarah Berger Richardson (candidate au doctorat, Faculté de droit, Université McGill).

Jaye Ellis, Professeure agrégée à la Faculté de droit de l’Université McGill modèrera la conférence et Francis Lord (doctorant, Faculté de droit, Université McGill) fera office de répondant.

The presentation will be in English and the following discussion will be in French.

Speaker

Sarah Berger Richardson is a doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Law at McGill University. Her research focuses on the relationship between science and ethics in food law and policy. Sarah is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada and completed her LL.M at Tel Aviv University, where she was a research fellow at the Manna Center in Food Safety and Security. Previously, she was a law clerk at the Supreme Court of Israel and the Canada Agricultural Review Tribunal.

Abstract

In recent years, new food safety regulations have been introduced to strengthen consumer confidence in Canada’s food supply. These regulations draw on scientific and expert knowledge to justify a mode of technocratic governance that obscures ethical debates about what constitutes good food. Food law and policy, however, is not a value-neutral exercise. Determinations of acceptable levels of risk involve value judgments. Food law and policy is characterized by conflict between rival goods.Virtue ethics can guide us through this confrontation in ways that technocratic governance cannot.