Ethical Decision-Making and Grassroots Diplomacy Case 3: Sept 17
- The facts:
- the growth of ~35% of the children is stunted due to poor nutrition
- Gruel currently made of corn and bananas
- Mothers believe that gruel is effective
- HIV/AIDS is bad if this region
- More breastfeeding = higher chance to get HIV/AIDS
- Mother’s think gruel works
- Just received a grant
- 500 women are involved
- Crops used can cause health issues because of pesticides
- Ween off children at 6 months of age
- Basically more time is bad
- Women are skeptical of early weaning
- Cash crops are: maize, sorghum, cassava, several varieties of legumes (dried beans), French beans, coffee, pineapple, bananas, pumpkins, tomatoes, carrots, kale, white (Irish) potatoes, and sweet potatoes
- Few women were tested for hiv/aids
- Women from the coop grow the food and then dry it so that it lasts longer.
- Goal of coop is to have a shelf stable porridge product that weens kids off of mothers milk
What is a production coop?
What is the ethical issue here?!?!
Should we feed the children pesticides through porridge or let them drink breast milk
- Stakeholders
Mothers
Professional- An effective solution that keeps their children from getting HIV/AIDS while keeping them nutritious
Personal- They want their kids to be healthy and safe…….
Potential Women’s cooperative
- Personal- want to make a positive impact
- Professional- bring in stable income to support families
Infants involved
Personal – Want to be healthy and grow up healthy
Professional – none
Innovators
Professional- they want a porridge that is nutritious and that the coop is doing well. They want to make an impact. I.e. they want people to use their product and they want to people to be healthy and safe
Personal- Recognition, basically the same as the professional
Local government
Professional- potential to profit if people are healthier/economic gain, social capital gain
Personal- happier and healthier residents, better quality of life,
Local Farmers
Professional- Might lose business if their crops are no longer used for gruel/Might gain business if their products ARE used for the gruel
Personal-
- Solutions
Utilitarian- Give kids porridge, forget about pesticides. HIV is a more serious issue
Pros: Kids are much less likely to get HIV and get the nutrients from the porridge
Cons: possibly poison kids with pesticides! yay!
Deontology – Give children porridge that it sourced from all natural farms no matter the time and resource cost
Pros: All food is sourced from organic farms, nobody will get sick and will be well nuritioushed.
Cons: more expensive/more work
Solution 3: educate?
Pros: At least allow mothers to make informed decisions about their children. Ultimately it is up to them.
Cons: Parents often make the wrong decisions.
- Our expert says he would mix all 3 together
Virtue based thinking approach
What are we physically possible for us to do? I.e if we are doing an education thing, how many people? At what cost?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2881583/
Part 2: Grassroots Diplomacy
- Facts:
- Business is thriving
- Women work for about nine hours every day and earn KES 300 (about $3)
- Women sell produce grown on their farms to the coop
- Sold at market rate
- Women are happy! Saves them time and money. Strong sense of community/identity
- Women have to give their earnings to their husbands/fathers/brothers
- Husbands use money for alcohol and “frivolous” things
- Children in this community are not getting nutrition
- You are one of seven members on a leadership committee
- The committee is elected on an annual basis and you have six months left on the committee
- The other six members of this committee are local women
- Women are not opposed to the men taking away their money
- Women are upset that their hard-earned money is not used to feed their children
- Women are hopeless/convinced nothing can be done
Ethical issue: issue of autonomy/who decides how money is spent
twin social outcomes are: improving the nutritional status of children and improving the livelihoods of rural households
We need to: get the cooperative back on track to meet the twin social outcomes for the
cooperative on a sustainable basis
- Stakeholders
- Women not on Committee
- Prof: Make money
- Social: Feed children, improve livelihood
- Us as part of the innovators/ community
- Prof: Achieve both outcomes with no backlash. Our success depends on the success of coop in future
- Social: recognition and reputation
- Committee:
- Prof: The want the best for the coop and community
- Social: they want to be reappointed/want more votes
- Male: secondary stakeholder
- Pro:
- Social: social norms, wants control over household
- Children of workers
- Prof: Need nutrients
- Social: N/A