Samantha Cobb's Proseminar Research

Intellectual Biography

Dr. Maccaroone

So far I have interviewed Dr. Maccaroone. Her field of specialty is in food ethics. For her there are two different veins of food ethics. One is professional ethics, which studies the ethical responsibilities of people in the culinary arts. The other is about how our everyday choices in regard to food reflect ethical values. She believes in going from the micro to the macro: she starts with the personal level, and then expands it to a larger world view. Even though something like educating people about worker exposire to pesticides, or different ethical reasons why someone would choose local over organic might not be as monumental of a topic such as global warming, per se, she believes that the smaller things (i.e. morality of food choices) can affect the world/it's people in as influential a manner, but on a more personal level. She loves food ethics because it pulls together daily opportunities to live your values, since eating is such a necessary part of life, not to mention a frequently occuring one!

She also likes to teach international ethics. Her background in social justice spurred an interest in this field. Though the name "international" would seem to imply a large-scale view of the topic, she still focuses on the individual lives within the international boundaries. For example, in one of her classes, they look at a case study on the effects of battery recycling in Afrida. Though it may seem like a good, moral idea to give these African men, women and children jobs by having them recycle our batteries, this leads to lead poisoning in many many cases where the lead in the batteries is recycled - does it seem as ethical now? In addition, she looks at differenc programs that help women in other countries to be more independent, especially financially, such as Kiva (a program where you loan some amount of money to an entrepreneur somewhere in the world who uses that money to gain a profit and help their business, such as weaver Maria Graciela Sapon Ordonez in Guatemala). She is actually going to be talking to our class after Thanksgiving about unfair coffee trade in Africa respect to its workers (I think, I don't remember exactly...).