On The Food Safety From The Perspective Of Responsibility Ethics

Food has always been a very important concern in China. The food safety, in Chinese tradition, is a core issue in people’s daily life just as the old saying goes that the food is the first necessity for the people. Food problem is the touchstone of the politics of the rulers of all the dynasties since the management of food is in line with the natural laws. In contemporary China, food safety has never been such a big concern.It must be acknowledged, the importance of the issue of the contemporary Chinese food has transferred, namely the "short board" of the lack of food supply has been corrected, and food security issues have become increasingly prominent out. In recent years, a series of incidents concerning food safety occur time and again, some of them very terrible, which make food safety a paramount issue to resolve in the building of socialism, a well-off society and the harmonious society. Food safety is not only concerned with the health and life of the individual citizen but stability and development of the economy and the society and particularly the performance and credibility of the ruling party. The resolution of the food safety is a very important task for us nowadays. The research on the food safety shows that the lack of the responsible ethics is the one of the major reasons for the loss of the food safety.The ethics of responsibility came into being in the German-speaking areas in the1960s and1970s. Since then, it became well-received world wide. The ethics of responsibility extends its concern with the individuals to the human beings and its relationship with nature and the ecology. It argues the responsibility for the future and the nature. Therefore, the ethics of responsibility credited as a new ethics which has pushed the ethics to a new dimension. It is regarded as a theory that enables us to avoid the problems concerning life and death. When it comes to the food safety that concerns people’s health and lives, the ethics of responsibility is constructive for the perspective and unique thinking sources of the theory. Comparatively, the traditional ethics such as utilitarian ethics and the moral ethics cannot play a effective role for its one-sidedness. The current paper is constructed with the inspiration of the ethics of responsibility.The paper describes the China’s food safety, summarizes the research of foreign food safety responsibility ethics, determines responsibility ethics theoretical and practical significance in China’s food safety research areas, clear this thesis, the targets and the overall structure of the body. It describes the comprehensive overview of the achievements and the problems that remained in the field of food safety in China, followed by in-depth analysis of three major ethical theories utilitarianism ethics, virtue ethics and responsibility ethics, as well as in the domain of food safety issues. There exists the greatest degree of theoretical fit between responsibility ethics and China’s food safety problems, and in this premise should start from the government, food companies and third-party forces to build the integrity of our food safety.The paper holds that in the basis of the transformation of government functions, the responsibility of the government that modern government should assumes, there are three pieces of responsibilities of government in food safety, public interest responsibility, regulatory responsibility and the guided responsibility. The paper has proposed food enterprises in the food safety, not only has the dominant economic and legal responsibilities, more needs to highlight the hidden ethical responsibility on the basis of internal consistency in the analysis of the market economy and business ethics. Moreover, under the premise of a thorough maintenance and practice ethical responsibility, economic responsibility and liability makes sense. Meanwhile, according to the logic of the food supply and consumption, this chapter also discusses food producers, distribution companies and sales enterprises in the stage of food safety responsibility. After carding and explain the government and food companies in the food safety responsibility under the responsibility ethics, analysis of the third party liability value, including the media, industrial organizations of food companies, consumer organizations and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the food inspection agency in the food safety problem domain also has the main responsibility can not be ignored.The paper tells us that we should follow the trend of globalization, strengthening food security in the transnational circulation, and holds a rational view of modern biotechnology, such as genetically modified food technology in the field of food, to strengthen the value and significance of the regulation of the ethics of responsibility, and to achieve a comprehensive food security.