Do you think we're doing the right thing?

A psychological ethics problem states:

There is an out-of-control train heading down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The train is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the train will switch to a different set of tracks. Unfortunately, you notice that there is one person on this side track. You have two options: (1) Do nothing, and the train kills the five people on the main track. (2) Pull the lever, diverting the train onto the side track where it will kill one person. Which is the correct choice?

This is effectively how we are thinking about pesticides: we are killing the few for the interest of the many (utilitarianism). But is it really in everyone's vested interest to use pesticides?

Ponder this:

1. All pesticides are made out of chemicals.

2. Chemicals are made by scientists.

3. Scientists want to make money.

4. In order to make money, chemicals have to be made cheaply.

5. Therefore, pesticides are made cheaply.

6. Cheap chemicals are made poorly.

7. Poorly made chemicals are generally bad for consumers.

8. Therefore, pesticides are bad for consumers.

These chemicals are not just bad for the people who interact with them on a daily basis (i.e. farmers and those living near the farms); they are also bad for the population as a whole because eating something that is used to kill something else does not seem intuitively intelligent. But we have these magical things called grocery stores (where our food actually comes from *snorts of laughter ensue*) so we do not have to think about where it really comes from or the process is goes through to be found in the store down the street.

I leave you with some food (hopefully locally grown and with minimal chemical impact on us and the environment) for thought: