Introduction
In Morgan Spurlock’s controversial and influential 2004 documentary Super Size Me, the documentarian – a devoted vegetarian and health nut – chose to eat only food purchased from McDonald’s for thirty days straight. Over the course of that film, Morgan goes from a thin, clear-headed individual with good health and a healthy relationship to an overweight man with health problems and a strained relationship. In essence, the question being posed to the audience is one grounded in virtue ethics, utilitarianism and consequentialism – in essence, the culpability of the customers of McDonald’s are explored, and the consequences of their actions for choosing a diet. At the same time, McDonald’s themselves (and the culture that promotes them) are shown to be culpable for this deterioration in health, by making it easier and more affordable for people to eat poorly.
The goal of the documentary, for Spurlock, is to shine a light on the unhealthy diets of people in America, primarily through the proliferation of fast food. In the documentary, he says, “Left unabated, obesity will surpass smoking as the leading cause of preventable death in America,” centering it as a communal and pressing concern for his audience. The obesity epidemic in America is explored through a single case study, centering the other information provided in the documentary itself. The goal is to show how damaging eating at McDonald’s is, which is something that is argued to be hidden from the public by McDonald’s misleading marketing and nutrition information.
Using Spurlock’s own point of view as the subject of the film, the documentary explores concepts of corporate greed, our own lack of information, our culpability in maintaining unhealthy lifestyles, and more. The ultimate ethical question posed in the documentary is actually explicitly stated at the end; just before the credits, an intertitle appears – “Who do you want to see go first, you or them?” The creation of the documentary was almost a foregone conclusion: Spurlock knew his health would deteriorate as a result of the McDonald’s diet. What he wanted to ask, then, was whether or not a newly informed audience would take action against McDonald’s to get them to make their nutrition information known, and/or change their practices, which he deemed unethical.
Utilitarianism
Looking at Super Size Me from a utilitarian perspective showcases the ethical dilemma between affordable and healthy eating that Spurlock (and the American people) must make over the course of the film. According to the principles of Utilitarianism, the greatest moral action is the one that maximizes the benefits of the most people (Shafer-Landau, 2009). Mill calls this the “Greatest Happiness Principle,” in which one must figure out what to do by discerning how many people would be made happy by this choice (Mill, 1998).
In the context of Super Size Me, the utilitarian ethics of the film lie in the dilemma between feeding people cheap food or healthy food. The inference is that McDonald’s offers a wide variety of filling, calorie-rich food for very affordable prices; however, the food is very unhealthy for you. The metric then becomes muddled, as what constitutes ‘happiness’ is somewhat complex – is feeding people for cheap a cause of happiness, or is being healthier and staying thin? Presuming the greater ‘happiness’ is a healthier lifestyle, Spurlock demonstrates that McDonald’s is behaving unethically – the attributes of well-being measured by Spurlock are his physical and emotional state after being subjected to McDonald’s for a month, not the savings in his wallet. By depriving people of healthier food and encouraging bad eating habits, the corporation is not providing for the greatest happiness of all people. From a utilitarian perspective, then, Super Size Me roundly criticizes McDonald’s for its inability to work toward the benefit of society.
Virtue Ethics
Virtue ethics revolve around the establishment of good character – individuals behaving under commonly-understood values and virtues such as courage, temperance, honesty, justice, and more (Shafer-Landau, 2009). Of course, virtue ethics does not revolve around the specific actions of an individual, but the character or identity of that individual. Applied to Super Size Me, a virtue ethics perspective reveals that Spurlock holds McDonald’s to a high ethical standard, which it then fails. Facts and statistics are shown and told to the audience, both of Spurlock’s deteriorating health and of McDonald’s own unscrupulous business practices, that reveal a fundamentally selfish care for their own bottom line at the expense of the health of their customers. The behavior of these executives and marketers are not virtuous, as they knowingly lead people to spend more money on unhealthy food, giving them immense profits while serving a net negative benefit to the health of those they serve.
Applied to Spurlock himself, a virtue ethics perspective reveals someone who is highly concerned with personal virtues like honesty and justice. He wishes to hold McDonald’s responsible for the unethical behavior he believes they have, which is something highly connected to one’s sense of character and identity. Spurlock, an active man and healthy eater, deliberately takes it upon himself to show the public through this documentary the ill effects of McDonald’s food on the human body in detail, while also criticizing the policy and cultural decision that made fast food such a ubiquitous part of the American experience.
Consequentialism
Though we have explored utilitarianism, a type of consequentialist theory, in Super Size Me, exploring the documentary through the more universal and general meaning of the theory is also valuable. Consequentialism, in essence, implies that things are right or wrong depending on what follows from those actions – whether an outcome or consequence is positive or negative (Shafer-Landau, 2009). It is an “ends justify the means” sort of argument, and it finds a great deal of mileage in Super Size Me.
Throughout the documentary, Spurlock’s primary mode of argument is to use his body as an experimental subject – by exposing himself to an all McDonald’s diet, he hopes to convince his audience of his argument that eating fast food is absolutely unhealthy for you. The film shows his health getting to dangerous levels, including his dieticians and physicians urging him to stop before he causes irreparable damage to his body. His relationship is strained due to his lower sex drive, and he suffers depression and heart palpitations as a result. While one might argue this is acting unethically to oneself, putting their body in danger, a consequentialist perspective would say the actions are ethical. For Spurlock, the ends (informing people of the consequences of fast food diets) justify the means (the potential health hazards of engaging in the diet itself). His actions are ethical, as they ended up having a greater positive outcome in the education of people on their diets, and even further in the change of public policy that occurred afterward. Conclusion
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