Introduction
Super Size Me, the 2004 documentary directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock, explored Spurlock’s own experimentation with going on a McDonald’s-only diet for a consecutive thirty days. Being a vegetarian and generally active person, this transformation became incredibly dramatic, with dramatic changes in weight, mood, chemical makeup, sex drive and more. The documentary poses the question of how culpable McDonald’s customers are in their own health habits, or whether or not McDonald’s themselves are responsible for the increasing obesity and health problems found in America. Looking at these questions, and the documentary itself, through the ethical perspectives of consequentialism, utilitarianism and virtue ethics reveals a number of fascinating conclusions for Spurlock and the audience of Super Size Me, demonstrating a complicated interweaving of consequences for these individuals.. In essence, customers are responsible for choosing their own diet, but McDonald’s is shown to be part of a pervasive culture that leaves many with little choice but to select unhealthy fast food, as eating poorly becomes much more affordable.
The purpose of the documentary is to showcase the poor nature of the American diet, particularly through fast food and its vast spread. Spurlock says in the documentary that, if left alone, “obesity will surpass smoking as the leading cause of preventable death in America.” While this concern is universal and communal for the audience of the documentary, he explores it through his own status as a guinea pig, holding himself up as a case study to provide evidence for McDonalds’ effects on the human body. The point of the experiment is to show just how unhealthy McDonald’s food is, something that the company itself obfuscates through misleading nutrition info and marketing tactics.
Spurlock’s subject is his own point of view, while also demonstrating his overall thesis statement to the audience: “Who do you want to see go first, you or them?” In essence, Spurlock uses the documentary to test his hypothesis that a McDonald’s diet would cause his health to deteriorate, hoping to show audiences that the same thing is happening to them as well. To that end, his goal is to inform his audience and to dare them to take action against both McDonald’s and their own health habits, focusing on McDonald’s arguably unethical practices. Still, this unethical nature will be explored through existing ethical theories to determine if Spurlock’s efforts themselves were ethical.
Consequentialism
Consequentialism in Super Size Me involves determine whether the ends justify the means in the case of Spurlock’s exposure to the all-McDonald’s diet. In short, consequentialism is a school of ethics in which the consequences of actions determine the ethics of those actions; if the outcome of an event is positive or negative, it is either ethical or unethical, respectively (Shafer-Landau, 2009). Spurlock’s chief argument in the documentary is that his body is forfeit as a subject for his experiment – he is willing to put his body in danger by making himself get fat and incur health risks to make a political point. The documentary features several scenes of his doctors and dieticians begging him to stop before irreparable damage is incurred to his body. The fatty food also causes him to have a lower sex drive, get heart palpitations and go through depression.
While it is possible to say that this means he is treating his body in an unethical way because of the consequences of the diet, consequentialists would argue that the overall effect makes his actions ethical. Spurlock’s end is to show people how fast food diets are dangerous, making the means (going through the process himself) justified (Garfield and Edelglass 2011, p. 62). The documentary led to a dramatic change in public policy and McDonald’s policy (cancelling their Super Size option), and led to a greater conversation on the effects of fast food on obesity, thus making the documentary itself have a positive outcome. To that end, Super Size Me is ethical from a consequentialist perspective.
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is a subset of consequentialism, in which the morality of an action relates to how much good it does for the greatest number of people. According to Mill, this is the Greatest Happiness Principle, where choices are made based on how many people are helped, and how much help they receive (Mill, 1998). Utilitarianism emphasizes maximum benefit for the most number of people when making decisions (Shafer-Landau, 2009).
Super Size Me’s utility as a moral and ethical choice comes from the dilemma McDonald’s faces between giving people food that is healthy or food that is affordable. Spurlock implies that McDonald’s gets its maximum profit by offering calorie-rich, dense and filling food for very cheap that is nonetheless unhealthy for you. This makes the idea of ‘happiness’ complicated, as people either are happy because they are healthy or because they are eating food that is delicious. Under the presumption that the greater ‘happiness’ comes from being healthy, McDonald’s is revealed to behave unethically. By encouraging terrible eating habits, McDonald’s is shown to not have the best interests of the people in mind, making Super Size Me a vehicle for criticizing McDonald’s unethical actions from a utilitarian point of view.
Virtue Ethics
Morgan Spurlock’s documentary Super Size Me showcases the unethical behavior of McDonald’s, even when viewed through the consequentialist, utilitarian and virtue ethics points of view. Even while Spurlock’s own actions are risky and overtly dangerous to himself, the greater philosophical and political points being made justify the actions being taken against himself. McDonald’s actions are shown to be immoral and unethical, favoring profit over the safety of their customers through the selling of unhealthy food. By upholding his own principles even at the expense of his own health, Spurlock’s actions are ethical in most (if not all) senses of the word, and his dedication to informing others of the dangers of McDonald’s is a highly virtuous and ethical act.
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