Critique of ethical consumption

Let's say it right away so as to avoid any uproar and shitstorms: Estelle Ferrarese, professor of Moral and Political Philosophy at the University Picardie Jules Verne, has no intention of delegitimizing the commitment of those who believe in ethical consumption, sustainability and attention to the environment. Her latest essay, Il mercato della virtù (Castelvecchi, 2024, pp. 156), is however an invitation to reflect on how every choice, even the most virtuous, requires awareness , information, a reasonable doubt about what we are doing. Otherwise it becomes uncritical ideology, vicious radicalism, rather than virtuous awareness.

Estelle Ferrarese begins her reflection with seemingly banal questions, but which touch on some of the cornerstones of ethical consumption: When is a price “fair”, from an ethical point of view? Are responsible tourism and fair trade really possible? According to the French philosopher, they may even be possible, but not by maintaining the current economic and social system based on capitalism and consumerism unchanged. Of course, the success of ethical consumption is based on a radical critique of capitalist and consumerist structures, but according to Ferrarese this is a theoretical and illusory critique, a sort of mental construction that makes us feel better without fully committing ourselves to changing things. Critical consumption, in fact, fuels the same order it seeks to correct. Too often it does nothing more than replace green and zero-mile products on the shelves, but always within a commercial chain that is that of large-scale distribution and the law of supply and demand.

Ethical consumption, according to the author, does not seem to take into account that the capitalist market reduces every moral norm, every ethical choice to its own rules. Thus we find ourselves promoting and spreading virtuous behaviors but within a reality that lives on predatory economic mechanisms, based simply on profit. In short, for the capitalist system, ethical consumption is nothing more than a mass of consumers to exploit, of prey to pluck by making individuals believe that they are changing the world, when instead, in a leopard-like way, large companies and the market act so that everything remains the same.

Of course, one may not agree with Estelle Ferrarese's analysis, which in our opinion has an indisputable merit: it reveals the shadows of a lifestyle that, while being attentive to others and the environment, hopes to save the planet by focusing too much on individual choices and not taking the most important step, that is, engaging politically so that the rules that govern the market and our society change, and forever .

For Ferrarese, it is not enough to make ethical choices within ourselves. We must have the courage to make them outside, bringing politics, which is the management of public affairs, back to the top of our agenda of personal commitment. Conversely, we will continue to feel better in a world that perpetuates inequalities and injustices in the name of profit.