As you expand your vision of your cheeseburger, what moral issues arise? Which ones are you most concerned about?

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, has an exercise in which he ask us to see the clouds in a printed page. Without the clouds, he tells us, there would be no rain, and the trees could not grow and there would be no paper for these words to be written on. And, if we look closer, we will see the sunshine and the soil which nurture the tree. We would see the logger who cut the tree, and the wheat which was his daily bread. All of these things exist together, they ‘inter-are’, he says—you can’t have any one of these things without the other. A similar understanding was expressed by the environmental philosopher John Muir when he wrote, “When we try to pick anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”
Here’s my take on this. I think we all suffer from a kind of collective tunnel vision in which we see only what is in front of use. What is out of sight, is also out of mind, and more specifically from a moral perspective, beyond the scope of what we care about. We don’t tend to think of the web of connections and relationships that every object, every “thing,” represents. The exercise above is an attempt to expand our vision and make us aware of these connections and to make them a part of our thinking.
Let’s give it a try here. Think of your cheeseburger. What can you see beyond the obvious? Perhaps you can see the person at the counter who handed it to you? Or, the person who cooked it. Maybe you can see the truck driver who delivered the box of hamburger patties. What else can you see? How far can you go? Do you see the oil in your cheeseburger?
Instructions for Discussion:
submit your response to three (3) of the following questions.
Here are the questions:
1. List at least five more connections or relationships concerning your cheeseburger. Explain what they mean.
2. As you expand your vision of your cheeseburger, what moral issues arise? Which ones are you most concerned about?
3. Do cheeseburgers contribute in any way to global warming or climate change? If so, how? Be specific.
4. Does looking at your cheeseburger in its full, expanded context, make you feel uncomfortable? If so, why? Elaborate.
5. Apply this exercise to something else, like your shirt, or your cell phone, for example. Do any moral issues arise? Did you discover any connections to the environment? Be specific.

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