Applied Ethics Essay

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Ethics Theory and Lifestyle

Introduction

When one talks about the virtue ethics, then they are the broader them of the theories and perspectives the talk about how important the role of character is for the person and how the virtue is supposed to be there as far as the way moral philosophy is supposed to work. As a matter of fact, it goes beyond the notion of how one should be doing their duty and how these duties are supposed to be bringing good consequences at the point of time (Egels and Hanssonm, 2016). The virtue ethics practitioner is the one that is supposed to ensure that they are acting as a virtuous person during their whole life at any given point of time. Specially, this should reflect on the lifestyle choices that are made by them and how they tend spend their lives. In this paper, it would be seen that an article of clothing such as jeans would be reflecting upon the virtue ethics and how the choice of wearing a denim can reflect upon the moral obligation of the person at a point of time. Aristotle's perspective on ethics was based on the virtue of being human; in other words, virtue ethics. There are two important distinctions between Aristotle's approach to ethics and the other predominant perspectives at the time. First, Aristotle did not consider ethics just a theoretical or philosophical topic to study. To understand ethics, Aristotle argued, you actually have to observe how people behave.

Discussion

Before one goes into the ethical implications of wearing a denim, the key thing that has to be kept in mind is that is the process behind wearing a jean. Now, this comes across as an interesting debate, but most of the times, the lifestyle choices that are made by the person should be reflected upon their ethical perspective. The typical pair of denim goes through following processes (Egels and Hanssonm, 2016).

Weaving: It is a process that starts at the cotton fields, where workers are supposed to pick the cotton that is going to be used to create the denim material. The machines then process the cotton as that cotton is twisted and treaded into the large spools.

Cutting: This is where the large pattern is being mapped out of the denim and then it is being cut using the sharp cutters. It must be noted that anything between 20 to 200 layers of the denim can be cut at once

Sewing: This is where the pieces are sewed together by the workers and the whole process is carried out using the complex machinery. There are variety of stitches that are involved in the whole process.

Washing and drying: Jeans are then washed multiple times to make sure that the color is brought down and the prevention of the indigo dye from bleeding is made possible.

Looking at the whole process, there are many ethical implications of the whole thing and it must be kept in mind that the person who is wearing jeans as the part of their lifestyle is doing something that has questionable ethical implications. There are lot of sustainability concerns as well as the problems regarding the long term social concerns that are there when it comes to wearing jeans and thus effort has to be made to made that if one is wearing these jeans, then they should keep in mind what are going to be the ethical virtue of it (Egels and Hanssonm, 2016).

For instance, the usage of the water is quite extensive from the denim supply chain. There are cotton and the raw components where they are being used at quite at extensive level. As per the statistics that are showed by the WWF, it takes about 20 thousand liters of water to produce 1 kg of cotton. Now, this is lot of water and keeping in mind the state of the water these days, it is quite extravagant spending of a natural resource that goes into the article of clothing (Egels and Hanssonm, 2016). So, this whole thing has to be taken into consideration when a person is wearing a jean. Not only that, the typical pair of denims are being washed at least twice before one is supposed to wear them in order to make sure that the fabric is soften3ed and the dye that goes into the whole process are being removed (MacDonald, 2017).

Not only the usage of the water, there are extensive chemicals that are being used during the course of the production of the denim and effort has to be made to ensure that the cleaner processes are needed to be there that are not using the chemicals that are likely to be harmful to the environment. Now, the global demand of the denims is such that at times, it is important for the companies that are producing denims to make sure that they compromise the safety standards and thus it means that harmful chemicals are going to be used to produce the material. Not only that, there are issues that are witnessed in terms of the way these chemicals are being disposed of, so this is another area of concern for all the stakeholders at the point of time (MacDonald, 2017).

Then comes the fact that how the labor workers that are treated in the factories are being treated at the point of time. There are many people who believe and have seen that the working conditions in the factories in which these people are supposed to work are quite bad and not only that, the wage structure and the compensation and benefits are not available to these workers as most of them are part time workers who have no stake in the whole process during the way these things are being managed at the given point of time. The process of sandblasting is one of the biggest concerns regarding the health of the workers. The risk on their health is much greater if there is an instance where the process is performed without protective equipment. Thus, there are many ethical concerns that are witnessed during the process of manufacturing of the denim and the person who values their ethical wellbeing should not be using denim (Rinaldi et al, 2017). Many of the issues surrounding denim today are due to a lack of transparency. Labor injustices and sustainability issues can often be traced several levels down the supply chain, where many brands lack visibility. With Transparency-One, brands can discover their supply chains from source to store, identify uncertified suppliers, and search for impacted products by commodity or country.

Conclusion

In the hindsight. It can be said that now for a person who has virtue ethics as the part of their belief and system must inculcate these values all the time and if the person is wearing jeans, then they should look at the way these things are being manufactured. There are many questionable practices that are being carried out in the industry. Thus, effort must be made to ensure that the person does not wear ones that are coming from questionable places. Producing more ethical denim requires full knowledge of the supply chain to ensure environmental and social practices are respected by all. In an era where consumers are more mindful of their purchases, supply chain transparency is of utmost importance.

Works Cited

Egels-Zandén, Niklas, and Niklas Hansson. "Supply chain transparency as a consumer or corporate tool: The case of Nudie Jeans Co." Journal of Consumer Policy 39.4 (2016): 377-395.

MacDonald, Kenneth Iain. "Grabbing'Green': Cynical Reason, Instrumental Ethics and the Production of'The Green Economy'." (2017).

Rinaldi, Francesca Romana, and Salvo Testa. The responsible fashion company: integrating ethics and aesthetics in the value chain. Routledge, 2017.