Thompson provides commentary and reaction to other chapters in the book. It is organized as sections identified by the names of chapter authors. Thompson responds to chapters advancing new ideas in agriculture by indicating how he understands the authors’ analysis with respect to his own work. Chapters that address more philosophical dimensions of Thompson’s writings are addressed by clarifying the pragmatist orientation of Thompson’s thought. Michel Foucault’s metaethics is used as a basis for explaining pragmatist ethical (...) pluralism. (shrink)

Four strands of research in the philosophy of technology have made important contributions to environmental philosophy. First, critical theory of technology emphasizes the environmentally exploitative tendencies of capitalist technological innovation. Second, phenomenologyhas examined how technologies shapeperception and orientation to the world with implications for our treatment of and regard for nature. Third, concurrent with the environmental movement itself, an empirical turn in philosophy of technology resulting in philosophers focusing their attention on particular tools and techniques. Empirical studies have emphasized environmentally (...) significant technologies. Finally, work inspired by philosophy of science has adopted scientific reasoning and methods in environmental policy with tools such as risk analysis and environmental impact assessment. These four strands of work have often merged with the work of sociologists, geographers, and political theorists interested in the connections between science and democracy. (shrink)

After centuries of neglect, the ethics of food are back with a vengeance. Justice for food workers and small farmers has joined the rising tide of concern over the impact of industrial agriculture on food animals and the broader environment, all while a global epidemic of obesity-related diseases threatens to overwhelm modern health systems. An emerging worldwide social movement has turned to local and organic foods, and struggles to exploit widespread concern over the next wave of genetic engineering or nanotechnologies (...) applied to food. Paul B. Thompson's book applies the rigor of philosophy to key topics in the first comprehensive study explore interconnections hidden deep within this welter of issues. Bringing to bear more than thirty years of experience working closely with farmers, agricultural researchers and food system activists, he explores the eclipse of food ethics during the rise of nutritional science, and examines the reasons for its sudden re-emergence in the era of diet-based disease. Thompson discusses social injustice in the food systems of developed economies and shows how we have missed the key insights for understanding food ethics in the developing world. His discussions of animal production and the environmental impact of agriculture break new ground where most philosophers would least expect it. By emphasizing the integration of these issues, Thompson not only brings a comprehensive philosophical approach to moral issues in the production, processing, distribution, and consumption of food -- he introduces a fresh way to think about practical ethics that will have implications in other areas of applied philosophy. (shrink)

Information about sustainability in the sense of resource sufficiency is important for planning, but not in a way that adds anything to the traditional statement of utilitarian philosophy. The “paradox of sustainability” arises because substantive, research-based approaches to sustainability may be too complex to effectively motivate appropriate social responses, especially in a culture where science is presumed to be “value free.” Assessing sustainability in such terms presumes that the farmer is outside the system—not outside in the sense that the farmer's (...) actions have no impact on the system, but in the sense that this way of understanding sustainability presumes that there will always be a farmer present to manage inputs. (shrink)

The Spirit of the Soil challenges environmentalists to think more deeply and creatively about agriculture. Paul B. Thompson identifies four `worldviews' which tackle agricultural ethics according to different philosophical priorities; productionism, stewardship, economics and holism. He examines current issues such as the use of pesticides and biotechnology from these ethical perspectives. This book achieves an open-ended account of sustainability designed to minimise hubris and help us to recapture the spirit of the soil.

Agrarian political philosophies since ancient Greece stress the role of agriculture in forming political solidarity and civic virtue. More recent transformations suggest a way to conjoin these elements of what makes a polity politically sustainable with environmental sensitivity and literacy.

The central thesis of this book is that the semantic conception is a logical methodologically and heuristically richer and more accurate account of scientific theorizing, and in particular of theorizing in evolutionary biology, than the ...

In this paper I argue that Bolzano's concept of deducibility and Tarski's concept of logical consequence differ with respect to their philosophical intent. I distinguish between epistemic and ontic approaches to logic, and argue that Bolzano's deducibility presupposes an epistemic approach, while Tarski's logical consequence presupposes an ontic approach.

Paul Thompson’s excellent book, From Field to Fork: Food Ethics for Everyone, argues that contemporary food ethics persistently ignores the nature and actual impact of GMOs, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, food aid to developing countries, and more. On Thompson’s view, such philosophical analyses must incorporate empirical knowledge. Additional strengths of Thompson’s book: its attention to quality-of-life issues, its openness to the concerns of the marginalized, and its emphasis on the interconnectedness of problems in food ethics. I (...) raise one area of disagreement with Thompson: his treatment of GMOs is, I argue, insufficiently skeptical. I suggest a three-fold revision of the book’s treatment of the precautionary principle, and I levy an additional argument against GMOs, the Inductive Argument. Using the herbicide Roundup as a case study of the ways in which industry urges the use of technologies that have not been fully vetted or monitored, I argue that products originally seen as safe often turn out instead to be harmful to the environment and health. Significant inductive experience with similar cases gives people additional reason to be even more suspicious of GMOs than Thompson suggests. (shrink)

Presents a collection of essays written over a period of 15 years by agricultural ethicist Paul B. Thompson. The essays address the practical application of ethics to agriculture in a world faced with issues of increased yield, threatened environment, and the disappearance of the family farm.

Formal, informal and material institutions constitute the framework for human interaction and communicative practice. Three ideas from institutional theory are particularly relevant to technical change. Exclusion cost refers to the effort that must be expended to prevent others from usurping or interfering in one’s use or disposal of a given good or resource. Alienability refers to the ability to tangibly extricate a good or resource from one setting, making it available for exchange relations. Rivalry refers to the degree and character (...) of compatibility in various uses for goods. The paper closes with a note on how attention to these factors might be useful ways to conceptualize what Langdon Winner has called “the technological constitution of society,” and what Andrew Feenberg has theorized as “secondary rationalization,” as well as within more practical contexts of technical research, development and design. (shrink)

Critically analyzes and revitalizes agrarian philosophy by tracing its evolution. Today, most historians, philosophers, political theorists, and scholars of rural America take a dim view of the agrarian ideal that farmers and farming occupy a special moral and political status in society. Agrarian rhetoric is generally seen as special pleading on the part of farmers seeking protection from labor reform and environmental regulation while continuing to receive direct payments and subsidies from the public till. Agrarianism should not be viewed as (...) a set of immutable claims about farming and political order, but as a tradition of moral and political philosophy that has evolved and deepened over the centuries. Agrarian naturalism--the belief that culture and conduct are conditioned by nature because they are of a piece with nature--becomes pragmatic naturalism, giving way to a new set of puzzles about how we are to understand the rural landscape and our responsibilities for its use. The agrarian idea that personality and sociability are integrated with the material transformation of the landscape can serve as the basis for a new, pragmatically grounded ethic of natural resources and rural development. The essays in this volume critically analyze and revitalize agrarian philosophy by tracing its evolution in the classical American philosophy of key figures such as Franklin, Jefferson, Emerson, Thoreau, Dewey, and Royce. Three chapters address the belief that farming peoples develop moral virtue and a taste for democracy as it evolved in the American context, and four examine how a reconstitution of agrarian themes might invigorate our nation's thinking on environment, food, and rural development policy. The Agrarian Roots of Pragmatism will be of broad interest to scholars of American philosophy, rural history, history of ideas, geography, and agricultural or natural resource policy. (shrink)

Ideas for How to Take Wicked Problems Seriously Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-5 DOI 10.1007/s10806-011-9348-9 Authors Kyle Powys Whyte, Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University, 503 S. Kedzie Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA Paul B. Thompson, Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University, 503 S. Kedzie Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA Journal Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics Online ISSN 1573-322X Print ISSN 1187-7863.

Recent developments in synthetic biology are described and characterized as moving the era of biotechnology into platform technologies. Platform technologies enable rapid and diffuse innovations and simultaneous product development in diffuse markets, often targeting sectors of the economy that have traditionally been thought to have little relationship to one another. In the case of synthetic biology, pharmaceutical and biofuel product development are occurring interactively. But the regulatory and ethical issues associated with these two applications share very little overlap. As such, (...) there is some risk that focus on traditional medical applications, for which the ethical expertise is highly developed, will overshadow the ethical issues that arise in connection with land use and its attendant socioeconomic consequences, especially in the developing world. The 2010 report of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethics exhibits this tendency. (shrink)

Philosophical food ethics or deliberative inquiry into the moral norms for production, distribution and consumption of food is contrasted with food ethics as an international social movement aimed at reforming the global food system. The latter yields an activist orientation that can become embroiled in self-defeating impotency when the complexity and internal contradictions of the food system are more fully appreciated. However, recent work in intersectionality offers resources that are useful to both philosophical and activist food ethics. For activists, intersectionality (...) provides a way to preserve and strengthen the meaningfulness of protest and resistance, even in the face of complexity and uncertain outcomes. For philosophers, intersectionality chastens the tendency to regard moral problems as inherently solvable, and provides a way use tensions inherent in food system reform as a source of ethical insight. (shrink)

The essays in this volume critically analyze and revitalize agrarian philosophy by tracing its evolution in the classical American philosophy of key figures such as Franklin, Jefferson, Emerson, Thoreau, Dewey, and Royce.

What is the significance of the wicked problems framework for environmental philosophy? In response to wicked problems, environmental scientists are starting to welcome the participation of social scientists, humanists, and the creative arts. We argue that the need for interdisciplinary approaches to wicked problems opens up a number of tasks that environmental philosophers have every right to undertake. The first task is for philosophers to explore new and promising ways of initiating philosophical research through conducting collaborative learning processes on environmental (...) issues. The second task is for philosophers to recognize the value of philosophical skills in their engagements with members of other disciplines and walks of life in addressing wicked problems. The wicked problems framework should be seen as an important guide for facilitating philosophical research that is of relevance to problems like climate change and sustainable agriculture. Content Type Journal Article Category Articles Pages 1-14 DOI 10.1007/s10806-011-9344-0 Authors Paul B. Thompson, Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University, 503 S. Kedzie Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA Kyle Powys Whyte, Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University, 503 S. Kedzie Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA Journal Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics Online ISSN 1573-322X Print ISSN 1187-7863. (shrink)

Bioethics coverage of the recent Ebola outbreak neglected the ethical issues associated with aspects of the outbreak having environmental significance. The neglect of environmental dimensions is symptomatic of the way that the current institutionalization of bioethics as a field of inquiry separates medical and environmental expertise. As visionaries who are recognizing the need for better integration of human and veterinary medicine with environmental health are starting to call for “One Health”, it is now time to recognize the need for “One (...) Bioethics.”. (shrink)

Risk communication poses a challenge to ordinary norms of truth-telling because it can easily mislead. Analyzing this challenge in terms of a systematic divergence between expertise and public attitudes fails to recognize how two specific features of the concept of risk play a role in managing daily affairs. First, evaluating risk always incorporates an estimate of the reliability of information. Since risk communication is an effort at providing information, audiences will naturally and appropriately incorporate their assessment of the reliability of (...) the risk communicator into their assessment of the risk as such. Second, one conceptual and grammatical feature of the concept of risk is to categorize experience as non-routine and demanding further deliberation. That is, the whole point of calling something a risk can be to distinguish it from activities or phenomena that need no further attention. Risk communications that stress relative comparisons of measured probabilities and expected utilities can be inconsistent with both features of our concept of risk. At best they mislead; at worst they undermine our society’s capacity to cope with risk. While there are no simple answers to these two conundrums, technical experts should bear them in mind when communicating with the broader public. (shrink)

Agricultural crops developed using the tools of genetic engineering have become socially institutionalized in three ways that substantially compromise the inherent potential of plant transformation tools. The first is that when farming depends upon debt finance, farmers find themselves in a competitive situation such that efficiency-enhancing technology fuels a trend of bankruptcy and increasing scale of production. As efficiency increasing tools, GMOs are embedded in controversial processes of social change in rural economies. The United States, at least, has chosen not (...) to undertake policy interventions to slow or reverse this trend. The second institutionalization of GMOs is found in the way that agricultural science has become divided between two camps, one focused on efficiency and total global production, the other focused on maintaining soil and water ecosystems in the face of both population growth and climate change. GMOs have been strongly supported by the first camp and regarded as irrelevant to the goals of the second. Finally, GMOs have become symbolic markers in the global debate over neoliberal institutions for trade and the protection of intellectual property. While there may be agronomic arguments for favoring GMO technology, the way that it has become situated in each of these social debates insures that it will be subject to strong opposition without regard to its biological risks and potential benefits. (shrink)

Recent publications by Pogge ( Global ethics: seminal essays. St. Paul: Paragon House 2008 ) and by Singer ( The life you can save: acting now to end world poverty. New York: Random House 2009 ) have resuscitated a debate over the justifiability of famine relief between Singer and ecologist Garrett Hardin in the 1970s. Yet that debate concluded with a general recognition that (a) general considerations of development ethics presented more compelling ethical problems than famine relief; and (b) (...) some form of development would be essential to avoiding the problems of growth noted by Hardin. Better than renewing the debate, we should recognize two points. First, food needs do indeed evoke a moral response that is more direct and compelling than the philosophical positions often generated to rationalize a duty to bring aid. As such the argument for feeding hungry people cannot be generalized into a paradigm for development ethics without distortions that undercut the morally valid elements in Singer’s original argument. Second, contrary to prevailing assumptions in present day development ethics, food aid and famine relief continue to be important priorities for international agencies, notably the World Food Program. Emergency food assistance, the nominal topic of Singer’s original article, thus is an important issue for agricultural as well as development ethics, though one that should indeed be seen as distinct from more complex duties to address the conditions of chronic poverty and underdevelopment. (shrink)

Although the word 'sustainability' is used broadly, scientific approaches to sustainability fall into one of two competing paradigms. Following the influential Brundtland report of 1987. some theorists identify sustainability with some form of resource availability, and develop indicators for sustainability that stress capital depletion. This approach has spawned debates about the intersubstitutivity of capitals, with many environmental theorists arguing that at some point, depletion of natural capital cannot be offset by increases in human or social capital. The alternative approach is (...) grounded in stock and flow systems systems modeling, and defines sustainability through indicators that determine whether the system structure is robust (e.g. resists perturbation), resilient (recovers after disruption) and adaptive (capable of change in response to external conditions). Both paradigms have applications in economics and ecology. (shrink)

The Ethics of Agricultural Intensification: An Interdisciplinary and International Conversation Paul B. Thompson and John Otieno Ouko* Global agriculture faces a number of challenges as the world approaches the second decade of the third millennium. Predictions unilaterally indicate dramatic increases in world population between 2010 and 2030, and a trend in developing countries toward greater consumption of animal products could multiply the need for prod- tion of basic grains even further. Although global food production in 2000 was estimated (...) to be adequate for the existing population, hunger and malnutrition are persistent problems that have led decision makers to recognize that increasing food production in specific regions may be the most effective way to address food se- rity for impoverished peoples. At the same time, there will need to be policy adju- ments that improve poor people’s access to current food supplies without simultaneously undercutting the ability of local producers to obtain needed cash income. What is more, the uncertain effects of global climate change on agricultural ecosystems complicate planning for this process, while poorly understood processes of globa- zation create additional unknowns from the side of social systems. In short, despite surpluses in many parts of the developed world, finding ways to increase food p- duction on both selected regional and a total global basis remains a priority for many farmers, policy makers and agricultural researchers. (shrink)

Commodification and Secondary Rationalization.

Agricultural crops developed using the tools of genetic engineering have become socially institutionalized in three ways that substantially compromise the inherent potential of plant transformation tools. The first is that when farming depends upon debt finance, farmers find themselves in a competitive situation such that efficiency-enhancing technology fuels a trend of bankruptcy and increasing scale of production. As efficiency increasing tools, GMOs are embedded in controversial processes of social change in rural economies. The United States, at least, has chosen not (...) to undertake policy interventions to slow or reverse this trend. The second institutionalization of GMOs is found in the way that agricultural science has become divided between two camps, one focused on efficiency and total global production, the other focused on maintaining soil and water ecosystems in the face of both population growth and climate change. GMOs have been strongly supported by the first camp and regarded as irrelevant to the goals of the second. Finally, GMOs have become symbolic markers in the global debate over neoliberal institutions for trade and the protection of intellectual property. While there may be agronomic arguments for favoring GMO technology, the way that it has become situated in each of these social debates insures that it will be subject to strong opposition without regard to its biological risks and potential benefits. (shrink)

Abstract: This essay critically examines whether there are ethical dimensions to the way that expertise, knowledge claims, and expressions of skepticism intersect on technical matters that influence public policy, especially during times of crisis. It compares two different perspectives on the matter: a philosophical outlook rooted in discourse and virtue ethics and a sociological outlook rooted in the so-called third-wave approach to science studies. The comparison occurs through metaphilosophical analysis and applied claims that clarify how the disciplinary orientations appear to (...) lead to different judgments about matters related to Robert Paarlberg's condemnation of activists who advise African politicians to ban genetically modified food. (shrink)

This paper was written to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the University of Nottingham’s Easter School on “Issues in Agricultural Bioethics,” organized by Ben Mepham in 1993. At that time, agricultural ethics was being envisioned as an interdisciplinary sub-discipline comparable to that of medical ethics. Agricultural ethicists would co-operate with other agricultural faculty to produce careful articulation, analysis and critique of norms and values being implicitly assumed by agricultural researchers, practitioners and policy makers. Roughly two factors have conspired to substantially (...) limit the realization of that vision in the intervening 20 years. First, the institutional environment within agricultural universities was far less conducive to such an activity than medical schools. Second, while the rise of a food-oriented social movement might have provided new opportunities for food ethics, the social movement orientation has actually constrained the kind of philosophical work typically undertaken by bioethicists. The paper ends with a brief note calling for a renewal of the original vision. (shrink)

Biotechnology applied to traditional foodanimals raises ethical issues in three distinctcategories. First are a series of issues that arise inthe transformation of pigs, sheep, cattle and otherdomesticated farm animals for purposes that deviatesubstantially from food production, including forxenotransplantation or production of pharmaceuticals.Ethical analysis of these issues must draw upon theresources of medical ethics; categorizing them asagricultural biotechnologies is misleading. The secondseries of issues relate to animal welfare. Althoughone can stipulate a number of different philosophicalfoundations for the ethical assessment of welfare,most (...) either converge on Bernard Rollins principle ofwelfare conservation (Rollin, 1995), or devolve intodebates over the ethical significance of animaltelos or species integrity. The principle of welfareconservation prohibits disfunctional geneticengineering of food animals, but would permit alteringanimals biological functions, especially when (as inmaking animals less susceptable to pain or suffering)do so improves an individual animals well being.Objections to precisely this last form of geneticengineering stress telos or species integrity asconstraints on modification of animals, and thisrepresents the third class of ethical issues. Most whohave formulated such arguments have failed to developcoherent positions, but the notion of species being,derived from the 19th century German tradition,presents a promising way to analyze the basis forresisting the transformation of animal natures. (shrink)

During the last ten years John Beatty, Elisabeth Lloyd and I have argued that the semantic conception of theories is, in the context of biological theorizing, a richer conception of theory structure than the syntactic ("received view") conception. Specifically, I have argued semantic conception of theory structure better represents the structure of evolutionary theory and the relationship of this theory to phenomena. One aspect of the semantic conception that is in need of greater attention is the nature of explanation on (...) this conception. In this paper, I argue that the semantic conception provides a richer mo accurate account of scientific explanation, in particular, of evolutionary explanations. In essence, I argue that explanation involves an appeal to numerous theories in addition to the putative explanatory theory. Employment of these theories is not formally possible in a syntactic conception but is in a semantic conception. (shrink)

The role of Amartya Sen's early work on famine notwithstanding, food security is generally seen as but one capability among many for scholars writing in development ethics. The early literature on the ethics of hunger is summarized to show how Sen's Poverty and Famines was written in response to debates of past decades, and a brief discussion of food security as a capability follows. However, Sen's characterization of smallholder food security also supports the development of agency in both a political (...) and an economic sense. Economic agency is discussed and tied to longstanding literatures on the moral significance of farming within political economy. Finally, while the newly emergent literature on food sovereignty includes many themes, it is shown to be re-articulating arguments that stress smallholder's economic agency as a development goal. This pattern of argument thus provides a way to reconcile at least some of the claims being advanced under the banner of food sovereignty with the human development.. (shrink)

The second edition of this extensive work is the definitive source on issues pertaining to the full range of topics in the important area of food and agricultural ethics. Altogether about 100 new entries appear in this new edition. The start of the 21st century has seen intensified debate, discussion, and criticism of food and agriculture. Scholars, activists, and citizens increasingly question the goals and ethical rationale behind production, distribution and consumption of food, and the use of crops for fuel (...) and fiber. These wide-ranging debates encompass questions in human nutrition, animal rights, and the environmental impacts of agricultural production. The encyclopedia provides a detailed analysis of these issues and hundreds of other topics including the use of antibiotics in animal feedlots, the Green Revolution, organic farming, Islam and Food, and cannibalism.The Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics, 2nd edition is an indispensable reference point for future research and writing on topics in agriculture, food, animal, and eating ethics. (shrink)

Public controversy over animalbiotechnology is analyzed as a case that illustratestwo broad theoretical approaches for linking science,political or ethical theory, and public policy. Moralpurification proceeds by isolating the social,environmental, animal, and human health impacts ofbiotechnology from each other in terms of discretecategories of moral significance. Each of thesecategories can also be isolated from the sense inwhich biotechnology raises religious or metaphysicalissues. Moral purification yields a comprehensive andsystematic account of normative issues raised bycontroversial science. Hybridization proceeds bytaking concern for all these (...) elements to be a mark ofsound moral character. The advocate of hybridizationinfers that those who employ a strategy ofpurification seek to avoid accountability by dividingissues, and hence are not to be trusted. Lack of trustincreases perceived risk and challenges the legitimacyof government regulations to control social,environmental, and human health risks that areestablished under separate mandate, and administeredby separate agencies.The close alignment between government agencies, theiracademic affines, and the categories of purificationplaces the purified analysis in a favored politicalposition. Legitimation of science-based policy inareas like animal biotechnology becomes problematicbecause the concern of those who would take a hybridapproach (arguably the majority of lay persons) tounderstanding controversial science are excluded.Ironically, this exclusion heightens the perception ofrisk from animal biotechnology. The paper concludeswith a call for procedural approaches to incorporatingthe hybrid view of science‘s moral significance. (shrink)

Each of four sections in this paper sketches the philosophical problems associated with a different dimension of sustainability. The untitled introductory section surveys the oft-noted discrepancies between different notions of sustainability, and notes that one element of the ambiguity relates to the different points of view taken by a participant in a system and a detached observer of the system. The second section, “Sustainability as a System Describing Concept,” examines epistemological puzzles that arise when one attempts to assess the truth (...) or falsity of claims that attribute sustainability or non-sustainability. In particular, such claims generally presume bounded systems, but boundary conditions are value-laden. The third section, “Sustainability as a Goal Prescribing Concept,” examines puzzles that arise in attempting to define sustainability in normative terms. In particular, the question of whether sustainability is an intrinsic or instrumental value is examined. The final section, “Sustainability and Bliss,” offers an analysis of the moral responsibilities that human beings have, given the fact that knowledge of conditions for achieving sustainability can never be complete. (shrink)

Several paleontologists have recently challenged the explanatory adequacy of the modern synthetic theory of evolution. Their position is that, contrary to the prevailing view that evolutionary change is gradual, the fossil record manifests long periods of species stasis (equilibrium) punctuated by periods of rapid species formation. And, they argue, this punctuated equilibria pattern challenges the gradualist, adaptationist and extrapolationist assumptions of the modern synthetic theory of evolution and supports a hierarchical, non-extrapolationist (non-reductionist) view of evolution. In this paper I argue (...) that the challenge rests on an inadequate characterization of the modern synthetic theory and that, even accepting punctuated equilibria and an irreducible evolutionary hierarchy, the modern synthetic theory is adequate to explain evolutionary change at all levels of the hierarchy. (shrink)