Environmental pragmatism is a new strategy in environmental thought. It argues that theoretical debates are hindering the ability of the environmental movement to forge agreement on basic policy imperatives. This new direction in environmental thought moves beyond theory, advocating a serious inquiry into the merits of moral pluralism. Environmental pragmatism, as a coherent philosophical position, connects the methodology of classical American pragmatic thought to the explanation, solution and discussion of real issues. This concise, well-focused collection is the first comprehensive presentation (...) of environmental pragmatism as a new philosophical approach to environmental thought and policy. (shrink)

Hybrid Geographies reconsiders the relationship between human and non-human, the social and the material, showing how they are intimately and variously linked. General arguments, informed by work in critical geography, feminist theory, environmental ethics, and science studies are illustrated throughout with detailed case-study material.

Over the course of its first seven editions, Principles of Biomedical Ethics has proved to be, globally, the most widely used, authored work in biomedical ethics. It is unique in being a book in bioethics used in numerous disciplines for purposes of instruction in bioethics. Its framework of moral principles is authoritative for many professional associations and biomedical institutions-for instruction in both clinical ethics and research ethics. It has been widely used in several disciplines for purposes of teaching in the (...) classroom, during conferences, etc. (shrink)

The Norwegian National Committee for Research Ethics inScience and Technology (NENT), collaborating with The NorwegianFisherman''s Association and The Research Council of Norway,started in 1999 a project aiming at an ethical assessment of Norwegian fisheries for the year 2020. The project was to preparethe ground for ethical debate in and of the fishery sector inview of pending important decisions on long term strategies. Thispaper has its focus on the method used for achieving these aims,rather than the substantive results concerning the fisheries. (...) Amethod was developed for this purpose, called the ethicalscenario process. This included the construction of scenarios forthe future of Norwegian fisheries, using an ethical matrix for evaluating strategies, and organizing a ``value workshop'''' whereparticipants from different stakeholder groups came together todo ethical evaluations. The positive achievements and theshortcomings of this method are discussed in this paper. The useof an ethical matrix was meant to combine a participatory approachwith insights from theoretical ethics. The project revealedinherent tensions between these two objectives. Possible ways ofdealing with this tension are indicated, but in general a goodgrasp of the socio-political context might be the best guardianagainst the possible pitfalls involved in such an approach. (shrink)

In animal husbandry in The Netherlands, as in a wide variety of other societal areas, we see an increased awareness of the fact that progress cannot be attained anymore by simply repeating the way we modernized this sector in the decades before, due to the multiplicity of the problems to be dealt with. The theory of reflexive modernization articulates this macro-social phenomenon, and at the same time serves as a prescriptive master-narrative. In this paper, I analyse the relationship between Feenberg's (...) instrumentalization theory and reflexive design; that is, the approach of doing reflexive modernization. Feenberg's analytical distinction between primary and secondary instrumentalization is useful in highlighting the way social and political values are inscribed into technological arrangements, but is not meant as a method. Reflexive design, on the other hand, is meant to be a reflective and deliberative method that aims to articulate, assess and reintegrate hitherto unquestioned values and presuppositions into new designs of production systems. Reflexive design thus may be seen as a conscious strategy of making explicit the separate stages of instrumentalization in advance, instead of criticizing the implicit embedding of dominant values in technological artefacts once they have been realized. The approach is illustrated with a case from animal husbandry. (shrink)

The relation between ethics and social science is often conceived as complementary, both disciplines cooperating in the solution of concrete moral problems. Against this, the paper argues that not only applied ethics but even certain parts of general ethics have to incorporate sociological and psychological data and theories from the start. Applied ethics depends on social science in order to asses the impact of its own principles on the concrete realities which these principles are to regulate as well as in (...) order to propose practice rules suited to adapt these principles to their respective contexts of application. Examples from medical ethics (embryo research) and ecological ethics (Leopold's land ethic) illustrate both the contingence of practice rules in relation to their underlying basic principles and the corresponding need for a co-operation between philosophy and empirical disciplines in judging their functional merits and demerits. In conclusion, the relevance of empirical hypotheses even for some of the perennial problems of ethics is shown by clarifying the role played by empirical theories in the controversies about the ethical differentiation between positive and negative responsibility and the relation between utility maximisation and (seemingly) independent criteria of distributive justice in the context of social distributions. (shrink)

This article argues that many situations in social life can be analyzed by their requirement for the justification of action. It is in particular in situations of dispute that a need arises to explicate the grounds on which responsibility for errors is distributed and on which new agreement can be reached. Since a plurality of mutually incompatible modes of justification exists, disputes can be understood as disagreements either about whether the accepted rule of justification has not been violated or about (...) which mode of justification to apply at all. The article develops a grammar of such modes of justification, called orders of worth (grandeur), and argues that the human capacity for criticism becomes visible in the daily occurrence of disputes over criteria for justification. At the same time, it is underlined that not all social situations can be interpreted with the help of such a sense of justice, which resides on a notion of equivalence. Regimes of love, of violence or of familiarity are systematically distinct from regimes of justification. (shrink)

In this paper, we present and defend the theoretical framework of an empirical model to describe people’s fundamental moral attitudes (FMAs) to animals, the stratification of FMAs in society and the role of FMAs in judgment on the culling of healthy animals in an animal disease epidemic. We used philosophical animal ethics theories to understand the moral basis of FMA convictions. Moreover, these theories provide us with a moral language for communication between animal ethics, FMAs, and public debates. We defend (...) that FMA is a two-layered concept. The first layer consists of deeply felt convictions about animals. The second layer consists of convictions derived from the first layer to serve as arguments in a debate on animal issues. In a debate, the latter convictions are variable, depending on the animal issue in a specific context, time, and place. This variability facilitates finding common ground in an animal issue between actors with opposing convictions. (shrink)

The discourse about traceability in food chains focused on traceability as means towards the end of managing health risks. This discourse witnessed a call to broaden traceability to accommodate consumer concerns about foods that are not related to health. This call envisions the development of ethical traceability. This paper presents a justification of ethical traceability. The argument is couched in liberal distinctions, since the call for ethical traceability is based on intuitions about consumer rights to informed choice. The paper suggests (...) that two versions of ethical traceability find justification. The first version of ethical traceability entails that governments ensure that all consumers are provided with foods that respect some threshold level of, e.g., animal welfare that is supported by an overlapping consensus. The second version of ethical traceability entails that food producers provide consumers with products, and sufficient information about these products, that are relevant for reasonable, non-superficial values that are not supported by an overlapping consensus. Governments should facilitate this in the sense that consumers are not provided with misinformation about characteristics of foods that are relevant for reasonable, non-superficial values that are not supported by an overlapping consensus. (shrink)

In this paper I want to show that consumer concerns can be implemented in food chains by organizing ethical discussions of conflicting values that include them as participators. First, it is argued that there are several types of consumer concerns about food and agriculture that are multi-interpretable and often contradict each other or are at least difficult to reconcile without considerable loss. Second, these consumer concerns are inherently dynamic because they respond to difficult and complex societal and technological situations and (...) developments. For example, because of the rising concern with global warming, carbon dioxide absorption of crops is now attracting public attention, which means that new requirements are being proposed for the environmentally friendly production of crops. Third, there are different types of consumers, and their choices between conflicting values differ accordingly. Consumers use different weighing models and various types of information in making their food choices. Changing food chains more in accordance with consumer concerns should at least take into account the multi-interpretable, dynamic, and pluralist features of consumer concerns, for example, in traceability schemes. In discussing usual approaches such as codes, stakeholder analysis, and assurance schemes, I conclude that these traditional approaches can be helpful. However, in cases of dynamic, pluralistic, and uncertain developments, maintaining some pre-existing evaluating scheme or some clear cut normative hierarchy, such as codes or assurance schemes, can be disastrous in undermining new ethical desirable initiatives. Instead of considering ethical standards and targets as fixed, which is done with codes and schemes, it is more fruitful to emphasize the structure of the processes in which ethical weighing of relevant consumer concerns get shaped. The concept of “Ethical Room for Maneuver” (ERM) is constructed to specify the ethical desirable conditions under which identification and weighing of paramount values and their dilemmas can be processed. The main aims of the ERM are making room in all the links of the food chain for regulating and implementing the relevant consumer concerns by (1) balancing and negotiating, (2) supporting information systems that are relevant and communicative for various consumer groups and (3) organizing consumer involvement in the links of the food chain. The social and political context of agriculture and food production, particularly in Europe, gives ample opportunity for implementing several types of Ethical Rooms for Maneuver. Finally, I discuss several types of Ethical Rooms for Manoeuvre in the food chains that can be communicated by means of specific traceability schemes to less involved stakeholders with the potential consequence that the stakeholders will be motivated to be more involved. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Principles of Biomedical Ethics. By Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress.

The critical studies in the Sociology of Agriculture can be generally divided into four questions: Agrarian, Environmental, Food, and Emancipatory. While the four questions overlap and all address social justice concerns, there is a chronological sequence to the studies. In this presidential address presented at the joint meetings of the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society and the Association for the Study of Food in Society held in June 2008 in New Orleans, LA, I provide an overview of the four (...) questions and call for researchers and activists in agrifood studies to engage as public social scientists to bring about a more just and equitable agrifood system. (shrink)

This paper presents the idea of a decision-support system for a livestock farm, called “ethical accounting”, to be used as an extension of traditional cost accounting. “Ethical accounting” seeks to make available to the farmer information about how his decisions affect the interests of farm animals, consumers and future generations. Furthermore, “ethical accounting” involves value-based planning. Thus, the farmer should base his choice of production plan on reflections as to his fundamental objectives, and he should make his final decision only (...) after having seriously considered the various consequences for the affected parties. (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.

This article analyzes learning in context through the prism of a sustainable dairy-farming project. The research was performed within a nutrient management project that involved the participation of farmers and scientists. Differences between heterogeneous forms of farmers’ knowledge and scientific knowledge were discursively constructed during conflict and subsequent alignment over the validity and relevance of knowledge. Both conflict and alignment appeared to be essential for learning in context. Conflict spurred learning when disagreeing groups of actors developed their knowledge in order (...) to strengthen their arguments. Conflict caused self-referentiality when the actors no longer listened to each other. This inhibited self-reflection, thus blocking ongoing learning. Nevertheless, after a period of alignment, scientific models and knowledge of farmers were reevaluated and recontextualized. Through determining how to use scientific models and farmers’ knowledge for further learning, aimed at a shared goal, the participating actors also learned how to learn. (shrink)

In this collection of essays, Clifford Geertz explores the nature of his anthropological work in relation to a broader public, serving as the foremost spokesperson of his generation of scholars, those who came of age after World War II. ...

Debates in animal ethics are largely characterized by ethical monism, the search for a single, timeless, and essential trait in which the moral standing of animals can be grounded. In this paper, we argue that a monistic approach towards animal ethics hampers and oversimplifies the moral debate. The value pluralism present in our contemporary societies requires a more open and flexible approach to moral inquiry. This paper advocates the turn to a pragmatic, pluralistic approach to animal ethics. It contributes to (...) the development of such an approach in two ways. It offers a pragmatist critique of ethical monism in animal ethics and presents the results of a qualitative study into the value diversity present in the different ways of thinking about animals in the Netherlands. Carefully arranged group discussions resulted in the reconstruction of four distinctive moral value frameworks that may serve as instruments in the future process of moral inquiry and deliberation in the reflection on animal use. (shrink)

Procedures that increase the sustainability of agriculture often result in animals being treated more humanely:both livestock in animal and mixed farming and wildlife in arable farming. Equally, procedures ensuring humane treatment of farm animals often increase sustainability, for example in disease control and manure management. This overlap between sustainability and humaneness is not coincidental. Both approaches can be said to be animal centered, to be based on the fact that animal production is primarily a biological process. Proponents of both will (...) gain from recognition of commonality and development of cooperation. A collaborative approach to humane sustainable agriculture will benefit animals, people, and the environment. (shrink)

The paper addresses the issue of how indemocratic societies a procedure might be formulatedto facilitate ethical judgements on modernbiotechnologies used in food production. A frameworkfor rational ethical analysis, the Ethical Matrix, isproposed. The Matrix adapts the principles describedby Beauchamp and Childress for application to medicalissues, to interest groups (e.g., producers,consumers, and the biotic environment) affected bythese technologies. The use of the Matrix isillustrated by applying it to an example of a ``novelfood,'' viz., a form of genetically modified maize.

Debates in animal ethics are largely characterized by ethical monism, the search for a single, timeless, and essential trait in which the moral standing of animals can be grounded. In this paper, we argue that a monistic approach towards animal ethics hampers and oversimplifies the moral debate. The value pluralism present in our contemporary societies requires a more open and flexible approach to moral inquiry. This paper advocates the turn to a pragmatic, pluralistic approach to animal ethics. It contributes to (...) the development of such an approach in two ways. It offers a pragmatist critique of ethical monism in animal ethics and presents the results of a qualitative study into the value diversity present in the different ways of thinking about animals in the Netherlands. Carefully arranged group discussions resulted in the reconstruction of four distinctive moral value frameworks that may serve as instruments in the future process of moral inquiry and deliberation in the reflection on animal use. (shrink)

This article argues that present theoretical approaches within critical agri-food studies are inadequate for conceptualizing the role of non-humans in the shaping of farmer agency. While both political economy and actor-oriented approaches are significant in drawing attention to the broader social relations that construct and govern farmers as agents, the ordering and disordering influence of non-humans as part of these processes are neglected. Drawing upon a sociology of translation, located within actor network theory, the article explores how the ontological move (...) to recognize non-humans as actants contributes to a re-conceptualization of farmer agency. Through the application of four “moments” within a translation approach – problematization, interessement, enrollment, and mobilization – to a dairy planning workshop in Australia, it is concluded that non-humans are central in two key ways to programs governing the agency of farmers. First, they take the form of material artifacts and forms of inscription that are used by governing agencies to build durable actor networks. These inscriptions represent new ways of reflecting on farming practices and re-defining the scope for farmer action. Second, non-humans can take the form of material agents that, while crucial to the building of actor networks, are not always straightforward to enroll. The article demonstrates that problems enrolling these entities limit the efforts of governing agencies to “act at a distance” and shape farmer behavior. (shrink)

Debates in animal ethics are largely characterized by ethical monism, the search for a single, timeless, and essential trait in which the moral standing of animals can be grounded. In this paper, we argue that a monistic approach towards animal ethics hampers and oversimplifies the moral debate. The value pluralism present in our contemporary societies requires a more open and flexible approach to moral inquiry. This paper advocates the turn to a pragmatic, pluralistic approach to animal ethics. It contributes to (...) the development of such an approach in two ways. It offers a pragmatist critique of ethical monism in animal ethics and presents the results of a qualitative study into the value diversity present in the different ways of thinking about animals in the Netherlands. Carefully arranged group discussions resulted in the reconstruction of four distinctive moral value frameworks that may serve as instruments in the future process of moral inquiry and deliberation in the reflection on animal use. (shrink)