Bücher der Reihe The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics

This book explores indigenous sub-Saharan African agrarian thought. Indigenous African agrarian philosophy is an uncharted and largely overlooked area of study in the burgeoning fields of African philosophy and philosophy of nature. The book shows that wherever human beings have lived, they have been preoccupied with exploring ways to ensure the sustainable management of limited resources at their disposal, to attain to their basic needs: food, shelter, and security. The book also shows that agriculture and the way people relate with nature are an essential, but generally neglected, determinant of the emergence and orientation of all philosophical traditions. In traditional, pre-colonial African culture, it was difficult to separate agriculture from African relational ontology. Agriculture and the use of natural resources were at the centre of community life and influenced the social, political, economic, and spiritual worldviews of the people. In their contact with nature through agriculture, different beliefs, knowledge systems, norms, moral outlooks, cultural practices and institutions emerged and have been valorized to guide societies on how to sustainably manage the environment. As a way of life, then, agriculture was deeply connected with indigenous beliefs, values, and practices which transcended a wide range of issues related to ecological ethics, food ethics, religion, traditional medicine, political economy, social organisation, biological reproduction and species survival, indigenous knowledge, and property rights. This book will thus be a valuable resource for policy makers and researchers in diverse fields such as philosophy, geography, sociology, anthropology, and development studies.

The book draws attention to the core principles of organic and offers different clearly articulated and well-defined conceptual frameworks that offer new insights into organic practices. The book concludes with a framework for rethinking ethics in the organic movement and reflections on the positioning of organic ethics.

This is the first collection of essays in which European and American philosophers explicitly think out their respective contributions and identities as environmental thinkers in the analytic and continental traditions.

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.

Building forth upon recent developments in democracy theory that have identified multiple forms of legitimacy, this volume observes a EU-wide shift from output legitimacy to input and throughput legitimacy.

This book is a rigorous, yet accessible introduction into the current philosophical discourses underpinning practices of environmental education. It provides a comprehensive theoretical framework, relating philosophical key issues and educational concerns in an intrinsic manner, against the background of current practices and policies.

This book marks a new departure in ethics, which has up to now been a question of 'the good life' in relation to other people, based on Greek concepts of friendship and the Judaeo-Christian 'caritas.' No early moral teaching discussed man's relation to the origin of foodstuffs and the system that produced them;

It outlines ethical and economic principles important for understanding agrifood competition, presents arguments for and against consolidation, globalization and the integration of agrifood industries, and looks at the implications of globalization on the nature of competition in specific agricultural contexts.

This unique exploration of biodiversity breaks down the distinctions between science and economics, dissenting from the prevailing view in challenging the widely cherished assumptions that underpin the seemingly unassailable arguments of environmentalists.

This volume addresses the overlapping aspects of the fields of genomics, obesity and (non-) medical ethics.

Paradoxically, although consumers are bombarded with information on food - from the media, the food industry, food authorities, NGOs and interest groups - details about how foods are actually produced is often hard to find.

This volume presents a series of case studies in comparative epistemology, critically comparing the works of prominent representatives of the life sciences, such as Aristotle, Darwin, and Mendel, with the writings of literary masters, such as Andersen, Melville, Verne, and Ibsen.

This unique book adds an ethics dimension to the debate and research about poverty, hunger, and globalization. The book concludes that much of the rhetoric is not followed up with appropriate action, and discusses the role of ethics in attempts to match action with rhetoric.

This revised edition updates Thompson's trail-blazing study of ethical and philosophical issues raised by biotechnology.

This book offers fresh perspectives on issues of food justice. The chapters emerged from a series of annual workshops on food justice held at Michigan State University between 2013 and 2015, which brought together a wide variety of interested people to learn from and work with each other.

This volume addresses the overlapping aspects of the fields of genomics, obesity and (non-) medical ethics.

This book is a rigorous, yet accessible introduction into the current philosophical discourses underpinning practices of environmental education. It provides a comprehensive theoretical framework, relating philosophical key issues and educational concerns in an intrinsic manner, against the background of current practices and policies.

Thirdly, ongoing urbanization and destruction of animal habitats leads to a blurring between the categories of wild and domesticated animals.

This book looks afresh, from a philosophical perspective, on the role economic theory plays in present-day ecological policy. It will be of interest to environmentalists, environmental economists, and for policy people charged with ecological problems.

Science Cultivating Practice is an institutional history of agricultural science in the Netherlands and its overseas territories. The net result was an institutional development in which the values of academic science were rated higher than the values of practice.

This book is an extensive, original and systematic treatment of many important philosophical and ethical aspects of food (consumption and production). May we eat just anything? Can we do everything with animals, even genetic modification? If not, how can we regulate those processes so that they lead to optimum animal welfare while at the same time producing optimum taste? The production of food also causes environmental pollution ¿ does the fight against hunger have priority over the care of the environment? The care of the environment, animal welfare, and the quality of food should be in a certain harmony, but that is far from granted and hardly easy to achieve. These factors are often in conflict with each other, and a balance will thus need to be searched for. Other factors to take into consideration are the issue of global famine, the care for a farming class that is able to keep its head above water in a decent way, and a fair trade system that does not throw up unnecessary barriers for newcomers or small market participants and that promotes good nutrition. Famine continues to be a widespread phenomenon that violates human rights, causing nearly a billion people to suffer from hunger or malnutrition. At the same time, deliberate hunger, abundance, and obesity are prevalent in the Western world. Both issues refer to the social and cultural aspects of food. Scientific and technological developments like genetic modification and functional food also play an increasingly important role; almost every bite that we take is determined by scientific developments. An extra difficulty is that scientific information is often contradictory, or that it relies on statistical probabilities that are difficult to translate into everyday certitudes. All of these factors deserve attention, but it is the mix that is most important. In the land of food, ¿either or¿ does not exist, only ¿both and¿. The adequate measure of ¿both and¿serves as the starting point for this philosophical reflection. Before Dinner is a must-read for all people interested in contemporary ethical issues of food, such as university students and researchers of food, agricultural and life sciences, as well as policymakers in these fields, such as members of professional organisations focusing on food and agriculture (f.e., EURSAFE (European Society for Agriculture and Food Ethics), the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society (USA), and European Federation of Biotechnology).

This volume explores the legal, economic and political debate over intellectual property rights for traditional knowledge and genetic resources, analyzing theory and practice of access and benefits sharing around the world. and ownership and control of human genetic materials stored in human gene banks around the world.

Science Cultivating Practice is an institutional history of agricultural science in the Netherlands and its overseas territories. The net result was an institutional development in which the values of academic science were rated higher than the values of practice.

This book looks afresh, from a philosophical perspective, on the role economic theory plays in present-day ecological policy. It will be of interest to environmentalists, environmental economists, and for policy people charged with ecological problems.

The issues in this book include the interaction of technology and ethics, the status of pragmatism, the concept of practice, and discourse ethics and deliberative democracy.

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This book describes specific, well-know controversies in the genetic modification debate and connects them to deeper philosophical issues in philosophy of technology.

This book offers fresh perspectives on issues of food justice. The chapters emerged from a series of annual workshops on food justice held at Michigan State University between 2013 and 2015, which brought together a wide variety of interested people to learn from and work with each other.