2011-2012 SERIES
What Makes Food Good? Three Challenges in Food Ethics a lecture by
Paul B. ThompsonW.K. Kellogg Chair in Agricultural, Food and Community Ethics
Michigan State University
Paul B. ThompsonW.K. Kellogg Chair in Agricultural, Food and Community Ethics
Michigan State University
The diversity of issues that arise in food ethics will be explored with short discussions of three problems. First, improving agriculture and ending hunger are central to development ethics, but there is a fundamental tension between the interests of farmers and of poor people in urban areas. During the Great Depression, this tension was reflected in the irony of "breadlines knee deep in wheat." Although developed nations like the United States have moved beyond the most basic version of this problem, it is far from clear that our current farm and food policies have truly solved it. Second, there is a growing recognition that American diets are contributing to increased rates of diabetes and heart disease. But how should this phenomenon be viewed from an ethical perspective? Contrary to suggestive scientific results, Americans tend to view the problem narrowly as a personal responsibility of prudence, rather than as a moral issue. Finally, although it has long been realized that food practices vary widely by culture, it is unclear how diverse food cultures should be viewed from the perspective of ethics. Are food choices protected by an individual's "right to choose?" Or do they interpenetrate into cultural identities so deeply that they should be viewed as "cultural resources" worthy of protection and preservation? And what are the implications of viewing food culture in one way rather than another? These three problems will be reviewed briefly to give a general overview of the terrain of food ethics, and concluding remarks will focus on how the issues intersect in food ethics, and on how a program in the bioethics of food might inform policy and public health.
Paul B. Thompson holds the W. K. Kellogg Chair in Agricultural, Food and Community Ethics at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. He formerly held positions in philosophy at Texas A&M University and Purdue University. His research has centered on ethical and philosophical questions associated with agriculture and food, and especially concerning the guidance and development of agricultural technoscience. This research focus has led him to undertake a series of projects on the application of recombinant DNA techniques to agricultural crops and food animals. Thompson published the first booklength philosophical treatment of agricultural biotechnology in 1997 and revised in 2007, and has traveled the world speaking on the subject, delivering invited addresses in Egypt, Thailand, Taiwan, Mexico, Israel and Jamaica, as well as a number of European countries. In addition to philosophical outlets, his work on biotechnology has appeared in technical journals including Plant Physiology, The Journal of Animal Science, Bioscience, andCahiers d’Economie et Sociologie Rurales. He serves on the United States National Research Council’s Agricultural Biotechnology Advisory Council and on the Science and Industry Advisory Committee for Genome Canada. Thompson’s new work focuses on nanotechnology in the agrifood system.
In addition to his research on biotechnology, Thompson has published extensively on the environmental and social significance of agriculture. His 1992 book (with four coauthors) on U.S. agricultural policy, Sacred Cows and Hot Potatoes, was used as a textbook for U.S. Congressional agriculture staff.He is a two time recipient of the American Agricultural Economics Association Award for Excellence in Communication, and in 2010 he was a speaker at the Gustavus Adolphus College’s 46th Nobel Conference on “Making Food Good.” He has also published a number of volumes and papers on the philosophical and cultural significance of farming, notably The Spirit of the Soil: Agriculture and Environmental Ethics (1995) and The Agrarian Roots of Pragmatism (2000). In 2008, two edited collections appeared: What Can Nanotechnology Learn from Biotechnology: Social and Ethical Lessons for Nanoscience from the Debate over Agrifood Biotechnology and GMOs (edited with Ken David) and The Ethics of Intensification: Agricultural Technology and Cultural Change. A new book entitled The Agrarian Vision: Sustainability and Environmental Ethics was published by the University Press of Kentucky in July 2010. Thompson completed his Ph.D. studies on the philosophy of technology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook under the guidance of Don Ihde.
