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Ethical dilemmas in agriculture: The need for recognition and resolution

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Abstract

Agricultural research and education ended 100 years of funding under the Hatch Act with a decade of unprecedented criticism of goals and outcomes. This paper examines the way that planners can accommodate some of these criticisms within a framework for understanding the ethical and social goals of agriculture that is consistent with traditional practice. The paper goes on to state that some criticisms are so fundamental that they cannot be readily incorporated into this framework. They must be regarded as a challenge, both politically and intellectually, to longstanding practices within academic institutions devoted to agriculture.

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  1. Paul B. Thompson
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Paul Thompson is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University. He is currently conducting research under a grant from the National Science Foundation, Ethics and Values Studies program on the role of ethics and values in the planning of agricultural research activities, and completing a textbook entitledEthics, Public Policy and Argiculture with Eileen Olsen VanRavenswaay and Robert Matthews, slated for publication by John Wiley & Sons in 1990.

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Thompson, P.B. Ethical dilemmas in agriculture: The need for recognition and resolution. Agric Hum Values 5, 4–15 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02217643

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