Paul B. Thompson – författare

While politicians, entrepreneurs, and even school children could tell you that sustainability is an important and nearly universal value, many of them, and many of us, may struggle to define the term, let alone trace its history. What is sustainability? Is it always about the environment? What science do we need to fully grasp what it requires? What does sustainability mean for business? How can governments plan for a sustainable future? This short, accessible book written in the signature question-and-answer format of the What Everyone Needs to Know® series tackles these and numerous other questions. Sustainability is a porous topic, which has been adapted and reshaped for developing ecological models, improving corporate responsibility, setting environmental and land-use policies, organizing educational curricula, and reimagining the goals of governance and democracy. Where other treatments of this topic tend to focus on just one application of sustainability, this primer encompasses everything from global development and welfare to social justice and climate change. With chapters that discuss sustainability in the contexts of profitable businesses, environmental risks, scientific research, and the day-to-day business of local government, it gives readers a deep understanding of one of the most essential concepts of our time. Bringing to bear experience in natural resource conservation, agriculture, the food industry, and environmental ethics, authors Paul B. Thompson and Patricia E. Norris explain clearly what sustainability means, and why getting it right is so important for the future of our planet.

While politicians, entrepreneurs, and even school children could tell you that sustainability is an important and nearly universal value, many of them, and many of us, may struggle to define the term, let alone trace its history. What is sustainability? Is it always about the environment? What science do we need to fully grasp what it requires? What does sustainability mean for business? How can governments plan for a sustainable future? This short, accessible book written in the signature question-and-answer format of the What Everyone Needs to Know® series tackles these and numerous other questions. Sustainability is a porous topic, which has been adapted and reshaped for developing ecological models, improving corporate responsibility, setting environmental and land-use policies, organizing educational curricula, and reimagining the goals of governance and democracy. Where other treatments of this topic tend to focus on just one application of sustainability, this primer encompasses everything from global development and welfare to social justice and climate change. With chapters that discuss sustainability in the contexts of profitable businesses, environmental risks, scientific research, and the day-to-day business of local government, it gives readers a deep understanding of one of the most essential concepts of our time. Bringing to bear experience in natural resource conservation, agriculture, the food industry, and environmental ethics, authors Paul B. Thompson and Patricia E. Norris explain clearly what sustainability means, and why getting it right is so important for the future of our planet.

What Is Agriculture For? describes four contrasting rationales for technical and policy change in agriculture and food systems. Technological Modernization applies an ethic common to every sector in the industrial economy: production should seek greater efficiencies in order to lower consumer costs and secure adequate supply but should not do so in ways that harm third parties or the environment. The other views single out a feature of agriculture giving it unique moral significance. Sustainable Intensification emphasizes future challenges to the global food supply, and Rural Resilience places special value on the social role of farmers and other producers. Urban Agriculture highlights cities' growing vulnerability to rurally based supply chains. Each perspective leads to distinct policy goals and suggests different priorities for technical innovation. At the same time, the argument for any particular innovation may draw on two of more of these archetypal rationales. The book does greater justice to the complexity of food politics, providing tools for critical evaluation of implicit value commitments and greater understanding of opposing points of view.

Following the pattern of From Field to Fork (OUP, 2015) Paul B. Thompson provides a highly readable and up-to-date analysis of contemporary ethical issues connected with food. Thompson reinterprets Peter Singer's work on famine relief in light of the history of funding development assistance through food aid, defends locavore diets against philosophical critics, and analyzes the ethics of food labelling in light of J.S. Mill's On Liberty. Further exploring today's key ethical questions about food, Thompson compares anthropological and toxicological approaches to pollution and defends a revised notion of agricultural sustainability. These topics provide an entry point for a novel approach in practical ethics that blends pragmatist philosophy of language, historical interpretation of agrarian thought, and recent philosophical writings on race and structural racism.

Following the pattern of From Field to Fork (OUP, 2015) Paul B. Thompson provides a highly readable and up-to-date analysis of contemporary ethical issues connected with food. Thompson reinterprets Peter Singer's work on famine relief in light of the history of funding development assistance through food aid, defends locavore diets against philosophical critics, and analyzes the ethics of food labelling in light of J.S. Mill's On Liberty. Further exploring today's key ethical questions about food, Thompson compares anthropological and toxicological approaches to pollution and defends a revised notion of agricultural sustainability. These topics provide an entry point for a novel approach in practical ethics that blends pragmatist philosophy of language, historical interpretation of agrarian thought, and recent philosophical writings on race and structural racism.

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 more than thirty years of experience working closely with farmers, agricultural researchers and food system activists to the topic, 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 breaks 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.

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 more than thirty years of experience working closely with farmers, agricultural researchers and food system activists to the topic, 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 breaks 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.

This book examines the rationale for emphasizing productivity as the dominant goal of agricultural research and challenges in the form of alternative goals that scientists might seek in performing agricultural research. It presents bibliographic essays that review the criticisms of research.

This book examines the rationale for emphasizing productivity as the dominant goal of agricultural research and challenges in the form of alternative goals that scientists might seek in performing agricultural research. It presents bibliographic essays that review the criticisms of research.

An overview of ethical issues arising in connection with progress made in food biotechnology. The book provides a discussion of the ethical issues referring to food safety, animal welfare, environmental impact, ownership of intellectual property, and consumer perception of the product. The arguments for and against issues causing major concern are evaluated, advancing the quality of the debate. This book should be of interest to biotechnologists and food scientists in the industry, academic and research institutions; and policy makers in government and industry.

The traditional military-territorial model of the nation state defines international duties in terms of protecting citizens' property from foreign threats. In this 1992 book about the principles of the US agricultural policy and foreign aid, Professor Thompson replaces this model with the notion of the trading state that sees its role in terms of the establishment of international institutions that stabilize and facilitate cultural and intellectual, as well as commercial, exchanges between nations. The argument focuses on protectionist challenges to foreign aid and development assistance programs, and engages with the views of a variety of economists, commodity organizations, and philosophers on world hunger and development. What emerges is a new interpretation of social contract theory that can determine goals for international trade and development policy.

As industry and technology proliferate in modern society, sustainability has jumped to the forefront of contemporary political and environmental discussions. The balance between progress and the earth's ability to provide for its inhabitants grows increasingly precarious as we attempt to achieve sustainable development.In The Agrarian Vision: Sustainability and Environmental Ethics, Paul B. Thompson articulates a new agrarian philosophy, emphasizing the vital role of agrarianism in modern agricultural practices. Thompson, a highly regarded voice in environmental philosophy, unites concepts of agrarian philosophy, political theory, and environmental ethics to illustrate the importance of creating and maintaining environmentally conscious communities. Thompson describes the evolution of agrarian values in America, following the path blazed by Thomas Jefferson, John Steinbeck, and Wendell Berry.Providing a pragmatic approach to ecological responsibility and commitment, The Agrarian Vision is a significant, compelling argument for the practice of a reconfigured and expanded agrarianism in our efforts to support modern industrialized culture while also preserving the natural world.

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.

In this second edition of The Spirit of the Soil: Agriculture and Environmental Ethics, Paul B. Thompson reviews four worldviews that shape competing visions for agriculture. Productionists have sought increasing yields—to make two seeds grow where only one grew before—while traditional visions of good farming have stressed stewardship. These traditional visions have been challenged by two more worldviews: a call for a total cost accounting for farming and an advocacy for a holistic perspective. Thompson argues that an environmentally defensible systems approach must draw upon all four worldviews, recognizing their flaws and synthesizing their strengths in a new vision of sustainable agriculture. This classic 1995 study has been thoroughly revised and significantly expanded in its second edition with up-to-date examples of agriculture’s impact on the environment. These include extensive discussions of new pesticides and the effects of animal agriculture on climate and other areas of the environment. In addition, a new final chapter discusses sustainability, which has become a dominant idea within environmental studies and agrarian political philosophy.

In this second edition of The Spirit of the Soil: Agriculture and Environmental Ethics, Paul B. Thompson reviews four worldviews that shape competing visions for agriculture. Productionists have sought increasing yields—to make two seeds grow where only one grew before—while traditional visions of good farming have stressed stewardship. These traditional visions have been challenged by two more worldviews: a call for a total cost accounting for farming and an advocacy for a holistic perspective. Thompson argues that an environmentally defensible systems approach must draw upon all four worldviews, recognizing their flaws and synthesizing their strengths in a new vision of sustainable agriculture. This classic 1995 study has been thoroughly revised and significantly expanded in its second edition with up-to-date examples of agriculture’s impact on the environment. These include extensive discussions of new pesticides and the effects of animal agriculture on climate and other areas of the environment. In addition, a new final chapter discusses sustainability, which has become a dominant idea within environmental studies and agrarian political philosophy.

Agrifood biotechnology -- the genetic transformation of plants and animals through recombinant means -- has created controversy in the food system for more than twenty years. This thoroughly revised and amended edition of Paul B. Thompson's path breaking study of ethical and philosophical issues raised by this technology up to date. The original 1997 edition was the first book length treatment by a philosopher to focus on food and agricultural biotechnology, covering ethical issues associated with risk assessment, labelling, animal transformation, patents, and the impact of biotechnology on traditional farming communities in both the developed and developing world. The new edition reflects lessons from the hotly contested debates over those issues in the intervening decade, and includes wholly new discussions on ethical issues associated with livestock cloning, the Precautionary Principle, and the transatlantic debate between United States and European perspectives on biotechnology.Thompson's unique and insightful approach to addressing the risks and questions of public acceptability associated with novel technology stands as a model for anyone interested in technological innovation and social change.The book should be of interest to scholars and citizens interested in the Internet or nanotechnology, while it remains an essential resource for understanding the twists and turns of debate over the role of molecular genetics in the transformation of the global food system.

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.

This book brings together agricultural ethics scholars from the US, Japan and Taiwan to discuss crucial issues in agricultural ethics and sustainability ethics in comparative context.

This 3rd edition of Food and Agricultural Biotechnology in Ethical Perspective updates Thompson’s analysis to reflect the next generation of biotechnology, including synthetic biology, gene editing and gene drives.

This 3rd edition of Food and Agricultural Biotechnology in Ethical Perspective updates Thompson’s analysis to reflect the next generation of biotechnology, including synthetic biology, gene editing and gene drives.

This open access collection of new interdisciplinary essays discusses philosophical and social implications of new biotechnologies, methods, and tools used in agriculture from a multispecies perspective. Contributors employ philosophy, sociology, and history of agriculture; agricultural ethics; philosophy of science; and science and technology studies to investigate agricultural research, farming practice, and agricultural policy. Chapters explore and critically discuss how mechanical, chemical, and genetic interventions reshape ecological relationships and agricultural knowledge by relying on case studies of interspecies interactions across different agriculturalized landscapes. These include careful examinations of the nature of dynamic causal relationships across microbial, macrobial, megaflora and faunal organismal communities; exploration of specific coevolved species of pollinators and field crops; and analyses of the epistemic and normative commitments that guide crop management decisions and shape methodological choices leading to the reengineering of land use. These analyses and case studies are intended to provide readers with a variety of conceptual tools through which the use of agricultural technologies might possibly be understood and debated.

This book brings together agricultural ethics scholars from the US, Japan and Taiwan to discuss crucial issues in agricultural ethics and sustainability ethics in comparative context.  Agricultural ethics and sustainability ethics are wide-ranging and closely linked to environmental ethics, bioethics, virtue ethics, animal welfare, soil conservation, not to mention rural traditions and lifestyles.  Six of the chapters cover historical traditions and values in Europe, the US and East Asia.  Four of the chapters cover the role of virtue ethics in the analysis of agrarian and environmental ethics, agricultural biotechnology, food ethics, and alternative agriculture, respectively.  Finally, two of the chapters cover field efforts of agricultural ethics involving preserving agricultural heritage and building consensus for sustainable farming, respectively.  Although the papers are divided into three groups, their contents are interconnected and mutually informative.

Agrifood biotechnology – the genetic transformation of plants and animals through recombinant means – has created controversy in the food system for more than twenty years. This thoroughly revised and amended edition of Paul B. Thompson’s path breaking study of ethical and philosophical issues raised by this technology up to date. The original 1997 edition was the first book length treatment by a philosopher to focus on food and agricultural biotechnology, covering ethical issues associated with risk assessment, labelling, animal transformation, patents, and the impact of biotechnology on traditional farming communities in both the developed and developing world. The new edition reflects lessons from the hotly contested debates over those issues in the intervening decade, and includes wholly new discussions on ethical issues associated with livestock cloning, the Precautionary Principle, and the transatlantic debate between United States and European perspectives on biotechnology. Thompson’s unique and insightful approach to addressing the risks and questions of public acceptability associated with novel technology stands as a model for anyone interested in technological innovation and social change. The book should be of interest to scholars and citizens interested in the Internet or nanotechnology, while it remains an essential resource for understanding the twists and turns of debate over the role of molecular genetics in the transformation of the global food system.

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.