Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 
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This is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader or to display this data on your own website or blog.Should Scientific Research Involving Decapod Crustaceans Require Ethical Review?
AbstractDecapod crustaceans are faceless animals with five pairs of legs, an external skeleton and multiple nerve centres (ganglia) rather than a single brain (as in vertebrates). They include common seafood species such as crayfish, crabs, lobsters, prawns and shrimp. These characteristics make them difficult to empathise with and consequently legal protection of decapods ranges from strong (Norway and New Zealand), through circumstantial (Australia and Italy) to non-existent (in many other countries). Whether they are capable of experiencing pain depends on definitions and the requirement for absolute proof of an inheren...
Source: Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics - October 22, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Technocratic Management Versus Ethical Leadership Redefining Responsible Professionalism in the Agri-Food Sector in the Anthropocene
AbstractIn this contribution, we argue that three related developments provide economic, environmental and social challenges and opportunities for a new responsible professionalism in the food chain: (1) the Anthropocene; (2) the bio-based economy; (3) Precision Livestock Farming. These three interrelated developments indicate a transition in the way we understand the role and function of the food chain on the micro-, the meso- and the macro-level. This transition can be understood in two fundamental different ways, namely either as an extension of technocratic management beyond the micro level to the meso- and macro-level...
Source: Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics - October 11, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Advancing Food Sovereignty Through Interrogating the Question: What is Food Sovereignty?
AbstractThe topic of food sovereignty has received ample attention from philosophers and interdisciplinary scholars, from how to conceptualize the term to how globalization shapes it, and several areas in between. This bounty of research informs us about food sovereignty ’s practical dimensions, but the theoretical realm still has lessons to teach us, especially how to develop action-based guides to achieve it. This paper is an exploration in that direction. To have that effect, the author interrogates the question, “what is food sovereignty?”, through asking about its motivations, scale, and the answers that will in...
Source: Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics - October 10, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
The Edge of “Animal Rights”
AbstractA central task of environmental ethics, which have been arising since 1960s, is to extend the objects of moral concern beyond the individuals ofHomo sapiens. (Here, it involves the issue of the boundary of environmental ethics. In a narrow sense, an environmental ethic must grant moral concern to holistic environmental objects (such as ecosystems). On the other hand, if we broadly define the environmental ethic as an ethic that shows moral concern not limited toHomo sapiens and its individuals only, then, these “generalized” environmental ethics include Peter Singer’s “animal liberation” and Tom Regan’s...
Source: Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics - September 8, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Is there a Relation Between Ecological Practices and Spirituality? The Case of Benedictine Monasteries
AbstractFor decades there has been a controversial debate over how far religious faith communities are specifically engaged in ecological practices (EP). Therefore we studied four Austrian and two German Benedictine monasteries religious ethics and spirituality as a means of a driving force for initiating EP. We draw upon theories of organizational learning processes and capacity-building of sustainability to interpret our empirical findings. The majority of monasteries are highly engaged in EP, initiated either as an outcome of individual activities or through a specific mostly informally acting group, but rarely an organ...
Source: Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics - September 8, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
The Edge of “Animal Rights”
AbstractA central task of environmental ethics, which have been arising since 1960s, is to extend the objects of moral concern beyond the individuals ofHomo sapiens. (Here, it involves the issue of the boundary of environmental ethics. In a narrow sense, an environmental ethic must grant moral concern to holistic environmental objects (such as ecosystems). On the other hand, if we broadly define the environmental ethic as an ethic that shows moral concern not limited toHomo sapiens and its individuals only, then, these “generalized” environmental ethics include Peter Singer’s “animal liberation” and Tom Regan’s...
Source: Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics - September 8, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Is there a Relation Between Ecological Practices and Spirituality? The Case of Benedictine Monasteries
AbstractFor decades there has been a controversial debate over how far religious faith communities are specifically engaged in ecological practices (EP). Therefore we studied four Austrian and two German Benedictine monasteries religious ethics and spirituality as a means of a driving force for initiating EP. We draw upon theories of organizational learning processes and capacity-building of sustainability to interpret our empirical findings. The majority of monasteries are highly engaged in EP, initiated either as an outcome of individual activities or through a specific mostly informally acting group, but rarely an organ...
Source: Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics - September 8, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Predation Catch-22: Disentangling the Rights of Prey, Predators, and Rescuers
AbstractPredation poses a serious challenge for animal ethics of whatever ilk. For animal rights theory especially, the problem is potentially fatal as animal rights appear to require or permit interfering in nature to prevent predation, an implication that appears to be absurd. Several philosophers have written to deflect this challenge by showing how that implication is not absurd or how the allegedly entailed prescription to intervene does not follow from animal rights theory. A number of philosophers have taken different routes to arrive at the same conclusion that intervention in wildlife predation is not morally perm...
Source: Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics - August 27, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Animal Abolitionism Revisited: Neo-Colonialism and Morally Unjustified Burdens
AbstractBob Fischer has written a reply to my article ‘Animal Abolitionism and ‘Racism without Racists’’. In this article, Fischer contends that my arguments whereby animal abolitionism engages in acts of racism without racists are mistaken. I wish to reply to Fischer’s objections in this article, through four sets of contentions: (1) Fischer ’s arguments reveal some misunderstandings in terms of the concept of racism and, particularly, of ‘racism without racists’; (2) his arguments also underestimate the burdens suffered by individuals who wish to become vegan; (3) Fischer’s views on infantilisation lead...
Source: Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics - August 4, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Food Sovereignty and Gender Justice
AbstractFood sovereignty asserts the right of peoples to define and organize their own agricultural and food systems so as to meet local needs and so as to secure access to land, water and seed. A commitment to gender equity has been embedded in the food sovereignty concept from its earliest articulations. Some might wonder why gender justice should figure so prominently in a food movement. In this paper I review and augment the arguments for making gender equity a central component of food sovereignty. The most common argument is: if women constitute the majority of the world ’s food producers, then agricultural policy ...
Source: Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics - August 4, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
No Room at the Zoo: Management Euthanasia and Animal Welfare
AbstractThe practice of ‘management euthanasia’, in which zoos kill otherwise healthy surplus animals, is a controversial one. The debate over the permissibility of the practice tends to divide along two different views in animal ethics—animal rights and animal welfare. Traditionally, those arguments against the prac tice have come from the animal rights camp, who see it as a violation of the rights of the animal involved. Arguments in favour come from the animal welfare perspective, who argue that as the animal does not suffer, there is no harm in the practice and it is justified by its potential benefits. Here , I ...
Source: Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics - August 3, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Why Milk Consumption is the Bigger Problem: Ethical Implications and Deaths per Calorie Created of Milk Compared to Meat Production
AbstractPictures of sides of beef, hanging from overhead rails in refrigerated warehouses and meat-processing plants, often leave a feeling of unease. These pictures provoke the notion that human beings have no right to inflict suffering and death on other sentient beings for the sole purpose of providing food. However, the ethical analysis conducted in this study shows that meat production, if animal welfare and deaths per calorie created are considered, is less of a pressing problem compared to the production of milk. While meat can be provided with minimal suffering to animals, the consumption of milk is always associat...
Source: Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics - August 2, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
The Danube Region —On Stream with Animal Welfare Assessment in the Last 35 Years: A Review of Research on Animal Welfare Assessment in a Multi-lingual Area in Europe
AbstractThis review presents first ever literature survey on historical development of farm animal welfare indicators and assessment in the Danube region. This area, encompassing European Eastern countries and the Balkans, is to a large extent heterogeneous in terms of culture and language. However, international (English) publications were disproportionally small compared to the amount of research institutions and animal welfare activities present in the region. Therefore, the authors aimed at investigating the published literature, focusing on country level and on native languages. Data were collected for the 1980 –201...
Source: Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics - August 1, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
No Room at the Zoo: Management Euthanasia and Animal Welfare
AbstractThe practice of ‘management euthanasia’, in which zoos kill otherwise healthy surplus animals, is a controversial one. The debate over the permissibility of the practice tends to divide along two different views in animal ethics—animal rights and animal welfare. Traditionally, those arguments against the prac tice have come from the animal rights camp, who see it as a violation of the rights of the animal involved. Arguments in favour come from the animal welfare perspective, who argue that as the animal does not suffer, there is no harm in the practice and it is justified by its potential benefits. Here , I ...
Source: Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics - August 1, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
