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30Pragmatism and policy: The case of waterIn Andrew Light & Eric Katz (eds.), Environmental Pragmatism, Routledge. pp. 187--208. 1996.
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30Uncertainty Arguments in Environmental IssuesEnvironmental Ethics 8 (1): 59-75. 1986.A large part of environmental policy is based upon scientific studies ofthe likely health, safety, and ecological consequences of human actions and practices. These studies, however, are frequently vulnerable to epistemological and methodological criticisms which challenge their validity. Epistemological criticisms can be used in ethical and political philosophy arguments to challenge the applicability of scientific knowledge to environmental policy, and, in turn, to challenge the democratic bas…Read more
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29Agrarianism and the American philosophical traditionAgriculture and Human Values 7 (1): 3-8. 1990.
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27Science policy and moral purity: The case of animal biotechnologyAgriculture and Human Values 14 (1): 11-27. 1997.Public controversy over animalbiotechnology is analyzed as a case that illustratestwo broad theoretical approaches for linking science,political or ethical theory, and public policy. Moralpurification proceeds by isolating the social,environmental, animal, and human health impacts ofbiotechnology from each other in terms of discretecategories of moral significance. Each of thesecategories can also be isolated from the sense inwhich biotechnology raises religious or metaphysicalissues. Moral puri…Read more
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27Thinking About Thinking About TechnologyTechné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 5 (1): 29-34. 2000.
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26Machines, Watersheds, and SustainabilityThe Pluralist 11 (1): 110-116. 2016.brook muller begins his contribution to the Coss Dialogues by contesting and at least partially deconstructing Le Corbusier’s aphorism “a house is a machine for living.” He then trades upon an ambiguity that masks the difference between watersheds that mark an important transition from one phase to another and those that are defined by the drainage area associated with a body of water. The 2015 Coss Dialogues took place in the watershed of the Grand River, which extends from its southeast limit …Read more
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25Carolyn Raffensperger and Joel tickner, eds., Protecting public health and the environment: Implementing the precautionary principle (review)Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 14 (3): 351-354. 2001.
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25Ruth Schwartz Cowan, A Social History of Technology (review)Agriculture and Human Values 17 (4): 409-410. 2000.This book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date one-volume history of American technology from the pre-colonial period to the present day. Cowan writes clearly. Each chapter has a clear take-home message illustrated and amplified with straightforward, easily understood examples.
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25Crossing species boundaries is even more controversial than you thinkAmerican Journal of Bioethics 3 (3). 2003.This Article does not have an abstract
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23The Structure of Biological TheoriesState University of New York Press. 1989.The central thesis of this book is that the semantic conception is a logical methodologically and heuristically richer and more accurate account of scientific theorizing, and in particular of theorizing in evolutionary biology, than the ...
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21Agricultural ethics: then and nowAgriculture and Human Values 32 (1): 77-85. 2015.This paper was written to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the University of Nottingham’s Easter School on “Issues in Agricultural Bioethics,” organized by Ben Mepham in 1993. At that time, agricultural ethics was being envisioned as an interdisciplinary sub-discipline comparable to that of medical ethics. Agricultural ethicists would co-operate with other agricultural faculty to produce careful articulation, analysis and critique of norms and values being implicitly assumed by agricultural r…Read more
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20Agricultural ethics: research, teaching, and public policyIowa State University Press. 1998.Presents a collection of essays written over a period of 15 years by agricultural ethicist Paul B. Thompson. The essays address the practical application of ethics to agriculture in a world faced with issues of increased yield, threatened environment, and the disappearance of the family farm.
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19The first European congress on agricultural and food ethics and follow-up workshop on ethics and food biotechnology: A US perspective (review)Agriculture and Human Values 17 (4): 327-332. 2000.The first European Congress on Agriculturaland Food Ethics was held at Wageningen University andResearch Center (WUR), Wageningen, The Netherlands, March 4–6, 1999. This was the inaugural conference forthe newly forming European Society for Agricultural andFood Ethics – EUR-SAFE – and around two hundredpeople from across Europe (and a handful of NorthAmericans) participated. Following theCongress/conference, a small (16 people), two-dayworkshop funded in part by the US National ScienceFoundation…Read more
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18Sharing the Earth: The Rhetoric of Sustainable Development by Tarla Rae Peterson (review)Agriculture and Human Values 17 (4): 407-408. 2000.
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18Food Biotechnology's Challenge to Cultural Integrity and Individual ConsentHastings Center Report 27 (4): 34-39. 1997.Consumer response to genetically altered foods has been mixed in the United States. While transgenic crops have entered the food supply with little comment, other foods, such as the bioengineered tomato, have caused considerable controversy. Objections to genetically engineered food are varied, ranging from the religious to the aesthetic. One need not endorse these concerns to conclude that food biotechnology violates procedural protections of consumer sovereignty and religious liberty. Consumer…Read more
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16Conceptual and Logical Aspects of the ‘New’ Evolutionary EpistemologyCanadian Journal of Philosophy 18 (sup1): 235-253. 1988.
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16Gail M. Hollander: Raising Cane in the 'glades: The global sugar trade and the transformation of Florida' (review)Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 22 (6): 615-616. 2009.
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15The GMO Quandary and What It Means for Social PhilosophySocial Philosophy Today 30 7-27. 2014.Agricultural crops developed using the tools of genetic engineering have become socially institutionalized in three ways that substantially compromise the inherent potential of plant transformation tools. The first is that when farming depends upon debt finance, farmers find themselves in a competitive situation such that efficiency-enhancing technology fuels a trend of bankruptcy and increasing scale of production. As efficiency increasing tools, GMOs are embedded in controversial processes of …Read more
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15A Social History of American Technology by Ruth Schwartz Cowan (review)Agriculture and Human Values 17 (4): 409-410. 2000.Book review, feminist history of technology
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14Report of the nabc ad-hoc committee on ethicsJournal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 10 (2): 105-125. 1997.1. Each NABC member institutions should ensure that subject matter on ethical issues associated with food and agricultural biotechnology is systematically integrated into the curriculum of their institution. The pattern of implementation will vary a teach institution, but we expect that some combination of the following three strategies will be employed at most institutions. a) Modules Included in Basic and Applied Science Courses b) Modules Included in General Courses on Applied Ethics c) Speci…Read more
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14Privacy and the Urinalysis Testing of AthletesJournal of the Philosophy of Sport 9 (1): 60-65. 1982.No abstract
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14The Social Goals of Agriculture from Thomas Jefferson to the 21st CenturyAgriculture and Human Values 3 (4): 32-42. 1986.An analysis of social goals for agriculture presupposes an account of systematic interactions among economic, political, and ecological forces that influence the performance of agriculture in a given society. This account must identify functional performance criteria that lend themselves to interpretation as normative or ethical goals. Individuals who act within the system pursue personal goals. Although individual acts and decisions help satisfy functional performance criteria, individuals may …Read more
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14Author Meets Critics: Paul Thompson, The Spirit of the Soil, 2nd EdEthics, Policy and Environment 25 (2): 194-223. 2022.Clark WolfDepartment of Philosophy & Religious Studies,Iowa State UniversityPaul Thompson’s Spirit of the Soil was groundbreaking when it appeared in 1995, and has aged remarkably well. The substan...
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14The Agrarian Roots of Pragmatism (edited book)Vanderbilt University Press. 2000.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 th…Read more
East Lansing, Michigan, United States of America
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