Agro-Ethics: Extension, Research, and Teaching

Student unrest and the dissatisfaction of ac- literature of economics and philosophic value tivists with the performance of "the establish- theory includes such scholars as Adam Smith, ment" shook our society to its roots in the late John S. Mill, Henry Sidgwick, Jeremy Bentham, 1960s and early 1970s, as underlying values and Karl Marx, and Vilfredo Pareto. Currently, accepted concepts of right and wrong were crit- Nobel Laureate Kenneth Arrow can claim icized. Agriculture did not escape and is still philosophic status on the basis of his work on widely criticized. Agro-ethics was born. Phrases social choices and individual preferences, while sufficient to indicate the extent of the current the late C. I. Lewis, Professor Emeritus at Colconcern about agro-ethics include: animal rights, umbia University, could have been classified as environmental ethics, recombinant DNA, hard an economist because of his conception of righttomatoes/hard times, the export of our soil, ness as optimal and wrongness as non-optimal. energy ethics, Nestle and the multi-nationals, Land-grant universities and their colleges of feeding the world's hungry, the plight of the agriculture accept responsibility for producing small farm, helping the poorest of the poor, useful information and even recommendations farmer-adapted technology, small is beautiful, for solutions for practical problems facing agand who controls U.S. agriculture. riculture. Thus, agro-ethics, as conceived above, Ethics is conceived here as being evaluative of is an integral part of the activities of land-grant decisions about right and wrong actions and of agricultural colleges. Within these colleges, dedecision processes. It follows, then, that ethics is partments of agricultural economics have a key the study, among other things, of rightness and logical role to play because of the long-standing wrongness as well as goodness and badness and, close connection between economics and the hence, of decisions and decision processes philosophic sub-disciplines of ethics and phil(Runes, p. 98). So conceived, agro-ethics has to osophic value theory. do with the adequacy of information, as well as In this paper, I examine decision making or the appropriateness of rules followed to process problem solving in terms of the kinds of research, information into decisions about what ought or extension, and teaching practical in colleges of ought not to be done about agricultural problems. agriculture, the kinds of knowledge acquired, As such, it is also concerned with knowledge of and the underlying philosophies that facilitate goodness and badness as well as positivistic and/or constrain our agro-ethical activities. The knowledge. Involved, in addition, are ethical third quarter or so of this paper discusses considerations of the appropriateness of decision mobilizing and accounting for support, leading, rules, including sub-decisions about which rule and supervising, and reviewing and evaluating ought or ought not to be used. such activities; in short, it deals with administraAgro-ethics could also involve a code of con- tion. The paper concludes with a short summary duct for agriculturalists such as has developed of requirements for improving decision-making for the legal and medical professions. While such (agro-ethical) research, extension, and teaching codes are important, this paper deals with an in colleges of agriculture. equally or more important role for ethics-that of clarifying what various value theories and philosophies of science have to say about making