Paul Thompson

Professor of philosophy, W.K. Kellogg Chair in Agricultural, Food and Community Ethics

Presentation: Harnessing Agriculture for Energy: What Are the Ethical Issues?

When: 1:45-4:45 p.m. Friday, February 15

Abstract: Using land for biofuels creates pressure that has to be thought through ethically on two fronts—displacing land used for agrifood production and displacing land used for nature. In the case of agrifood production, there are some important ways such issues are debated. One point of view comes from a “God’s eye” perspective that looks at society and counts numbers—it focuses on the aggregate, not individuals. This often makes it easier to rationalize tradeoffs, particularly if the upshot of the tradeoff is that more people are fed than before. The other point of view stresses individual rights and sees anything that deprives one person of food as ethically problematic, even if the upshot of the tradeoff is that—in the long run—more people get fed. In the case of nature, the boundaries are very ambiguous. Some people see farms as a part of nature—they provide a particular kind aesthetic look and connect people to nature by providing the opportunity to, for example, go to the local farmers’ market or buy things directly from farmers. On the other hand, there is the view that farms really aren’t a part of nature. For them, nature is about national parks and wildlife areas. Although this doesn’t necessarily encompass crop-based biofuels, it does include issues—such as cellulosic biofuels created from timber in forestlands—that can prove ethically controversial. A political conversation is needed to sort out, as a society how we feel about the boundary between farms and nature as well as nature and biofuels. A democratic version of biofuels will require that the construction of pasts and futures for biofuels be done in forums that are open to all and where participants are willing to take each other’s ideas seriously. It is within such forums that the two approaches identified in this can be followed up in the most promising and helpful manner.