Animal ethics is a big part of food ethics, as our diets on a global level consist increasingly of animals. Even though the increasing demand for animal food products is especially strong in developing countries, most of the ethical theorizing on animal ethics focuses on western practices. This paper examines moral theorizing on animal vs environmental ethics in the Chinese context. It pays special attention to the concept of “wildness” as a possible bridge between animal and environmental ethics and highlights how this notion becomes ambiguous in practice. We show that the ethical concepts and dilemmas of classical animal ethics are applicable to the novel case of China as well, but that is important to consider specific cultural and policy practices. Furthermore, we use the political context of Chinese wildlife regulation to show the difficulties of the application of the notion of wildness in practice.
This paper examines the ethics of wastewater governance in the Philippines through the lenses of epistemic justice and integral ecology. Urban wastewater management is linked to food production and environmental fairness, yet these links receive little attention in agricultural ethics research. Drawing on case studies from the Philippines and other countries, the paper explores how wastewater governance decisions affect farming communities, food availability, and human dignity. Three analytical contributions are developed. First, the paper argues that localized wastewater-to-agriculture systems can serve as ethical infrastructure for food justice, but only when they are governed to protect the communities they serve. Second, it shows that epistemic justice and shared knowledge-building between technical experts and farming communities are necessary conditions for ethical governance. Third, it establishes that food safety and food justice are inseparable. The paper also examines phosphorus recovery from wastewater as a matter of fairness to future generations, and closes with a research agenda grounded in the paper's normative framework.
According to the neo-Schumpeterian mission-oriented innovation policy framework, innovation efforts are to be aligned with public values. This implies that innovation policy should ensure that the direction of innovation is aligned with non-economic values and goals. Through conceptual analyses of value and sustainability theories and Schumpeterian conceptions of value that undergird the mission-oriented policy approach, this article uses the case of seaweed innovation in Norway to discuss the role of values and value change in public-private innovation efforts in a context of mission-oriented innovation. In this case, innovation involves giving determinate meaning to concepts such as “sustainability”. Acts of giving meaning to values reside neither fully in top-down direction setting nor bottom-up experimentation. The theory of mission-oriented innovation needs to take into account how innovation can be aligned with values that are subject to change.
Alternative protein (AP) has been heralded as a sustainable, healthy, and ethical food option. While the market expanded significantly across Euro-American countries from the 2010s, the dynamics of Asian markets—where meat alternatives have long been embedded in culinary traditions—remain underexplored. This article examines the AP sector in Japan, a market shaped by distinct socio-cultural and politico-economic conditions, and investigates the values surrounding AP products. We analysed companies with products available to general consumers and conducted discourse analysis of their publicly available materials to identify the values embodied in these products. The findings reveal that both established food companies and startups are active in Japan's AP market, with products tending toward prepared, deli-style foods. Notably, environmental and animal welfare values featured less prominently in Japanese AP discourse compared to Euro-American counterparts. The article also examines diverging aesthetic frameworks. In the US, alternative meat authenticity is constructed through sensory resemblance to "real meat"—aroma, texture, and colour. Japanese aesthetics, by contrast, draw on the traditional concept of "mitate"—a sensibility rooted not merely in imitation, but in finding value in the unexpected juxtaposition of the similar and the different. This is exemplified in traditional Buddhist cuisine, where plant-based proteins are crafted to evoke fish and meat through deliberate culinary technique rather than straightforward replication. The article explores how this distinct aesthetic tradition may influence—or holds potential to reshape—the contemporary alternative meat market in Japan.
Dominant development paradigms remain largely anthropocentric, positioning the natural environment as a passive resource rather than an active participant in development. This study analyses Indigenous environmental ethics as a decolonial framework for reconfiguring human-environment relations. Drawing on insights from Birchenough Bridge and Honde Valley in Zimbabwe, the study employs a collaborative Indigenous research methodology involving purposive and relational sampling, engaging 29 participants in Birchenough Bridge and nine in Honde Valley. Data were generated through walking discussions, storytelling, environmental observations, site visits, and co-analysis. The findings show that the environment functions as a moral agent shaping human behaviour through relational reciprocity, ecological restraint, and community governance practices. Environmental elements such as rivers, trees, soils, and seasons informed ethical conduct, risk awareness, and livelihood decisions. At the same time, the erosion of these ethics through commercialisation, religious shifts, and environmental exploitation reveals tensions between Indigenous moral systems and contemporary development pressures. The study further demonstrates how Indigenous environmental ethics contribute to advancing the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly those related to environmental justice and sustainability. It also highlights implications for eco-social policy, calling for frameworks that recognise the environment as a co-participant in development processes.
Animal ethicists disagree as to whether animals have an interest in liberty, or control over their own lives. In one perspective, most nonhuman animals have no such interest, as they are not autonomous persons who frame, revise, and pursue their own conception of the good. If true, there is nothing wrong with their confinement, ownership, or use so long as this does not result in suffering or death. After first explaining this view, I will show that it is unconvincing. Drawing on the ethological literature, I suggest instead that the free exercise of agency, or self-willed action, is important to animal well-being, thus grounding a strong interest in liberty—one that, whether instrumental or intrinsic, is fundamental and pervasive. Finally, I argue that respecting animal liberty requires more than releasing them from the most obvious forms of captivity, but requires significant social transformation on at least three levels: the interpersonal, the infrastructural, and the institutional.
The European Union’s energy transition, which targets climate neutrality by 2050, is reshaping landscapes through the rapid expansion of infrastructure for renewable energy. While this transformation’s ecological and technical aspects have been extensively studied, its aesthetic considerations remain undervalued, and are often dismissed as merely subjective. This article argues that aesthetic experiences constitute part of nature’s eudaimonic intrinsic value, and thus carry ethical weight. It examines three approaches to evaluating aesthetic impacts: (1) Landscape Character Assessment (LCA), (2) atmospheric aesthetics, and (3) landscapes as material horizons of meaning. The analysis highlights the limitations of methods that objectify aesthetic experiences, such as LCA, and shows that a synthesis of atmospheric and horizon-of-meaning approaches is especially promising, as it connects embodied, sensory perception with the cultural, historical, and collective dimensions of landscapes’ value. Aesthetic arguments, when properly theorized, can inform democratic deliberations on landscape change, counter accusations of subjectivity, and guide the design of renewable energy projects as integral elements of their surroundings rather than alien impositions. The study concludes that incorporating aesthetic reasoning into sustainable energy transitions strengthens their normative foundations by fostering emotional attachment, cultural integration, and environmentally virtuous dispositions.
Environmental management continues to be shaped by a longstanding epistemological divide between anthropocentric and ecocentric worldviews, a divide that manifests not only in human–nature relations but, more critically, in human–human ideological conflict. While existing theories in environmental ethics, political ecology, and social–ecological systems attempt to reconcile these perspectives, they largely foreground the human–environment binary and pay insufficient attention to conflicts arising from competing value systems among stakeholders themselves. This article introduces the Dialogical Environmental Worldview Integration Model (DEWIM), a conceptual framework designed to bridge these divergent logics by emphasising dialogical, relational, and ethical mediation between worldviews. DEWIM argues that sustainability challenges particularly in contexts involving Indigenous custodians and state or industry actors emerge not simply from differing ontological orientations toward nature but from unresolved ideological negotiations between groups who prioritise different moral, cultural, and utilitarian claims. Through its emphasis on dialogical ethics, epistemic reflexivity, and relational accountability, DEWIM offers a novel lens for rethinking governance, environmental education, and conservation practice. The framework is especially relevant for contexts such as peatland management in Pahang and community-based forest governance in Southeast Asia, where human–human ideological tensions shape ecological outcomes as significantly as biophysical factors. By repositioning ethical negotiation at the centre of environmental decision-making, DEWIM provides a transformative pathway for more just, inclusive, and culturally attuned sustainability practice.
Agricultural engineering occupies a distinctive position among engineering disciplines because it directly intervenes in living systems, ecological processes, and food production infrastructures. Such interventions generate ethical challenges that cannot be adequately addressed through models of engineering focused solely on technical efficiency, regulatory compliance, or economic optimization. This article develops a conceptual framework for understanding agricultural engineering as a responsibility-oriented professional practice structured by the interaction of three dimensions: work, measurement, and stewardship of living systems. Drawing on environmental ethics, philosophy of technology, and engineering ethics, the analysis argues that responsibility in agricultural engineering is enacted primarily through situated professional work requiring practical judgment under conditions of ecological variability and uncertainty. Measurement and metrology are interpreted not merely as technical instruments but as normative structures that establish operational limits and enable accountable intervention. Stewardship is proposed as the orienting ethical horizon linking technical practice to long-term ecological sustainability and social responsibility. By articulating these interrelated dimensions, the article contributes to current debates on responsible innovation, professional judgment, and the governance of socio-technical systems engaged with life processes. The proposed framework clarifies how responsibility can remain operational in contemporary agricultural engineering despite increasing automation, digitalization, and institutional complexity, and offers a basis for future work in engineering education, professional ethics, and sustainability-oriented technological development.
This study explores animal research professionals’ attitudes toward the 3R principles (i.e., 3R: replacement, reduction, and refinement of the use of animals in research) using an experimental ethics approach. A thought experiment involving a superior extraterrestrial alien species conducting research on humans according to 3R was presented to 13 Swiss-based animal research professionals (i.e., researchers using animals, veterinarians, animal welfare officers, 3R coordinators, animal science trainers, and members of animal experimentation commissions) during qualitative semi-structured interviews. Participants were asked to reflect on whether the aliens’ research is justified, as well as on the extent to which 3R is the right framework for it. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Participants revealed a spectrum of attitudes, ranging from ambivalent acceptance to outright rejection of “3R for humans”. Key themes included concerns about legitimacy, consent, and power asymmetry, as well as anthropocentric and speciesist attitudes. These findings support previously identified concerns about the limitations of 3R and show that professionals also recognize these challenges when reflecting on the issue using a role-reversal thought experiment. This underscores the ongoing need to advance ethical frameworks in animal research, expanding beyond 3R to incorporate broader moral considerations. Ultimately, our findings suggest that empirical animal ethics, and in particular thought experiments of this kind, offers a promising route to fostering ethical reflection and reform.
The global food system is facing a profound ethical crisis characterized by the coexistence of hunger and waste, the depletion of resources, loss of biodiversity, and the systemic exploitation of animals. This study argues that the dominant anthropocentric and technocratic approaches in the field of food ethics are inadequate in resolving these structural problems and, in some cases, even reproduce them. The central thesis of the research is that an ecosocialist ethical framework, which fundamentally integrates ecological integrity, social justice, and democratic control, can offer a coherent, transformative, and long-term response to the current food crises. To this end, the article first presents a conceptual critique of human-centered food rights and food security paradigms, revealing how these approaches conceal the fundamental contradictions of the profit-driven industrial-capitalist food regime and legitimize market logic. It then develops a constructive ecosocialist food ethics model based on three fundamental normative criteria: ecological integrity, opposition to commodification, and the defense of the commons, alongside democratic control and food sovereignty. The applicability and analytical power of this theoretical framework are subjected to an in-depth critical analysis through the examples of the global peasant movement La Via Campesina and Güneşköy, a local ecovillage initiative from Turkey. The case studies meticulously examine how these movements implement eco-socialist ethical principles in concrete practices, as well as the internal contradictions, external challenges, and potential limitations (e.g., gender dynamics, risk of eco-elitism) they encounter. Ultimately, the study argues that true success in food ethics is only possible through structural transformation, i.e., the simultaneous and sustainable achievement of ecological integrity, social justice, animal welfare, and cultural appropriateness, rather than merely increasing production quantities or meeting minimum safety conditions. This article aims to make a unique and critical contribution to the field by bringing ecosocialist theory into contemporary food ethics debates.
The felling of the Sycamore Gap tree resulted in a passionate public response, which offers a window into public attitudes of care about the natural environment. The response, however, was inconsistent with other recent tree-loss events, in terms of both magnitude and strength of feeling. To better understand this inconsistency and its consequences, an analysis of public responses to the Sycamore Gap event, and other comparative tree-loss events, has been performed. This reveals that the expressions particularly convey moral sentiments concerning the instrumental and aesthetic value of the tree, with little recognition of intrinsic value. Following an environmental care ethics approach, I argue that these responses don’t reflect an authentic care about nature but instead a desire to care about nature. The absence of an appropriate appreciation of the non-anthropocentric identity of nature results in an epistemically-constrained ethical response, reduced individual agency, and thus limited environmental responsiveness.
Most ethicists defending cellular agriculture draw upon consequentialism or deontology. There has been no thoroughgoing virtue-ethical defence. In this paper, I explore three sets of reasons that the virtue ethicist could draw upon to suggest that virtuous individuals would support a cultivated meat industry. First, compassion and honesty might speak in favour of cultivated meat as well as (or even instead of) vegetarianism. Second, understandingness and hospitableness might speak in favour of supporting cultivated meat for others. Third, openness and grace might speak against being a picky eater, and consequently, on balance, in favour of a diet containing cultivated meat.
An increasing number of authors are proposing that we have a moral obligation to conduct large scale systemic interventions into ecosystems to ameliorate wild animal suffering not caused by humans. I will call this position ‘Wild animal suffering interventionism’ (WASI). I will not challenge that WASI is ‘good in theory’ within utilitarian and rights-based animal ethics. I will focus on Delon and Purves’s argument against the justifiability of WASI interventions in the foreseeable future, arguing that it fails. Such interventions are unjustifiable in the foreseeable future but not for the reasons they think. To argue this, I show that Delon and Purves’s argument implies that WASI is ambivalent regarding ecosystem destruction. I also show that WASI has a strong motivation to justify ecological destruction, as wild animals suffering cannot be significantly ameliorated in ecology without destroying the ecosystem. This makes it plausible to propose that some WASI interventions can have a predictable and positive effect on WAS, namely those that intentionally reduce wild animal populations through ecosystem destruction. We would be then placed to govern smaller wild animal populations effectively, significantly reducing wild animals suffering. This means that WASI faces a trade-off between the welfare of present generations of animals and the welfare of future generations of animals. I show why this trade-off is unjustified through McMahan’s population ethics-informed deontic framework. Therefore, WASI interventions, in having to cause ecological destruction, are unjustifiable for the foreseeable future.
Research that harms animals raises the question of whether and how science should be transformed over time. To helpfully address this issue, ethical guidance needs to be sensitive both to ideals and to real-world constraints. This paper provides a structured approach based on Rawls’s notions of ideal and nonideal theory. First, ideal animal research ethics needs to account for just relations between the polity, the scientific community, and animals, discounting non-compliance and unfavorable circumstances. Second, nonideal theory compares a particular context to the ideal, identifies key obstacles, formulates candidate policies, and evaluates those policies from moral, political, and practical perspectives. This approach has the practical advantage of providing ethical action-guidance in context. It also has the theoretical advantage of forcing us to make our normative and empirical assumptions explicit, which helps in improving arguments through debate and understanding entrenched disagreements.
Water is the main limiting factor in terms of quantity and quality in agricultural production. The sharp decline in groundwater resources due to inappropriate farming practices, over-exploitation, and Water crisis operators’ lack of seriousness will aggravate the crisis. This may ultimately lead to water panic. The main objective of the research is to study the factors that influence water ethics from farmers’ perspective. Through library-based research methods research indicators and variables were identified and a questionnaire was designed to collect the required data. Out of a total statistical population of 17,450 farmers in Lordegan Township, 219 farmers were selected using the Cochran formula and a multi-stage random sampling method. The results of the study showed that the farmers who were studied had a high average age and were illiterate. Farmers were also familiar with ethical principles and believed that these principles were well known. Although farmers knew that water extraction from underground aquifers was unethical, in reality, more than half of them performed this type of harvesting. In general, it can be said that there is a gap between the value and practice of ethical principles, a gap that is itself controversial. The results of the present study can help to better understand the reasons behind farmers’ behavior when facing water ethics principles. This study identified the factors affecting water ethics principles from the perspective of farmers The most important factors in observing the principles of water consumption are individual characteristics Social participation shows individuals’ willingness to participate in group problem-solving and information exchange Collective sense and identity can help to consolidate the foundations of water ethics in society Promoting water resources management activities by farmers is essential to achieve sustainable development
China is the origin of cultivated soybeans. Over millennia of agricultural history, ancient Chinese leveraged the multi-function of soybeans to develop a plant-based civilization, which maximized the support for population growth and social stability on limited arable land. However, in recent decades, with the significant increase in meat consumption, soybeans have witnessed a transition in their primary role in China, from a staple in the human diet to a source for animal feed and oil, which has led to a rapid increase in demand for soybeans. Today, China has become the world’s largest soybean importer, with annual imports accounting for approximately 60
In contemporary agriculture, the paramount challenge lies in feeding an ever-growing global population while concurrently mitigating the impacts of climate change. Over recent decades, precision agriculture has emerged as solution to this challenge, utilizing advanced technologies to monitor to the specific needs of individual plants and animals. Alongside these high expectations, several concerns have been raised regarding precision farming. These concerns span various kinds of social structures, including impacts on individual farmers and farming globally. Concerns that have received less attention so far are related to meta-physical structures. Meta-physical structures are foundational structures that pertain to how we understand and experience the world—what we take to be self-evident. For instance, how we automatically distinguish between crops and weeds, even though there is no inherent difference. There are strong indications that the focus of the farmer from direct observation to digital screens will change the farmer’s experience of fields, plants, and animals. Since this is about what we regard as self-evident, it is very difficult to reverse course once these structures have changed. Therefore, it is crucial to reflect on these structures early in the development of precision farming. Currently, there is no established method to relate meta-physical structures with concrete practices such as precision farming. Therefore, a method to reflect on meta-physical structures will be developed in this paper and applied to precision farming. The evolutionary perspective of Gilbert Simondon will be proposed as a basis for this method.
One of the most challenging decisions that veterinarians and animal owners face is whether to treat or kill diseased or injured animals. While this decision is hard in any setting, it is pronounced in the context of farm animals, where the sheer number of animals amplifies the frequency of such decision-making. In Germany, animal welfare laws protect both the well-being and the life of the animal. However, these two protected goods can become mutually exclusive at times, for instance, when the animal’s well-being has deteriorated or is assumed to be deteriorating to a point where it becomes questionable if an extension in lifetime is in the animal’s best interest. In such cases, where inaction is ethically and legally untenable, animal owners and veterinarians must make a decision that considers not only the medical circumstances but also the moral and legal demands of the situation, in addition to the sometimes-opposing interests of the different stakeholders (animal, animal owner, veterinarian). To address this problem, we developed a decision-making tool and visualisations that help navigate the ethical dimension of these decisions. These tools can serve as a means for reflection about one’s own decision-making. Moreover, results serve as a precursor for developing more ambitious and holistic decision-making tools aiming to provide practical, medically and ethically sound recommendations. Notably, the aim of our decision-making tool and the ethical analysis is not to replace the individual decision-making process of the animal owner or veterinarian; it is to supplement it by providing structure and perspective.
The UK has seen a significant increase in the number of fatal dog attacks on humans in the last few years. A breed of dog called the American Bully has been involved in more than half of them. This has led the UK government to ban the breed. Several cities and counties in North America have also enacted bans on pit bulls. These policies are instances of ‘Breed Specific Legislation” (BSL). In this paper I investigate the ethics of BSL. I argue that a ban on dangerous dog breeds can be justified if it is implemented without significantly harming any currently existing dogs. My aim is to show that even defenders of animals can endorse a well-implemented ban. First, a ban on dangerous breeds protects not only humans, but domesticated animals, who have a right to our protection. Second, I will argue that dog breeding ought to be constrained by a principle of procreative altruism, and breeding dangerous dogs violates this principle. Finally, though there is some value in preserving dog breeds, it is much less than the value of preserving species, and common objections to eliminating species don’t apply to dog breeds.
