ABSTRACT
Critics of agriculture and agricultural research often question the effort to improve productivity and efficiency in farm production with respect to impacts upon environmental quality and the animals involved in dairy, beef, and poultry operations. Criticism of yield-enhancing agricultural research can be based upon the belief that alleged efficiencies are false when long-term resource costs are included in a factor analysis. Alternatively, the environmentalist may believe that destruction of habitat is always wrong, without regard to production economies, and the animal rights activist may believe that suffering should be minimized wherever it occurs (whether in human or non-human animals), even when it is not cost-effective from a production standpoint. The alternative arguments may be based on the judgment that nonhuman animals (and even ecosystems) have moral value or rights similar to those of humans. The goal of this chapter is to identify and differentiate some of the main themes in and implications of the ethical judgments that underlie the environmentalist and animal rights criticisms of agriculture and agricultural research.
