Agriculture and Human Values 14: 1–9, 1997.

EDITORIAL

Agriculture and Human Values: Past, present, and future directions

Richard P. HaynesEditor-in-Chief

In the last issue of 1996, I announced that KluwerAcademic Publishers would start publishing Agricultureand Human Values with the first issue of 1997. Withthat announcement I described briefly the interdisciplinarycurriculum development initiatives that eventually led tothe founding of this journal, which was first published asa newsletter (1984), and to the formation of the Agricul-ture, Food, and Human Values Society three years later.Since the current number is the premier issue of Kluwer’spublication of Agriculture and Human Values, I thoughtthat it would be appropriate for me to reflect once moreon the journal’s origins, what it has accomplished duringthe thirteen years that it was published by Agriculture andHuman Values Inc., what its present scope is, and what itsfuture plans are. My final comments will focus on whatthe journal’s publication by Kluwer Academic Publisherswill mean for future readers, authors, and subscribers.

Background of the journal

The first issue of Agriculture and Human Values waspublished as a newsletter in the Winter of 1984. It featuredfive articles that attempted to identify some of the majoragricultural policy issues, reviews of four books that pre-figured the emerging agricultural issues for the 1980s andbeyond, a report on the National Dissemination Confer-ence: Food/Agriculture in the Liberal Arts that was heldat the University of Florida in early January 1984, a listof bibliographies of American agricultural history, and anannotated bibliography of films on food and agriculture.In my editorial, I extended the following invitation.

Readers are invited to submit essays, book reviews,announcements, course syllabi, bibliographies, or briefdiscussions. Letters are welcome! The topics should beof general interest to a broad range of readers in theliberal arts and the agricultural disciplines, and written,so far as possible, for the general reader.

Although the principal focus of this and early subsequentissues was on supporting the development of a broader,interdisciplinary curriculum in the areas where the agri-cultural and liberal arts disciplines should interface, wewere also concerned with defining new areas of scholar-ship and with promoting research in these areas by provid-

ing a forum for its publication. It was this second concernthat led us to change our format from a newsletter focusedmainly on curriculum development to a journal devotedto the publication of ‘cutting edge’ scholarship on agricul-tural/food issues. What was lacking, for the most part, incurrent scholarship on these issues was (1) an investiga-tion of the limitations of economic assessments of agricul-tural policy based on production efficiency goals, (2)input from a broader range of the social sciences besidesagricultural economics, (3) the distinctive perspectivethat the humanities have to offer, (4) attempts to bridgethe continued separation of production from consumptionissues and (5) efforts to bring a concern for ‘externalities’from the area of marginal discourse into mainstream think-ing. As a philosopher, I saw this lack as a failure on the partof the academic community to take greater responsibilityfor defining the moral imperatives of their disciplines aswell as a failure of public policy to take responsibility forthe social costs borne at the expense of a significant sectorof society in order to promote the interests of anothersector. So my original conceptualization of the new areaof research and scholarship that I wanted to help promotewas on the model of professional ethics, conceived of asan area of applied philosophical ethics. In other words,I thought of this new area of research as AgriculturalEthics, so I helped organize two exploratory conferencesin 1982 to try to define the ethical issues that this newarea should attempt to address (Haynes & Lanier 1982).The Center for Values at the University of Delaware hadundertaken a similar effort the year before, except thattheir chief focus was Ethical Issues in Agribusiness, anextension of a field of applied ethics, Business Ethics,that was rapidly emerging at that time, to the agriculturalsector. However, I became increasingly persuaded that itwould be a mistake to focus exclusively on the model ofprofessional ethics or of business ethics for two reasons.

One reason was that much of the work done by profes-sional philosophers in the area of applied ethics used whatI call the ‘moral dilemmas approach’ to ethical issues. Themoral dilemmas approach places the professional withinthe context of their workplace environment and showsthat the basic moral principles to which that professionalis (should be) committed must come into a seemingly irre-solvable conflict in certain situations. These are ethical

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2 RICHARD P. HAYNES

dilemmas just because one must choose between twoethical principles which to compromise. The appliedphilosopher, on this model, seeks to define some moraltheory that justifies ranking ethical principles as to theirpriority when they come into conflict, and then seeks toapply this theory to the cases at hand in order to justifysome choice. What is objectionable about this approach,in my view, is that it assumes as backdrop, the legitimacyof the institutions and their current practices that definethe contexts in which such conflicts arise. What it does notpropose is an analysis of alternative practices that mightavoid such conflicts altogether. In other words, the moraldilemmas approach was not radical enough for my taste.

The second reason that I wanted to avoid focusingexclusively on ethical issues is that, to many at least, thenotion of ethics implies an idea of individual responsi-bility that ignores the structural problems that define thecontexts in which individuals make choices and that limitsthe autonomy of individual actors. I thought that althoughboth the physical and the social sciences were undulycynical in accepting the historic distinction between factsand values, and that philosophers working in the areaof ethics were right in exposing the limitations of thisdistinction and in arguing for a rational basis for ethicaldecision making, I also became persuaded that the rela-tively newly emerging field of the social studies of knowl-edge (of science and technology) was starting to revealboth the background value commitments of the varioussciences, including the humanities, and the distorted viewof their own history that disciplinary texts promoted,again, including the humanities. To reflect this broaderconception of the new field of research that we wantedto help promote, we chose to refer to it as ‘agricultureand human values’ instead of ‘agricultural ethics’, partlyto reflect our sympathy with the approach taken by thepublication Science, Technology, and Human Values, andpartly to emphasize our belief that agricultural practicesreflect value choices, and these choices should be critic-ally examined rather than uncritically assumed.

The emerging field and its issues

The theme of the first number of Agriculture and HumanValues (Winter 1984) was ‘Agricultural policy issues’.The five articles were written by two sociologists (L.Busch & W. Lacy, ‘Agricultural policy: Issues for the1980s and beyond’), a nutritionist (K. Clancy, ‘Humannutrition, agriculture, and human value’), a politicalscientist (D. Hadwiger, ‘Issues in agriculture’), an animalscientist and Dean of a College of Agriculture (H.O.Kunkel, ‘Agricultural ethics, the setting’) and a philoso-pher (W. Aiken, ‘Value conflicts in agriculture’). Thesefive articles make some important claims, I said in myeditorial:

Agricultural policy in the USA for the last decade hasbeen largely ad hoc. Inadequate thought has been givento long-term planning.

In considering long-term goals for agriculture, weshould not let the agricultural sub-government do all ofour thinking for us.

Questions about agricultural policy raise ethicalconsiderations of a serious nature. The issues are com-plex, and they frequently involve conflicts of value andconflicts of interest.

These issues cannot be adequately addressed with-out understanding the settings in which they arise. Andthey cannot be solved without the input from manydifferent disciplines, and orientations, and withoutdialogue.

One of my major roles as editor of this fledgling journalfor the next several years was to promote the type of schol-arship that addressing these issues required and to encour-age those currently engaged in it to submit articles to an asyet unknown forum that had not yet acquired a reputationas an academically respected journal known for its highstandards of scholarship. We should all be grateful to thescholars already working in these areas who graciouslycontributed their time and effort to support the develop-ment of Agriculture and Human Values by contributingessays to help define this field of inquiry. We should alsobe grateful for their vision. However, too few researchersrepresenting only a small number of disciplines werecurrently providing interdisciplinary input to the issuesmentioned above. Getting more disciplines involved andmore dialogue going on was clearly needed. There havebeen obstacles to achieving both of these goals.

The chief obstacle has been the way that research isorganized by disciplines, its merits judged and rewarded,and its goals rather uncritically assumed. Two of thebooks reviewed in the first number of Agriculture andHuman Values identify some of the problems with the wayresearch is organized and rewarded and its major para-digms uncritically accepted (Lawrence Busch & WilliamB. Lacy, Science, agriculture, and the politics of research,Westview Press, 1983; and John H. Perkins, Insects,experts, and the insecticide crisis: The quest for new pestmanagement strategies, Plenum, 1982). Over the last tenyears, we have cast our net widely to include contributionsand perspectives from an increasingly broad spectrum ofdisciplines, both from within and outside of the traditionalcolleges of agriculture. One strategy we have employedto draw in contributors from new disciplines has been toinvite guest editors from various disciplines to develop aspecial issue of the journal on some important topic. Todate we have published special, guest edited issues on thefollowing topics:

Accountability and collaboration in internationaldevelopment (G. Axinn & R. Herisse); Agrarianism andthe American philosophical tradition (P. Thompson);

EDITORIAL 3

Agriculture in Eastern Europe (A. Bonanno); Anachro-nisms or rising stars: The black land grant system inperspective (J. Schor); Animal health technologies andthe Third World (M. Meltzer); Biotechnologies and agri-culture: Technical evolution or revolution (P. Bye & M.Fonte); The continuing challenge of hunger (K. Clancy,J. Poppendieck & J. Powers); The crisis in Europeanagriculture (A. Bonanno); Development pressures andecological constraints: The deltaic forests of India andBangladesh (R. Herring); The human dimensions ofsustainability (J. Burkhardt); The human ecology ofagricultural development: The ethics and rationale ofinternational technical cooperation in agriculture andrural life (G. Axinn); Indigenous agricultural knowl-edge and development (M. Warren); Low-input sustain-able agriculture in Cuba (J. Carney); ‘Participation andempowerment’ in sustainable rural development (L.A.Thrupp); Rural economic development (M. Lapping &H. Jacobs); Value issues in agricultural information (A.Reisner & R. Hays); Women and agriculture (N. Flora);Multi-cultural considerations from cropping to consump-tion (J. Newman).

Other numbers focusing on special topics, withoutguest editors, have also been published, including aspecial number on each of the following: Agriculturalbiotechnology issues; Agriculture and the social sciences;Agriculture in the USA: Its impact on ethnic and otherminority groups; Alternative conceptions and modelsof sustainability; Assessing the agricultural curriculum;Building on local agricultural knowledge; Ethics andvalues in food safety regulation. Five numbers of thejournal featured selected revised papers from conferencesor workshops organized around some special theme.

All of these special issues have served the dual purposeof involving contributors from previously unrepresenteddisciplines, and incorporating a greater variety of disci-plinary perspectives on important issues that need to beaddressed. They have also helped further the practiceof disciplinary self-criticism, of raising intra-disciplinaryvalue issues. Several recurrent themes have emerged inthe development of this new field of inquiry. One themehas been the role that disciplinary autocracy (one versionof technocracy) has played in limiting the effective-ness of democratically-based decision making. An oftenproposed remedy is to develop institutions and practicesthat require otherwise marginalized perspectives to begiven a hearing and taken seriously. This cannot be doneunless disciplinary experts share their own perspectiveswith others in a relatively jargon free prose and are willingto engage their critics dialogically (Longino 1990, 1993).Agriculture and Human Values has contributed to this sortof dialogic discourse by requiring that authors’ prose beintelligible to those outside of the discipline of the author,that often marginalized perspectives be acknowledged,and that value/policy issues or implications be addressed.

Although the above editorial policies have played animportant role in overcoming some of the obstacles tocreating a broader range of perspectives that are beingtaken into consideration in developing long range goalsfor agriculture, several obstacles remain that we havemade less progress is overcoming during our thirteenyears of publication. One obstacle to developing moredialogue among disciplinary perspectives is the appar-ent reluctance of many disciplines within the sciencesto engage in the sort of practice that is endemic to thediscipline of philosophy: that is the practice of engag-ing previously published essays in critical discussion. Myoriginal invitation to potential authors to engage previ-ously published articles in critical discourse has gonelargely ignored. I believe that we have published lessthan half a dozen such pieces in spite of my repeatedpleas for essays for our Discussion Department. Part ofthe reason for this, I suspect, is the publication practicesof many of the sciences, which precludes criticism ofdisciplinary-monitored and peer reviewed publications.The idea seems to be that if a piece of research has passedpeer review and published in a respectable journal of thatdiscipline, then it can be cited but not publicly criticized,or, that a discussion piece focused on criticizing anotherpiece of research is not a serious contribution to scholar-ship. By contrast, such criticism is a fundamental practiceof most of the humanities.

Another obstacle that we have not made adequateprogress in overcoming is the reluctance of those out-side of the humanities to engage in a critical analysisof values. Although a significant degree of progress hasbeen made in challenging the bifurcation of discourseinto facts and values, the ghost of the subjectivity ofvalues and the objectivity of facts still seems to hauntus. It is all too common for our science contributors totreat values as facts about people’s subjective preferencesrather than facts about what people believe to be worth-while and hence subject to critical analysis. In our annualsociety meetings, in spite of our commitment to raisingand addressing value issues, there is not nearly enoughdiscussion either about the values we, as discussants hold,nor about how to critically appraise our values and worktoward the development of a system of values that can beshared by a larger community. Replacing the disciplinaryatomistic approach to the analysis of agricultural policyissues with the conceptual apparatus implied by think-ing of these issues in terms of food systems is a step inthis direction (Kloppenburg et al. 1993). Kate Clancy’sPresidential address to the Agriculture, Food, and HumanValues Society meetings in St Louis last year (which isforthcoming in the next issue of the journal) makes theplea for a greater commitment by the Society to incorpo-rate such discussions, especially at a time when the largersociety is lamenting the loss of community values andshared concern for the issue of justice.

4 RICHARD P. HAYNES

The current number

Clancy’s plea to Society members is to work toward thedevelopment of a philosophy of agriculture that integratesthe disparate activities that fragment our larger society’spopulation into interest groups. Interest groups do notknow how to serve their own interests responsibly becausethey do not experience the connectedness of their activi-ties to the activities of other groups. As educators, it is ourresponsibility not only to make the connections clear, butto offer up a vision of a less fragmented community thatcan be linked to the development of public policy. Instead,as concerned specialists, we have tended to promotesingle issue thinking. Single issue thinking is lamentedby the authors of two of the papers in the current number.In ‘Science policy and moral purity: The case of animalbiotechnology’, Paul B. Thompson equates single issuethinking with the notion of ‘moral purity’. In the caseof animal biotechnology, ‘Moral purification proceeds byisolating the social, environmental, animal, and humanhealth impacts of biotechnology from each other in termsof discrete categories of moral significance’. Moral purifi-cation is an exclusionary strategy maintained alike byscientists and the regulatory bureaucracy that depends onthem:

Seen from one vantage point, the system of purificationestablishes a leviathan of science and government. Thebasic assumptions that partition knowledge also parti-tion government power. Those who do not share thebasic assumptions or who rely on ordinary languagerather than technical definitions of concepts are out-siders. Their arguments have no standing and cannotbe converted into policy by the agencies that have beenestablished with limited mandates. Scientists and scien-tific organizations, in the meantime, have been placedat the center of the leviathan. They control the defini-tions that are used to translate regulatory mandates intooperational terms. They do the research that will formthe empirical basis for policy decisions.

Les Levidow & Susan Carr raise a similar concern in theirpaper, ‘How biotechnology regulation sets a risk/ethicsboundary’, in discussing how the state manages publiccriticism of the industrializing R&D carried out by publicsector research:

: : : the state separates ‘risk’ and ‘ethics’, while assign-ing both realms to specialists. The risk/ethics boundaryencourages public deference to the expert assessmentsof both safety regulators and professional ethicists.Biotechnology embodies a contentious model of con-trol over nature and society, yet this issue becomesdisplaced and fragmented into various administrativecontrols. At stake are the prospects for democratizingthe problem- definitions that guide R&D priorities.

In the third paper, ‘Inquiry for the public good: Demo-cratic participation in agricultural research’, Gerad

Middendorf & Lawrence Busch ‘examine some of theimportant issues surrounding citizen participation inscience and technology policy : : : and review and assessvarious institutional mechanisms for participation thathave been implemented in diverse settings by institutionsof science and technology’. They conclude by arguing‘that a closer approximation of the “public good” can beachieved by encouraging the participation of the fullestrange possible of constituents as an integral part of theprocess of setting research priorities’.

In the fourth paper, ‘The bST debate: The relation-ship between awareness and acceptance of technologicaladvances’, David E. Smith, J. Robert Skalnik & PatriciaC. Skalnik draw upon their analysis of the bST debate andthe difference between the reaction of the state in the USAand in the EU to regulate its use to conclude that ‘lack ofawareness among government officials and the public atlarge serves as a significant impediment to the adoptionof new technologies. Accordingly, delays may occur indelivery of significant social benefits to the population asa whole. Obviously, the issue extends beyond bST’.

In ‘Objection’ mapping in determining group andindividual concerns regarding genetic engineering’, thefifth paper in this current number of Agriculture andHuman Values, authors Frewer, Hedderley, Howard,and Shepherd examine overall patterns of objection todifferent applications of biotechnology, and conclude thatalthough wider concerns of the public about the engi-neering of animal and human genetic material cannot beignored, ‘rejection of genetic engineering is more likelyif the application is focused on humans or animals’, or ifthe technology is discussed in general terms rather thanin terms of specific applications. Therefore,

Providing information about the tangible benefits andrisks of the technology is more informative to respon-dents, and this would seem to be the most effectiveroute to the establishment of public discourse about thetechnology and its subsequent evolution.

In the final paper, ‘Initiating home-style issues in a post-reform congress’, William P. Browne & Won K. Paikchallenge over simplified views about how policy getsdeveloped by the US Congress. They examine what theycall ‘the two-worlds view of Congress’, which draws adichotomy between home work and Washington work.Their analysis ‘examines initiators of specific issues with-in one large and encompassing policy domain in Congress,agriculture’. Their findings, especially the high rate ofissue initiator success, ‘call into serious question manyexisting assumptions about exclusivity and specializationin committee deliberations. It suggests instead that home-style behavior comes to Washington politics in ways thatexpand significantly the range of policy players’.

EDITORIAL 5

The journal’s scope and its future directions

As we have already indicated, Agriculture and HumanValues seeks to create educational and scholarly junc-tures among the humanities, the social sciences, food andnutrition studies, and the agricultural disciplines, and topromote an ethical, social, and biological understandingof agriculture. Contributions on a broad range of topicsrelating to the main journal theme are welcome, but theyshould be addressed to a general academic readershipwhile maintaining high standards of scholarship. We havea commitment to continue to publish essays on norma-tive issues in assessing conventional and alternative foodproduction, marketing, distribution, and consumptionsystems, on the sociology of knowledge in the areas ofagriculture, nutrition, and food systems, on the applicationof science and technology studies to agriculture and foodsystems, on the philosophy of the applied agriculturalsciences, on critical theory applied to agriculturallyrelated topics, on social, economic, and agriculturaldevelopment theory, and on other value issues relatedto production and consumption systems, including topicson environmental values and on animal welfare. We willalso continue to publish book reviews and reports andhave not given up on our efforts to develop a discussiongenre in our pages. For the benefit of readers who are notfamiliar with our past publication policies, I will brieflyreview the criteria we use for judging submissions and fordetermining what genre that we will assign them to.

Agriculture and Human Values publishes articles, discus-sion pieces, ‘in the field’ reports, ‘state of the field’reports, and book reviews. The working definition of thesecategories follow:

Articles must address one or more issues that havebeen raised in the relevant literature and be thought by itsreviewers to make some significant contribution to thatbody of literature toward a resolution of those issues.

Discussion pieces focus on one or more articles thathave been previously published in Agriculture and HumanValues in order to disagree with the analysis or the conclu-sions of its author(s).

In the field reports describe current research, educa-tion, or curriculum development projects, including casestudies, when such projects are thought by the editorsto hold a special interest for our readers. The distinctionbetween In the field reports and articles is sometimes asubtle one. We submit both types of papers to the reviewprocess (as we also do for discussion pieces). Generally,papers that report on or make observations about somepractice, but do not attempt to illuminate the practicein terms of a body of theoretical literature, would bepublished in this section.

State of the field reports, generally of article length, arereports designed to illuminate a set of issues in terms of a

body of relevant literature without attempting to advocatesome particular resolution or set of resolutions to thoseissues. Literature reviews and limited annotated bibliogra-phies, and state of the field reports are examples of thetype of work that might be classifieds as suitable for thissection. Reports commissioned by organizations on topicsthat are of special interest to our readers are especiallywelcome (see, for example, Carlos M. Correa, ‘Sovereignand property rights over plant genetic resources’, 12, 4:58–79).

Book reviews on relevant books or groups of booksare welcome. In most issues of the journal, we publisha ‘books received’ list to announce books that publishershave sent us for review and to inform potential reviewersof what is available. We have a considerable backlogof books that no one has offered to review. Many ofthese books are significant contributions to the literaturein fields of interest common to our readership. Potentialreviewers are encouraged to scan current and back issuelists for books that they might wish to review, and thento contact the editor by e-mail to determine whether thebook is still available for reviewing (e-mail: aghuval@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu). Book review lengths vary from apage to several pages. Book review essays that approacharticle length will be peer reviewed.

We will continue our practice of publishing specialnumbers devoted to the examination of some issue orset of issues. These special numbers, in the past, havefrequently been organized through the efforts of a guesteditor who originally suggests the special topic, helpsdevelop a call for papers, and participates in the reviewprocess and editing. We extend a continuing invitation toprospective guest editors to suggest new topics for explo-ration and to discuss with us how to develop a specialnumber of the journal on this topic.

Currently, Professor Jeffrey Lockwood, Departmentof Plant, Soil, and Insect Sciences of the University ofWyoming is serving as guest editor of a special num-ber on the theme, ‘The ethics of biological control’. Wepublished an article by Lockwood on this topic in theWinter 1996 issue of Agriculture and Human Values. Thecall for papers was published in the Fall 1995 issue withthe deadline set for a year later. We are currently review-ing nine submissions for this special number, and willmost likely publish the special number as the Summer orFall issue this year.

A call for papers for a memorial issue for Dr Joel Schorwas published in our Winter 1966 issue. The theme wasannounced as ‘The myriad faces of the USDA – Impactspast, present, and future’. Since the original deadline forsubmissions has past without any applicants, the call willbe reissued. Joel Schor, who died unexpectedly in theSpring of 1996, devoted much of his scholarly efforts,as an employee of the USDA, to an investigation of

6 RICHARD P. HAYNES

the effects of USDA and land-grant research and exten-sion on marginalized farmers, mainly the poor, Black,descendants of former slaves in southern USA. Topics forthis memorial issue will include historical studies of theeffects of USDA policy/research activities on the manyconstituencies it has purported to serve since its inceptionin 1862; sociological or political-economic analyses ofthe current or potential impacts of government-sponsoredresearch on the broad spectrum of ‘affected parties’; crit-ical or philosophical studies of the past, present, or future‘missions’ and directions of USDA and land-grant systemwork, including the new biotechnologies; and, more gen-erally, special topics on those subjects Joel was committedto: the poor, the disenfranchised, minorities in food andfiber production. The new deadline for submissions is 1December 1997.

Several years ago (the Summer of 1991) we issued acall for papers for a special number on the theme ‘Improv-ing the well-being of animals in agriculture’. That specialnumber never materialized, since no submissions werereceived. One of my goals is to reissue this call and toproduce a special number on this topic within the nexttwo years. As contributors, we would want papers fromphilosophers, animal scientists, ethologists, zoologists,veterinarians, and others interested in this topic. From theperspective of a philosopher interested in adopting PaulThompson’s hybridization approach to ethical thinking(see ‘Science policy and moral purity: The case of animalbiotechnology’, this issue), animal welfare issues offer anexcellent example around which to sketch out a topog-raphy of the various departments of applied philosophy.Since such a topography might prove useful to those ofour readers who are not entirely familiar with the domainthat philosophers encircle as their own, I have chosen touse my editorial prerogative to present a sketch of how thisphilosopher views the interelatedness of animal welfareissues.

Philosophical issues in animal welfare:Sketch of a topography

1. What makes an issue a philosophical one? As a disci-pline, philosophy seems to be concerned with an identifi-cation and examination of the basic assumptions of an areaof inquiry or of a social practice. Philosophical inquirytends to be conceptual (rather than empirical) though thisis a relative distinction. Issues are important questionsthat are difficult to resolve because people are divided asto which answers they favor (or which position they take)and there seems to be good reasons to support contendingpositions. An issue is philosophical (or has a philo-sophical dimension) when there is disagreement abouthow it should be conceptualized. For example, peopleoften disagree about what constitutes animal well-being

because they have different conceptions of animal well-being. One question that is often asked when thinkingabout animal well-being concerns the extent to whichit is appropriate to ascribe to non-human animals thesame welfare states (or concepts) that we ascribe tohumans. Welfare states such as health or physical well-being, though not entirely uncontroversial, are less so thanstates that appear to involve some mental or psychologicalcomponent, such as happiness. One position about whatconstitutes non-human animal welfare seems committedto the view that it is inappropriate to ascribe to non-humananimals the same psychological states that we ascribe tohumans, or, at least that we should be very skeptical aboutwhich human states we ascribe to non-human animals.Uncritically ascribing human states to non-humans isoften referred to as anthropomorphism. It is commoncurrently for philosophers to subscribe to what they callcritical anthropomorphism, which is the view that whileit is appropriate to ascribe human states to non-humans,we should do so with a critical awareness about possibledifferences (Donnelley & Nolan 1990). One of the majordifficulties in resolving this question is that we often donot have a very clear conception of what these states con-sist of for humans, let alone non-humans, so that we lackan understanding of what criteria we should employ indetermining whether non-humans are capable of being inthe conditions that we are concerned about. Questionsabout how we conceptualize such states in humans arecongregated under the heading philosophical (or moral)psychology.

2. Philosophical and moral psychology. Philosophicalpsychology is concerned with the following kinds ofgeneral questions: How do we study and know about the‘psychological’ states of humans? (This question is alsoaddressed in the area of the philosophy of psychology,which is a branch of normative philosophy of science.)How are these states related to ‘physical’ states? Thereis a long philosophical tradition in which it is typical toassume that individuals have some privileged access totheir own mental (or psychological) life, but have to workto find out about that of others. Some have thought that wejust know our own minds by direct inspection, but haveto infer what is going on in other minds. Some have heldthe position that we might not ever be sure that anyonebut ourselves even have minds. It is easy to argue thatwe have good evidence that other humans have a mentallife, because we can discuss that life with them. It is moredifficult to inquire into the mental life of animals withwhom we cannot (as easily) carry on such discussions.

Moral psychology is concerned with understandingthose psychological states that are constitutive of psycho-logical well-being. They include such notions as desire,wanting, choosing, preferring, being happy, being satis-fied, being in pain, being dissatisfied, being unhappy,

EDITORIAL 7

etc. Since most of these seem to involve some form ofpsychic awareness, or mental life, some philosophershave argued that we cannot know to what extent non-human animals are capable of being in such states sincewe don’t know anything (or much) about their mental life,or even whether they have one. Some philosophers haveargued that all of these states imply an awareness of one-self as being the subject-of-a life, which entails having asense of oneself as having lived in the past and wantingto extend that life into the future, but this type of aware-ness is possible only if one has a self-concept. The nextstep in this argument is to claim that without a languageit is not possible to have any concepts at all, since theability to employ concepts in thinking and the ability touse language are intimately connected.

The question about how we can know whether othershave a mental life similar to our own could be thought ofas an epistemological question.

3. Epistemology or theory of knowledge. Questionsabout what criteria we should use to sort out our beliefsor hypotheses in terms of the degree of credibility weshould accord them are often congregated by philoso-phers under the heading epistemology. Epistemology isconcerned with ‘How we know’. Sometimes philosophersdistinguish between descriptive epistemology, which isconcerned with describing how people actually acquirewhat they consider to be a credible systems of beliefs,and normative epistemology, which is concerned withidentifying the criteria that we should apply to any systemof beliefs in order to warrant our claiming that it deservescredibility. Often scientists or science proponents claimthat science-based beliefs deserve more credibility thanbeliefs that are not science based. This appears to be aclaim based on a normative theory of knowledge.Disputesabout animal welfare sometimes have their roots in episte-mological disagreements. Science proponents often con-sider the methodologies followed by the various sciencesto be models for knowledge acquisition. Critics some-times call such a view scientism, and argue that whilescience does produce knowledge, scientific knowledge isas circumscribed as any other type of knowledge produc-tion. Questions about what sort of knowledge science doesproduce are often congregated under the heading philos-ophy of science.

4. Philosophy of science. As in epistemology, it iscommonto distinguish between normative and descriptivequestions. Philosophers have tended to be more concernedwith normative questions: What justifies the claim thatscientists often make that their methodologies produce amore credible set of beliefs? What methodologies shouldthe various sciences commit themselves to in order towarrant such a claim? Or, more generally, what warrantsour belief that over the centuries science has made intellec-

tual progress? Or, What is scientific knowledge about? Isscience objective (is it capable of disengaging itself fromwhat it studies so that it can regard the object of study asit is in itself, or does science necessarily objectify what itstudies (regard it as something that has properties that areof interest to the scientist). If science necessarily objecti-fies what it studies, then that would have serious importfor science-based information about animal welfare.

Descriptive philosophy of science is done morefrequently by historians and sociologists of science, manyof whom claim that their studies about what criteriascientists actually use in fixing their beliefs and whatenvironmental factors influence what these criteria shallbe show a great discrepancy between the methodologicalor epistemological beliefs of the scientific community andthe actual practices they employ.

Finally, what are the links between these areas of philo-sophical inquiry and ethics?

5. Ethics. Philosophical ethics is generally concernedwith understanding the concepts and criteria we employ(or should employ) in engaging in ethical discourse.Etymologically ‘ethics’ is the science (or technical knowl-edge) about how to acquire good character (or goodhabits). Character is sometimes defined as a set ofdispositions to make choices in choice-making situations.Good character is the disposition to make good choices.Choices, among other things, are concerned with produc-ing things, conserving things, and respecting things, andso ethics is thought to be a branch of value theory, whichis concerned with identifying and justifying criteria forwhat is of value or what it valuable, or what is good. Goodcharacter requires that we have the right values and actin accord with them. Again, it is common to distinguishbetween descriptive and normative ethics. What values dothe members of various groups actually share, and whatvalues should they share if their values (their beliefs inwhat is a good state of affairs) are to be warranted orcorrect.

Philosophers often distinguish between character traitsthat are primarily self-regarding (that dispose the indi-vidual to promote their own long-term and enlightenedinterests) and those traits that are primarily other regard-ing, where other refers to others that are thought to haveinterests analogous to their own interests.To say that someother has moral considerability is to claim that this otherhas such interests. Whether this assumption is warrantedin cases where the other seems to be radically differentfrom oneself, and what such interests are is these cases, isclearly a question that needs to be addressed.

One important question is, ‘Do non-human animalshave moral considerability, and if so, what considerationsshould a person of good character give them?’

Moral theory is concerned with identifying the criteriathat should be (or are) used to decide whether a type

8 RICHARD P. HAYNES

of being has moral considerability and determining whatconsideration such beings deserve under varying socialsituations.

Professional ethics is often regarded by philosophersas a branch of philosophical ethics applied to people whofind themselves in special positions of authority based ontheir claim to have authoritative knowledge about howto produce good conditions in or for others. DVMs aresupposed to have authoritative knowledge about animalwelfare, when it is lacking or present and how to produceor preserve it. As professionals they are hired by clientsto produce a client-centered value. But their patientsare beings who have their own interests. One ethicaldilemma that DVMs must face is how to adjudicate con-flicts between client-centered values and patient-centeredvalues. When such conflicts occur, they are sometimesresolved by denying that there is any conflict. This denialis sometimes justified by arguing that the patient has nointerests independently of those interests that the clienthas in the patient. If the professional is an authority on thewell-being of their patient and this authority is based onthe claim that it has science-based information about thepatient, then the issue is whether science-based informa-tion is objective or objectifying.

6. Social and political philosophy. One of the major ques-tions in this branch of philosophy concerns the relation-ship between individual and social welfare. How shouldindividuals organize themselves socially, and how shouldsocial groups reproduce their social knowledge in theiryoung? What values should we try to develop in otherswhen we help develop good character? One of the mostimportant linking questions in this area concerns thenotion of authority. What criteria should be used in decid-ing who is entitled to act in behalf of others because theyare more informed about the well-being or interests ofothers and of the group?

Contributors to the projected special number on‘Improving the well-being of animals in agriculture’should try to fit their paper into the above framework orpropose amending it to accommodate their contribution.

A new publisher

The current number is the first issue of Agriculture andHuman Values published by Kluwer Academic Publishersinstead of Agriculture and Human Values, Inc. Whatimplications does having a new publisher have for thefuture of this journal? One implication was evident to youwhen you first set eyes on the current number: A newcover design with the table of contents of the back coverinstead of the front cover. I will remain as editor for theforeseeable future and there will be no change in editorialpolicy.

Manuscript submissions will now be made directlyto Kluwer’s Journals Editorial Office rather than to theeditor’s office in Gainesville, Florida. Submissions mustbe accompanied by a diskette and must include anAbstract, some Key words (with a maximium of five), anda several sentence Biosketch of each of the authors.Exceptthose of essay length, however, book reviews or requestsfor books to review may be sent directly to the editor,whose address will remain Deptment of Philosophy,University of Florida, P.O. Box 118545, Gainesville, FL32611-8545, USA.

Agriculture and Human Values will remain the officialjournal of the Agriculture, Food, and Human ValuesSociety. All private subscriptions will be handled throughthe office of the Society’s Executive Secretary and areavailable only to Society members. The current annualmembership fee, which includes the cost of subscriptionto Agriculture and Human Values, is US$ 60. In addi-tion to a subscription to the journal, members receive theSociety newsletter, have access to the Society’s e-mailbulletin board, and may attend the Society’s annual meet-ings at a reduced registration fee. For the past severalyears, and for at least the next several years, the Societyholds its annual meetings in conjunction with the Associa-tion for the Study of Food and Society. The 1997 meetingswill be held at the University of Wisconsin in Madison,5–9 June.

Meetings for 1998 are planned for Toronto, and for1999, Asilomar, California.

The Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society isan organization of professionals dedicated to an open andfree discussion of issues related to an understanding ofthe values that underlie alternative visions of the food andagricultural systems. It was founded in 1987. The annualthree-day meetings are attended by people from a varietyof disciplines, including the social sciences, the human-ities, the applied biological and agronomical sciences,nutritionist, nutrition education, the food sciences,ecology, psychology, extension education, resourcedevelopment, agricultural communication, and homeeconomics. Student participation is encouraged. Meetingsinclude sessions in which papers are presented, postersessions, panel discussions, and field tours, as well asthe annual business meeting. Attendance ranges between100 and 200 people and the atmosphere is friendly, infor-mal, intellectually stimulating, and intimate. Applicationsfor membership should be directed to the Executive Sec-retary, Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society,Department of Philosophy, University of Florida, P.O.Box 118545, Gainesville, FL 32611-8545, USA.

A copy of The Agriculture, Food, and Human ValuesSociety history is available to Society members uponrequest to the Executive Secretary free of charge.

EDITORIAL 9

There will be minimal changes in the journal format. Allannouncements will be presented on two pages of thejournal devoted exclusively to Society announcements.Requests for announcement space should be sent directlyto the Executive Secretary at the above address. Prefer-ences will be given to Society members or to business ofspecial interest to Society members, on a space availablebasis. All other advertisements must be handled directlythrough Kluwer’s Journals Editorial Office. Manuscripttexts (double-spaced, all pages numbered throughout, infive copies with disk) should be sent directly to

Agriculture and Human ValuesJournals Editorial OfficeP.O. Box 9903300 AZ Dordrecht, The NetherlandsorP.O. Box 283Accord StationHingham, MA 02018-0283, USA.

The review process will be carried out through theJournals Editorial Office.

Institutional subscriptions will be handled by KluwerAcademic Publishers, Distribution Center, P.O. Box 322,3300 AH Dordrecht, The Netherlands.

Requests for permission to reprint previously pub-lished material should now be made directly to Kluwer’srights department. Requests can be made by e-mail orfax either to Kluwer rights and permissions officer, MsBerendina van Straalen, e-mail: vanStraalen@wkap.nl, orto Hendrik-Jan van Leusen, e-mail: vanLeusen@wkap.nl,fax: +31 78 6392-254.

References

Donnelley, S. & Nolan, K., eds. (1990). Animals, science, andethics. A special supplement to The Hastings Center Report,May/June. See especially, Section III.

Haynes, R.P. & Lanier, R. (1982). Agriculture, change, andhuman values. Proceedings of a multidisciplinary confer-ence, 18–21 October 1982. 2 vols. Gainesville, FL.

Kloppenburg, J. Jr, Hendrickson, J. & Stevenson, G.W. (1996).Coming into the foodshed, Agriculture and Human Values13(3): 33–42.

Longino, H.E. (1990). Science as social knowledge: Values andobjectivity in scientific inquiry. Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press.

Longino, H.E. (1993). Essential tensions – Phase Two: Femi-nist, philosophical, and social studies of science, in L.M.Antony & C. Witt (eds.), A mind of one’s own. Feministessays on reason and objectivity (pp. 257–272). Boulder,CO: Westview Press.