Food and Agricultural Biotechnology in Ethical Perspective: Edition 3

Paul B. Thompson

nov 2020 · The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics Libro 32 · Springer Nature

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This 3rd edition of Food and Agricultural Biotechnology in Ethical Perspective updates Thompson’s analysis to reflect the next generation of biotechnology, including synthetic biology, gene editing and gene drives. The first two editions of this book, published as Food Biotechnology in Ethical Perspective in 1997 and 2007, were the first comprehensive philosophical studies of genetic engineering applied to food systems. The book is structured with chapter length treatments of risk in four categories: food safety, to animals, to the environment and socio-economic risks. These chapters are preceded by two chapters providing orientation to the uses of gene technology in food and agriculture, and to the goals, methods and background assumptions of technological ethics. There is also a chapter covering all four types of risk as applied to the first US technology, recombinant bovine somatotropin. The last four chapters take up 1) intellectual property debates, 2) religious, metaphysical and “intrinsic” objections to biotechnology, 3) issues in risk and trust and 4) a review of ethical issues in synthetic biology, gene editing and gene drives, the three key technologies that have emerged since the book was last revised.

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Paul B. Thompson is the W.K. Kellogg Professor of Agricultural, Food and Community Ethics at Michigan State University. His career work has integrated the philosophy of technology with environmental ethics through focusing on the role of agriculture and food systems in cultural and normative practices. He has served on advisory boards to the US egg industry and to government agencies in the Netherlands, Canada and the USA. Thompson is the winner of numerous awards and honors including the Don Ihde Prize from Stony Brook University, the Richard P. Haynes Award for Career Achievement from the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society, the William J. Beal Award for distinguished faculty achievement from Michigan State University and the Award for Excellence in Communication (twice) from the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association. From Field to Fork: Food Ethics for Everyone (Oxford) was the North American Society for Social Philosophy 2015 Book of the Year.