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Agriculture Intensification from the Perspective of Development Ethics

2008; Springer Nature (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-1-4020-8722-6_6

2215-1737

Luis Camacho,

Organic Food and Agriculture

For most people, especially politicians and government officials, these problems merely call for technical and political solutions. Discussions on the criteria for the decisions being taken are usually pushed to the sides. Normative questions are seldom brought into focus when problems are analyzed and solutions proposed, probably because it is difficult to find consensus in the method to be followed. Moreover, a shallow approach is always tempting and frequently pursued: when ethical principles are sought for the analysis and proposed solutions of these situations, one is likely to invoke in a hurry such notions as distributive justice, justice as fairness, equality in rights, maximum possible benefit for the majority and least harm for all, participation of individuals in decisions affecting them, and a few similar other principles and norms. But there is room for a more careful application of ethical principles and norms to the decision-making process in agriculture.