Subject: EtRE:Ethics and Ssuustainability

From: JONATHAN HASKETT <[email-masked]>
Date: 4 Apr 94 17:48:00 EDT

Several objections raised to my previous post about ethics and 
sustainable agriculture. One objection was that I was advocating 
a reductionist approach. I will plead guilty to this charge with the 
proviso that reductionism should be applied where it is useful, 
where it can clarify and enhance understanding.  Reductionism 
is a fallacy where the behavior of system is not decomposible
into constituent parts but only emerges at a given level of 
organization. Conditioning in dogs cannot be observed once 
the dog is dissected. However, reductionism can play a vital role 
in delimiting causal relationships. Thus I contend that there is 
no necessary causal relationship between agricultural sustainability 
and the equitable distribution of wealth, or a bioregional 
orientation, or an attitude of stewardship towards the land. 
While I regard all these things as desirable, I believe that it 
can be demonstrated that agricultural sustainability is separable \
from them as well as a whole host of other desirable social 
concepts. 

At the same time it is also possible to demonstrate that there 
is a causal relationship between having an understanding of a 
people's traditional cultural norms and their acceptance, 
adoption, and dynamic adaptation of introduced technologies 
and methods. These things only become sustainable in a social 
context. Agriculture, like maize, only continues with human 
intervention so the human aspect is not separable from any analysis 
of sustainability. It is important to be clear when and how
this relationship comes into play. Different societies will 
adopt different things or adapt the same thing differently. The 
danger is that deciding a priori what the desirable social features 
of sustainability are may preclude observation and understanding 
when we encounter social norms which are substantially 
different from our own. 

Our survival depends on the sustainability of agriculture it is 
therefore vital that our research be unbounded and not confined 
by pre-existing assumptions. We must be free to follow the most 
promising avenues of inquiry and technique, be the wholist or 
reductionist. 

I will attempt to answer other objections in subsequent posts. 

Jonathan Haskett
[email-masked]