Sustainable Animal Agriculture and Environmental Virtue Ethics

Raymond Anthony addresses the role of technology in promoting sustainable agri-food systems and animal well-being. Food production under an industrial model makes it difficult to appreciate the good of animals in their own right, apart from their instrumental use for us. The problem is not merely our attitude toward animals but the very modes of production in which we deal with them. Agricultural technologies reflect our values and norms, for better or worse. Anthony suggests a virtue ethics approach to technology in order to counter the instrumentalist view we typically have about man-made things. If virtues can be embedded within machinery it might be possible to design animal agricultural systems that can recognize the instrinsic good of animals. An environmental virtue ethics of care (EVEC) is the antidote to commodification of humans, animals, and the natural world. EVEC affirms ethical consumerism, which requires that we take others into consideration in our consumer choices. But it also requires that industry technocrats be mindful of how they innovate, what products they market, how they design facilities, and, above all, how they might find better ways to meld business, profit, and technology with care for humans, animals, and the environment.