Abstract

Agriculture is a critical context in which to develop environmental ethics and theology, for it both represents our most fundamental relationship with the natural world and is the source of great environmental destruction. The ability to adequately address the issues arising from agriculture is thus a test of the adequacy of any approach to environmental ethics. Yet, most environmental ethics focuses on wilderness preservation and has little to say about those areas of life, such as agriculture, where we meet our needs and must impact the natural world. ;The difference between industrial agribusiness and more ecologically-based forms of agriculture lies not simply in agricultural techniques, but in underlying worldviews, values, and ethics. Ecological agriculture, which seeks to work with and through natural processes, poses three challenges to environmental ethics and theology. First, it challenges them to address how humans should interact with the natural world. Second, it challenges them to be open to the insights of the science of ecology and to be grounded in an ecological worldview. Third, it challenges them to address the interrelationship of environmental and social justice issues. ;The dissertation critically examines four theological approaches to environmental ethics--Christian stewardship, process theology, ecofeminism, and Christian social ethics--and evaluates them in terms of how well they meet the challenges posed by ecological agriculture. It then examines and evaluates four major figures in philosophical environmental ethics--Aldo Leopold, Paul W. Taylor, Holmes Rolston, III, and Karen J. Warren--with particular attention to issues concerning intrinsic value, biocentrism versus ecocentrism, pluralism in ethics, and ethical method. It turns to H. Richard Niebuhr's radical monotheism and ethic of response to begin the development of a contextual environmental ethic that better meets the challenges posed by agriculture. Drawing as well on the thought of Leopold, Wendell Berry, and Wes Jackson, it seeks an environmental ethic that views all land as holy and finds positive roles for humans in maintaining the health of the land. In developing this ethic, the dissertation addresses issues relating to the use of ecology in ethics, the goodness of nature, and social justice