| This dissertation analyzes the ethical dimensions of the controversy over genetic engineering in agriculture through a case study of StarLink(TM) corn. The case study demonstrates that U.S. government agencies (USDA, EPA, and FDA) and corporate proponents (Aventis) formally rely on risk-benefit analysis, representing a limited utilitarian approach, while also incorporating Kantian individual rights arguments. In contrast, genetic engineering critics (Genetically Engineered Food Alert) draw not only on utilitarian arguments but also invoke principles of food security, risk aversion, and social, economic, and cultural rights, advocating community self-reliance and a distinctive view of ecological and sustainable agriculture. The dissertation concludes that the critics' arguments are more accurately described as an ethic of "moral economy" as retrieved by historians E.P. Thompson and Karl Polanyi, political scientist James C. Scott, and biblical scholar Richard A. Horsley. Peasant resistance to rent and tax exploitation in agrarian conflicts reveals moral economy ethics rooted in the right to subsistence, reciprocal social obligations, and indelible ties to society and land. The dissertation proposes a contemporary moral economy approach incorporating both traditional claims and values introduced by developments in utilitarian and Kantian ethics and democratic politics, values accepted as part of contemporary culture. A moral economy agricultural ethic might be described as a "best worst case" approach, seeking the ensured survival of agricultural communities, their members, and the communities and individuals who rely on their continued production. Just as agrarian conflicts draw out peasant resistance, conflicts over genetic engineering in agriculture draw out resistance to increasing corporate domination of agricultural practices and global food supply; thus the moral economy ethic is an ethic of resistance. |
