Beyond the Large Farm: Ethics and Agricultural Research

20世纪80年代，美国首次对农业研究伦理进行了持续和系统的研究。这些研究成功地界定了该领域的规范维度，确立了对生产率、权衡、约束和可持续性的担忧是定义特征。在个案研究、访谈和调查中，已经做了一些经验性工作，以描绘研究选择的决定因素和结果。该项目将通过将对规范性批评的评估与对工作中的农业科学家如何将这些批评中的教训纳入其正在进行的研究活动的规划和管理中的分析相结合，从而开辟新的天地。核心研究团队由8名教员组成，其中5人来自农业科学、工程和管理，3人来自社会科学和哲学。该小组将在项目过程中每周或每两周举行一次背景研究会议，讨论与研究议程有关的论文和主题。它将举办一系列四期讲习班，利用农业和社会科学科学家以及人文学科学者的委托论文，重点讨论研究目标和选择的伦理层面，从而分析和对比农业研究的替代价值。经过评论和修订后，讲习班的最后文件将被收集起来，由主要调查人员编辑成一卷出版。为确定研究规划和管理的经验教训，核心小组将在每月报告会议上开发案例并分析其目标和价值影响，农业科学家将在会议上带头讨论正在进行的研究活动。其他感兴趣的教职员工预计将参加许多小组会议。这些分析的结果将在适当的农业期刊以及面向科技界的期刊上发表。两名研究生研究助理将协助编写和领导小组会议，保留会议和讲习班讨论的实质性记录，并为外地编写带注释的参考书目。这一复杂的项目具有内在的和现实的重要性。调查人员和团队成员都是独一无二的合格人员，处于开展研究的有利地位；机构支持非常好，机构环境增加了结果产生影响的可能性。该项目设计良好，传播成果的计划也很好。在本奖项期限过后，后续工作很可能会继续下去。农业部合作社国家研究服务处正在帮助支持这一项目。

The 1980s saw the first sustained and systematic studies of agricultural research ethics in the U.S. These studies have been successful in delimiting the normative dimensions of the field, establishing that concerns for productivity, tradeoffs, constraints, and sustainability are defining characteristics. Some empirical work has been done, in case studies, interviews and surveys, to delineate determinants and outcomes of research choices. This project will break new ground by integrating an assessment of the normative critiques with an analysis of ways working agricultural scientists might incorporate lessons from those critiques into the planning and administration of their ongoing research activities. A group of eight faculty, five from agricultural sciences, engineering and administration and three from social science and philosophy, comprise the core research team. This group will meet weekly or biweekly during the course of the project at background study sessions where papers and topics relevant to the research agenda will be discussed. It will analyse and contrast alternative values for agricultural research by conducting a series of four workshops with commissioned papers from agricultural and social scientists and scholars in the humanities, focusing on ethical dimensions of research goals and choices. After comment and revision, final papers from the workshops will be gathered for publication in a volume edited by the principal investigators. To identify lessons for the planning and administration of research, the core group will develop cases and analyse their goals and value implications in monthly reporting sessions at which agricultural scientists will take the lead in discussing on-going research activities. Other interested faculty are expected to attend many of the group sessions. The results of these analyses will be prepared for publication in appropriate agriculture journals as well as journals directed to the science and technology studies community. Two graduate research assistants will assist in developing and leading group sessions, keeping substantive records of the meetings as well as the workshop discussions, and in developing annotated bibliographies for the field. This complex project is of intrinsic and practical importance. The investigators and team members are uniquely qualified and very well positioned to undertake the research; institutional support is very good and the institutional setting increases the likelihood that results will have impact. The project is designed well and plans for the dissemination of results are good. It is likely that follow-on efforts will continue after the period of this award. The Cooperative States Research Service of the Department of Agriculture is helping to support this project.