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Social Impact and the Technology Treadmill

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Food and Agricultural Biotechnology in Ethical Perspective

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Abstract

The chapter introduces the analysis of socioeconomic impact from agrifood biotechnology through a review of the technology treadmill. In this model, farmers experience ethically significant harmful impacts, while secondary beneficial effects accrue to consumers (as well as technology developers). The chapter then reviews how these social impacts would be evaluated from a number of philosophical perspectives and theories of social justice. Rights theories, utilitarianism and virtue theories are sketched, and the chapter discusses how each approach might provide an analysis of the treadmill phenomenon. Analyses that link structural injustice to feminist or Marxist social theory anticipate the further discussion of social consequences in Chap. 9.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Paul B. Thompson

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Thompson, P.B. (2020). Social Impact and the Technology Treadmill. In: Food and Agricultural Biotechnology in Ethical Perspective. The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics, vol 32. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61214-6_8

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