Ethics and Sustainability: Guest or Guide? On Sustainability as a Moral Ideal

Abstract

In September 2007 the European Society for Agricultural and Food Ethics (EurSafe) organized its seventh conference, entitled Sustainable Food Production and Ethics. Sustainability is mainly a debate among natural scientists where ethics is welcomed from time to time as a guest rather than as a guide. The notion of sustainability as a moral ideal is relevant to understand the possible roles ethics can play in the discussion on the future of agriculture.