ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how a more ethically grounded vision of sustainable agriculture would need to flesh out what we mean by sustainability. The idea of sustainability presents some hope for reducing the tension between agriculture and environmental ethics. Sustainability appeals both to the ecocentric holism of the systems theorist, and to the enlightened self-interest articulated by Wendell Berry. The diversity of interest groups issuing calls for sustainable agriculture and for sustainable development demonstrates that sustainability has become a contested concept. One might also argues that sustainability is a norm that emerges when the social arrangements subjected to criteria of efficiency, rights, or justice are seen as self-maintaining or developing social systems. Sustainability appears as the postmodern substitute for progress, a less boastful and confident goal, but one that is equally ephemeral and contested. Sustainability, understood as a notion implying a potential but indefinitely deferred ending point, is such a goal.
