ABSTRACT
The book’s opening chapter makes the case for the significance of the practice of food production and eating for environmental ethics, and defines key terms such as religion and spirituality, ethics and morality, and industrial and alternative agriculture. It argues that focusing on issues of food and agriculture may advance our understanding of the human relationship to ecosystems in ways that are distinctive, necessary, and important. Additionally, it argues that religious responses to critical food ethical issues may helpfully illuminate broader discussions of agricultural and food ethics. The introduction also clarifies my standpoint as a Christian ethicist working from a Christian–Western philosophical base, though with a focus on comparative religious environmental/food ethics. I conclude that food is a topic that provides a distinctive trans-disciplinary, trans-religious environmental humanities platform that can beneficially contribute to public dialogue on the issues.
