This revised edition updates Thompson's trail-blazing study of ethical and philosophical issues raised by biotechnology. The 1997 book was the first by a philosopher to address food and agricultural biotechnology, discussing ethical issues associated with risk assessment, labelling, animal transformation, patents, and impact on traditional farming communities. The new edition addresses the debates of the intervening decade, including cloning, the Precautionary Principle, and the biotechnology debate between the United States and Europe.

In this second edition of The Spirit of the Soil: Agriculture and Environmental Ethics, Paul B. Thompson reviews four worldviews that shape competing visions for agriculture. 　Productionists have sought increasing yields--to make two seeds grow where only one grew before--while traditional visions of good farming have stressed stewardship. These traditional visions have been challenged by two more worldviews: a call for a total cost-accounting for farming, and an advocacy for a holistic perspective. Thompson argues that an environmentally defensible systems approach must draw...

In this second edition of The Spirit of the Soil: Agriculture and Environmental Ethics, Paul B. Thompson reviews four worldviews that shape competing visions for agriculture. 　Productionists have sought increasing yields--to make two seeds grow where only one grew before--while traditional visions of good farming have stressed stewardship. These traditional visions have been challenged by two more worldviews: a call for a total cost-accounting for farming, and an advocacy for a holistic perspective. Thompson argues that an environmentally defensible systems approach must draw...