- http://ianwerkheiser.wordpress.com
Ian Werkheiser
University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley, Philosophy, Faculty Member
- Environmental Philosophy, Epistemology, Social Epistemology, Environmental Justice, Social Philosophy, Animal Studies, and 16 moreAnarchism, Philosophy, Ethics, Philosophy of Technology, Food Security and Social Justice, Food Sovereignty, Anarchist Economics, Radical Political Economy, Anti Capitalist Social Movements, Participatory Democracy, Social Anthropology, Development anthropology, Political Ecology, Human Rights, Philosophy of the City, and INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE CAPABILITIESedit
Introduction to a special issue of Techne: Research in Philosophy and Technology
Research Interests:
specializations in both Environmental Philosophy & Ethics and Animal Studies. His research areas include environmental philosophy, social and political philosophy, and epistemology (particularly social epistemology). His dissertation will... more
specializations in both Environmental Philosophy & Ethics and Animal Studies. His research areas include environmental philosophy, social and political philosophy, and epistemology (particularly social epistemology). His dissertation will focus on the capabilities approach and food sovereignty. It will argue that community epistemic capacity is a necessary requirement of meaningful political participation, particularly in issues around food and environmental justice. Ian is currently involved in several collaborative projects. He works with Dr. Paul Thompson on the Sustainable Michigan Endowed Project, a foundation dedicated to increasing research into sustainability in the state of Michigan. Over the summer he was a co-PI on an NSF-supported Long-
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Precision livestock farming (PLF) promises to allow modern, large-scale farms to replicate, at scale, caring farmers who know their animals. PLF refers to a suite of technologies, some only speculative. The goal is to use networked... more
Precision livestock farming (PLF) promises to allow modern, large-scale farms to replicate, at scale, caring farmers who know their animals. PLF refers to a suite of technologies, some only speculative. The goal is to use networked devices to continuously monitor individual animals on large farms, to compare this information to expected norms, and to use algorithms to manage individual animals (e.g. via changes in climate, feeding, or reproductive decisions) automatically. Supporters say this could not only create an artificial version of the partially mythologized image of the good steward caring for his or her animals, but to also improve on it. As one paper in favor of PLF has said, “We can not only replace the farmer’s ‘eyes and ears’ to each individual animal as in the past, but several other variables (infections, physiological variables, stress, etc.) will soon be measurable in practice” (Berckmans, in: Geers, Madec (eds) Livestock production and society, Wageningen Academic Publishers, Wageningen, pp 287–292, 2006). Yet these methods of monitoring and control raise a host of ethical issues, including alienation of laborers, further consolidation of farms, and further cover for meat consumption (a possibly independent ethical problem depending on one’s views of eating meat). In this paper, I will address these ethical issues, and suggest a different, under-examined concern: namely, that though PLF may indeed improve the lives of livestock, and the sustainability of livestock operations, it is possible that it will do so at the cost of a loss of identity and relationships for farmers, as well as for the animals in their charge.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Anarchism provides a useful set of theoretical tools for understanding and resisting our culture’s treatment of non-human animals. However, some points of disagreement exist in anarchist discourse, such as the question of veganism. In... more
Anarchism provides a useful set of theoretical tools for understanding and resisting our culture’s treatment of non-human animals. However, some points of disagreement exist in anarchist discourse, such as the question of veganism. In this paper I will use the debate around veganism as a way of exploring the anarchist discourse on non-human animals, how that discourse can benefit more mainstream work on non-human animals, and how work coming out of mainstream environmental discourse, in particular the ecofeminist work of Val Plumwood, can likewise benefit anarchist thought. Ultimately I will show that anarchism and some of the more radical strains of environmental philosophy such as ecofeminism can greatly contribute to each other and to Critical Animal Studies.
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Business, Philosophy, Applied Ethics, Social Philosophy, Organic agriculture, and 9 moreFood Policy, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Social Epistemology, Traditional Knowledge, Community Supported Agriculture, Self Determination Theory, Urban Agriculture and Food Security, Food Hubs, and Food Co-operatives
The contours of sustainable systems are defined according to communities’ goals and values. As researchers shift from sustainability-in-the-abstract to sustainability-as-a-concrete-research-challenge, democratic deliberation is essential... more
The contours of sustainable systems are defined according to communities’ goals and values. As researchers shift from sustainability-in-the-abstract to sustainability-as-a-concrete-research-challenge, democratic deliberation is essential for ensuring that communities determine what systems ought to be sustained. Discourse analysis of dialogue with Michigan direct marketing farmers suggests eight sustainability values – economic efficiency, community connectedness, stewardship, justice, ecologism, self-reliance, preservationism and health – which informed the practices of these farmers. Whereas common heuristics of sustainability suggest values can be pursued harmoniously, we discuss how this typology reflects the more intricate project of balancing values in tension with one another.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Social science literature on dog fighting illustrates an important element in the discourse of dog fighters, namely patriarchy. However, it has not addressed another common element, namely flourishing. According to this element of that... more
Social science literature on dog fighting illustrates an important element in the discourse of dog fighters, namely patriarchy. However, it has not addressed another common element, namely flourishing. According to this element of that discourse, some dog breeds are born to fight, and therefore dog fighters are helping them achieve their best lives. This argument is explicitly made by dog fighters, and it is inadvertently supported by those trying to give other dogs breed-specific flourishing, and those who advocate for breed-specific legislation. This poses a problem for advocates of using flourishing to understand animal welfare, particularly if they use kinds (like species and breed) to determine what counts as a flourishing life for a particular nonhuman animal. I argue that we can keep a slightly weakened version of breed-specific flourishing as a starting place for understanding individual dogs without endorsing sport fighting or breed-specific legislation for “vicious” breeds...
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Ethics & Social Sustainability, Sustainable Water Resources Management, and 5 moreEnvironmental Sustainability, Sustainable Agriculture (Sustainability), Integrated Water Resources Management, Water Resources planning and management, and Sustainability
Despite US policy documents which recommend that in areas of environmental risk, interaction between scientific experts and the public move beyond the so-called “Decide, Announce, and Defend model,” many current public involvement... more
Despite US policy documents which recommend that in areas of environmental risk, interaction between scientific experts and the public move beyond the so-called “Decide, Announce, and Defend model,” many current public involvement policies still do not guarantee meaningful public participation. In response to this problem, various attempts have been made to define what counts as sufficient or meaningful participation and free informed consent from those affected. Though defining “meaningfulness” is a complex task, this paper explores one under-examined dimension that concerns the relationship between consent and the idea that citizens should be sufficiently informed: epistemic capacity. This paper will look at some of the work on meaningful participation and consent, give a definition of epistemic capacity, and argue that only a community with sufficient epistemic capacity can have the understanding and competence to give informed enough consent and thus participate meaningfully.
Research Interests:
It is easy enough to think about preparing food, growing food, and eating food as straight-forward affairs, or mere biological necessities. However, these processes are wrapped up in social relations, personal identities, and political... more
It is easy enough to think about preparing food, growing food, and eating food as straight-forward affairs, or mere biological necessities. However, these processes are wrapped up in social relations, personal identities, and political power. Broadly critical frameworks can help pull apart the varying dimensions in this complex and dynamic relationship in order to provide guidance for reforming our relationship to the food we consume in a more democratic and participatory direction. To that end, we explore the normative implications of the current organization of the world food system from multiple perspectives in critical theory, the philosophy of science, and political philosophy. We offer ethical and political analyses at the levels of community activism, national food policy, and global consumerist capitalism to show how an approach that sees these multiple levels as interactive can provide concrete reasons for supporting certain effective solutions.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Biography Ian Werkheiser is a doctoral student in the Department of Philosophy at Michigan State University, with specializations in both Environmental Philosophy & Ethics and Animal Studies. His research areas include environmental... more
Biography Ian Werkheiser is a doctoral student in the Department of Philosophy at Michigan State University, with specializations in both Environmental Philosophy & Ethics and Animal Studies. His research areas include environmental philosophy, social and political philosophy, and epistemology (particularly social epistemology). His dissertation will focus on the capabilities approach and food sovereignty. It will argue that community epistemic capacity is a necessary requirement of meaningful political participation, particularly in issues around food and environmental justice. Ian is currently involved in several collaborative projects. He works with Dr. Paul Thompson on the Sustainable Michigan Endowed Project, a foundation dedicated to increasing research into sustainability in the state of Michigan. Over the summer he was a co-PI on an NSF-supported LongTerm Ecological Research project, “Recognizing Value Pluralism among Ecosystem Services Experts and Public Stakeholders.” This...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Abstract: Our intuition is that knowledge about fiction is possible. For example, we know that Heathcliff was passionate, and was born in the north of England. Such claims to knowledge are made in serious literary discussion as much as in... more
Abstract: Our intuition is that knowledge about fiction is possible. For example, we know that Heathcliff was passionate, and was born in the north of England. Such claims to knowledge are made in serious literary discussion as much as in the conversation of audience ...
Research Interests:
I enjoyed reading Itai Bavli and Daniel Steel’s application of the community epistemic capacities framework to an interesting pair of novel cases, and their use of that application to develop the concept further. Community epistemic... more
I enjoyed reading Itai Bavli and Daniel Steel’s application of the community epistemic capacities framework to an interesting pair of novel cases, and their use of that application to develop the concept further. Community epistemic capacities is an important yet overlooked part of interactions between expert and non-expert groups, and one in need of further thought both practically and theoretically. I take Bavli and Steel to be making two main arguments. One is that informed consent is limiting as a motivation for developing epistemic capacities in a community. To illustrate this point, they use their case studies to propose a second motivation for developing community epistemic capacities, namely the motive of overcoming mistrust of scientific experts by communities.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Books and articles supporting a local food movement have become commonplace, with popular authors such as Wendell Berry, Barbara Kingsolver, and Michael Pollan espousing the virtues of eating locally. At the same time, others have... more
Books and articles supporting a local food movement have become commonplace, with popular authors such as Wendell Berry, Barbara Kingsolver, and Michael Pollan espousing the virtues of eating locally. At the same time, others have critiqued the local food movement as failing to achieve its stated ends or as having negative unintended consequences. This chapter provides a general analysis of local food movements, specifically separating this complex phenomenon into three distinct sub-movements. During this analysis, the chapter pays particular attention to how sub-movements conceptualize people, food, and the roles that individuals, communities, and political institutions play when trying to bring about change. It argues that understanding these sub-movements is necessary for understanding and interacting with both local food’s supporters and its detractors.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
One serious harm facing communities in the Anthropocene is epistemic loss. This is increasingly recognized as a harm in international policy discourses around adaptation to climate change. Epistemic loss is typically conceived of as the... more
One serious harm facing communities in the Anthropocene is
epistemic loss. This is increasingly recognized as a harm in international
policy discourses around adaptation to climate change. Epistemic
loss is typically conceived of as the loss of a corpus of knowledge,
or less commonly, as the further loss of epistemic methodologies. In
what follows, I argue that epistemic loss also can involve the loss of
epistemic self-determination, and that this framework can help to
usefully examine adaptation policies.
epistemic loss. This is increasingly recognized as a harm in international
policy discourses around adaptation to climate change. Epistemic
loss is typically conceived of as the loss of a corpus of knowledge,
or less commonly, as the further loss of epistemic methodologies. In
what follows, I argue that epistemic loss also can involve the loss of
epistemic self-determination, and that this framework can help to
usefully examine adaptation policies.
Research Interests: Climate Change Adaptation, Climate change policy, Self-Determination Theory, Social Epistemology, Environmental Justice, and 3 moreEpistemic Justice, Anthropocene, and Environmental justice, global sustainability, Environmental Politics and Governance, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Education for Sustainable Development, Environmental Sustainability. Global Development and Environmental Protection
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The contours of sustainable systems are defined according to communities’ goals and values. As researchers shift from sustainability-in-the-abstract to sustainability-as-a-concrete-research-challenge, democratic deliberation is essential... more
The contours of sustainable systems are defined according to communities’ goals and values. As researchers shift from sustainability-in-the-abstract to sustainability-as-a-concrete-research-challenge, democratic deliberation is essential for ensuring that communities determine what systems ought to be sustained. Discourse analysis of dialogue with Michigan direct marketing farmers suggests eight sustainability values – economic efficiency, community connectedness, stewardship, justice, ecologism, self-reliance, preservationism and health – which informed the practices of these farmers. Whereas common heuristics of sustainability suggest values can be pursued harmoniously, we discuss how this typology reflects the more intricate project of balancing values in tension with one another.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Sustainability is commonly recognized as an important goal, but there is little agreement on what sustainability is, or what it requires. This paper looks at some common approaches to sustainability, and while acknowledging the ways in... more
Sustainability is commonly recognized as an important goal, but there is little agreement on what sustainability is, or what it requires. This paper looks at some common approaches to sustainability, and while acknowledging the ways in which they are useful, points out an important lacuna: that for something to be sustainable, people must be willing to work to sustain it. The paper presents a framework for thinking about and assessing sustainability which highlights eople working to sustain. It also briefly discusses Integrated Water Resource Management and the example of the California Water Plan to explore what such a perspective brings that is overlooked in other approaches, and how this approach might be pursued. Ultimately, this framework argues that a system can only be described as sustainable if people’s work to sustain the system is biophysically possible, socially possible, and if people would freely choose to do the sustaining work.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Abstract: Our intuition is that knowledge about fiction is possible. For example, we know that Heathcliff was passionate, and was born in the north of England. Such claims to knowledge are made in serious literary discussion as much as in... more
Abstract: Our intuition is that knowledge about fiction is possible. For example, we know that Heathcliff was passionate, and was born in the north of England. Such claims to knowledge are made in serious literary discussion as much as in the conversation of audience ...
This book offers fresh perspectives on issues of food justice. The chapters emerged from a series of annual workshops on food justice held at Michigan State University between 2013 and 2015, which brought together a wide variety of... more
This book offers fresh perspectives on issues of food justice. The chapters emerged from a series of annual workshops on food justice held at Michigan State University between 2013 and 2015, which brought together a wide variety of interested people to learn from and work with each other. Food Justice can be studied from such diverse perspectives as philosophy, anthropology, economics, gender and sexuality studies, geography, history, literary criticism, sociology, as well as the human dimensions of agricultural and environmental sciences. As such, interdisciplinary conversations are a much-needed vehicle to improve our understanding of the subject, which is at the center of a vibrant and growing discourse not only among academics from a wide range of disciplines but also among policy makers and community activists. The book includes their perspectives, offering a wide range of approaches to and conceptions of food justice in a variety of contexts. This work requires readers to cross boundaries and be open to new ideas based on different assumptions.