Reconstruction of human-nature relationship in the context of agriculture and food ethics

Since the day it existed, humans have been intertwined with nature and have lived dependent on nature. In the nutrition model, which was initially dominated by a godly understanding of nature, hunting, and gathering paradigm, the human who had to change their lives depending on the change of conditions in the nature surrounding them tried to understand and get to know nature. In the context of the paradigm of this period, cannibalism, slavery, and the undesirability of the elderly and extra children due to the limitation of the mobility of the tribes created ethical problem areas. Plant and animal production, which began with the transition to settled life, considered the first scientific and technological revolution, created a new agricultural production paradigm. In the context of this paradigm, the new agricultural production model has led to the emergence of the first property forms, the emergence of the first rules of law, the emergence of social classes, observations of astronomy for agricultural purposes, advances in geometric and arithmetic calculations, and the development of numerous techniques from building, tools, to the construction of works of art. Then, in the process that started with the industrial revolution, the intensive agricultural production paradigm was adopted due to the developments in science and technology. During this period, the understanding of organic nature has been replaced by the understanding of mechanical nature. In the understanding of mechanical nature, it is seen that the idea of understanding, recognizing, and living with nature with a human-centered approach has become the idea of dominating nature. While the intensive agriculture production paradigm was initially successful in preventing food shortages, the world population increased rapidly, pesticides increased by 32 times, and fossil fuels increased by four times, revealing new problem areas in agriculture and food ethics. Today, when ethical problem areas such as gender inequality, child labor, food safety and security, animal rights, irreversible environmental problems due to the use of intensive chemicals, sustainability of agriculture and the environment, ownership of big data belonging to agricultural production are taken into account, it is observed that the human-nature relationship based on anthropocentric perspective and mechanical understanding of nature is far from solving the problems observed in agriculture and food ethics. The study aims to lay out the argument that the human nature relationship should be reconstructed in the context of agriculture and food ethics while revealing the ethical problem areas observed due to agricultural production paradigms within the framework of the changing anthropocentric understanding. In the first part of the study, the conceptual framework of agriculture and food ethics, which seems to be at the periphery of philosophy and ethics, has been revealed, in the second part, the human-nature relationship was discussed in the context of agriculture and food ethics depending on the agricultural production paradigms that have changed over time, and in the third part, it has been tried to put forward the argument that it will not be possible with only scientific and technological solutions depending on the human nature understanding, and that it is necessary to construct a holistic human nature understanding that takes into account the ecosystem. In the conclusion of the study, the argument that human is considered as ordinary member of the ecosystem like other species in nature, and it has been tried to be grounded that the holistic human-nature relationship, which is handled in a relational holism, should be constructed in the context of agriculture and food ethics. The human-nature relationship, which changes over time, undoubtedly finds expression only in one direction, only by humans. The realization of nature experienced by human consciousness in different ways due to the change of social, cultural, economic, and ethical values in different timelines makes nature a relative reality. In this respect, nature stands there as a periodically reproduced reality within the network of relations put forward by humans and other species, rather than being a fixed reality that stands "over there" and has universal laws that need to be revealed. From this point of view, it can be said that the thesis study prepared is a phenomenological research experiment.