Differentiating natures, connecting environments pragmatic sociology and the emergence of green justifications

ABSTRACT

As the environmental crisis gains pace, different strands of posthumanist theorizing have aimed to reshape the ecological conditions of human actions. This article examines ecological justifications in French pragmatic sociology, developed by Boltanski and Thévenot, situating it to discussions about materiality. The approach has proven useful for analyzing various controversies as it provides tools for examining how actors coordinate conflict situations and cope with uncertainty. However, previous studies have also raised questions about the applicability of pragmatic sociology in studying environmental problems. These discussions have revolved around the distinctiveness of ‘green’ justifications. In this article, we examine organic agriculture as a case of green critique that has brought ecology to the fore. Our analysis focuses on contestations about organic agriculture and the possibilities of novel green justifications to establish a ‘green reality test’. By combining conceptual work on justifications and empirical analysis of organic agriculture, the study underlines the key task of critically differentiating a new form of worth as meaningfully different from established forms thereof. In so doing, it also contributes to topical discussions of developing social theoretical frameworks for addressing environmental issues.

KEYWORDS:

• Posthumanism
• pragmatic sociology
• justification
• materiality
• environmental crisis

Every nature has its objects, and all objects can be used for testing. (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006, 41)

Introduction

Since the emergence of what is now termed the environmental crisis, there have been numerous attempts to ‘come to grips with a changed “sense of what is real”’ (Catton and Dunlap 1978, 42). Environmental problems and the coming of the Anthropocene have then set new realities for human action and have changed conceptions about humanity’s place in the world. Central to this re-conceptualizations has been the contention that sociology should give up its commitment to ‘the social’ and take ‘the physical’ seriously into account (Dunlap and Catton 1979). These calls for changing conceptions thus concern not only political and economic institutions but also social theory in general, underlining the need for revising approaches to the pivotal issues of action, commonality and value (e.g. Murdoch 2001; Blok 2007; Bennett 2010; Knox and Huse 2015; Pellizzoni 2016).

A central way for such revisionist approaches, bundled under rubrics, such as new-materialism or posthumanism, has been the attempt to dissolve foundational boundaries between culture and nature, society and environment, and human and nonhuman (Devellennes and Dillet 2018; Randazzo and Richter 2021). As Vallee (2022, 3) has recently summed it: ‘Fundamentally, posthumanists remain focused on the problematization of human/non-human relations but are also committed to a critique of claims of human exceptionalism (anthropocentrism), framing it as a causal determinant in the overwhelming number of issues that we face today.’ To thoroughly account for the interwovenness of human societies with the environment, studies should examine, for example, the co-production of humans and nonhumans assemblages (Pickering 2005), trace ‘historical forms of mattering’ (Barry 2021) or grasp the vitality of materialities (Bennett 2010). Actor-Network Theory (ANT), the most influential of such approaches, promotes the principle of generalized symmetry, where all subjects and objects are approached by utilizing the same terms (Callon 1986; Latour 1987, 1993, 2005; Silvast and Virtanen 2023). Dissolving boundaries would update social theory to the age of ecological crises, to trace the emergence of assemblages set in motion by various crises that the ‘modern bifurcations’ have brought about (Latour 2017).

Posthuman theorizing is thus not only about building a more accurate depiction of the world but to find better solutions that can account for the problems in the age of the Anthropocene (Latour 2004; Bennett 2010; Hämäläinen and Lehtonen 2016). Accounting for the material is thoroughly intertwined with the ethical, as the need to dissolve modernist boundaries is intertwined with ‘an ethical question of what to do given an ecological … existence’ (Vallee 2022, 15; emphasis in original). Yet instead of promoting a generalized approach to ethico-material assemblages, there is also a need to assess and evaluate them in some ways (Pellizzoni 2016). That is, if all assemblages are posthuman, how to differentiate between ecological and environmentally damaging ones?

In this article, we examine how Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot’s pragmatic sociology can contribute to the understanding of connections between the material and the ethical. Pragmatic sociology focuses on justifications and critique, examining them as practical actions that combine moral principles and material objects. Boltanski and Thévenot originally developed their approach by acknowledging ANT and its emphases on objects and non-humans (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006, 20; Latour 1993, 43–46), promoting a symmetrical view (Murdoch, Marsden, and Banks 2000) as well as an ‘actantial’ stance (Bénatouïl 1999). Furthermore, as Blok (2013) has argued, Boltanski and Thévenot, along with Latour, can be considered the key theorists of the emerging ecological bond that deals with the development of social theory vis-à-vis socio-ecological problems.

However, in contrast to for example ANT, pragmatic sociology does not promote generalized materiality but employs conventionalized formats as the grounds for judgement and action in different empirical contexts (Thévenot, Moody, and Lafaye 2000; Guggenheim and Potthast 2012). Materiality is accounted for in connection with different moral conventions, bringing the connection between ‘the good’ and ‘the real’ to the fore (Thévenot 2020, 2002). This combination makes the approach valuable for addressing the question of how to live in the new situation of the ecological crisis, not as a general moral imperative but as a conceptual framework to study how historically conventionalized formats facilitate the coming together of various human-nonhuman assemblages, and how the relations within them are maintained.

At the same time, environmental issues have challenged pragmatic sociological theorizing (Lafaye and Thévenot 1993; Latour 1998; Blok 2013; Centemeri 2015). A central contribution of Boltanski and Thévenot’s initial work was to show that a limited set of justificatory principles – or ‘orders of worth’ – are mobilized in conflict situations, thus avoiding both relativism and the reduction of social reality to a single basis (Wagner 1999; Boltanski and Thévenot 2000; Hansen 2016; Jensen 2018). Yet it has remained unclear to what extent the development of environmentalism or environmental valuation, in the form of a ‘green order of worth’, challenges the model. The realization of humanity’s ecological conditions and the shifting of modernist boundaries, as discussed above, is seen to question previously established socio-material conventions of justification and critique. Therefore, while showing potential in the analysis of proliferating environmental problems, how exactly to extend and apply the model into such issue requires further scrutiny.

We address this issue and focus on critique as a crucial part in the creation of new forms of worth (Lafaye and Thévenot 1993; Ricoeur 2000; Boltanski and Chiapello 2005a; Boltanski and Thévenot 2006; Guggenheim and Potthast 2012; Hansen 2016). This approach highlights attempts to critically differentiate the green worth as valuable in itself. As we show below, this has often concerned challenging the industrial order of worth as a dominant form of knowing nature (cf. Haila and Levins 1992; Jamison 2001; Latour 2004; Yearley 2005; Blok 2011).

In order to examine the differentiation of green worth, we examine organic agriculture as a case of green critique. Agriculture and food in general is a central domain of human activity that has a significant adverse impact on the environment (e.g. Pellizzoni and Centemeri 2022), and in general presents one of the most central relations between ‘culture’ and ‘nature.’ Organic agriculture is an alternative method for producing food that has specifically aimed to reshape food production and to construct an ecological alternative. By challenging the post-war industrialization of agriculture and its techno-chemical methods, organic agriculture is presented as a solution for the ‘new era of agriculture’ (Reganold and Wachter 2016) that can bring about a ‘real green revolution’ (Horlings and Marsden 2011). Organic agriculture therefore forms a critical movement that challenges the previous major transformation of agricultural production and urges a major remaking of both the material and moral relations of food production. It has done so by rejecting the use of agro-chemicals and genetic manipulation, instead emphasizing agro-ecological methods and natural alternatives (e.g. Rosin and Campbell 2009; Lehtimäki 2021). Yet organic agriculture itself has also come in for criticism. Contestations about organic agriculture provide then grounds for us to examine how the emerging notion of green worth and its ecological bonds hold up to tests of strength. We therefore examine how actors aim to rise above the opposition of these two alternatives through various justifications.

We will first review previous discussions on the development of the green order of worth before turning to attempts to mobilize distinctively green justifications as moral grounds for organic agriculture. We then analyze attempts to test these justifications in the debates over organic agriculture. The findings of the two analysis sections are addressed in a discussion with previous reflections on extending the conventions theory, followed by a short conclusion.

Extending the limited plurality: critical differentiation and materialities

The development of organic agriculture in the latter half of the twentieth century is connected to the growing realization of environmental problems in agricultural production. Awareness about such problems has created a situation where actors need to choose between different alternatives. Or, in less consensual terms, organic agriculture emerged as critique towards conventional production, challenging its legitimacy and presenting itself as a better way to produce food.

Boltanski and Thévenot’s (1999, 2000; 2006 [1991]) pragmatic sociology examines such critical situations. It focuses on people’s sense of injustice, as well as the need to justify things in order to solve problematic situations. It examines the different conventional principles on which actors rely on in their justifications. These principles, or orders of worth, are understood as historical constructs that have emerged in various situations (see Table 1). While independent from each other, all orders of worth fulfil common requirements for justification (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006, 140–144). Each order offers a way to arrange and coordinate things and to assess their worth, thus offering different conceptions about the common good. The orders of worth can be used to construct equivalencies between actors and objects and assess them according to how well they promote principles such as efficiency, equality, or tradition.

Table 1. Orders of worth and their relations to materiality and environments (modified from Boltanski and Thévenot 1999, 2006; Thévenot, Moody, and Lafaye 2000).

Order of worth	Principle of evaluation (equivalence)	Relevant objects (proof)	Relation to nature/environment
Inspirational	Inspiration, spirituality, creativity	Mind, body, dreams	Harmonious, mystical
Domestic	Esteem, hierarchical order, trust, proximity	Localities, gifts, heritage	Preserved sites, national animals
Fame	Popularity, recognition	Signs, trademarks, badges	Iconic sites and creatures
Civic	Collectivity, equality	Rules, regulations, laws, votes	Equal access to nature
Market	Prices and costs	Market goods and services	Ecosystem services
Industrial	Technical efficiency and accuracy	Infrastructure, technical objects, devices, tools	Natural resources and natural science

This ‘limited plurality’ of justificatory principles was from the onset coupled with the possibility of new emerging forms of worth (Blokker 2011). And, as ecology or environmentalism were not considered as one such principle of commonality in Boltanski and Thévenot’s original work, the question about the possibility of ‘green’ justifications emerged after the publication of their initial work.

Claudette Lafaye and Thévenot (1993, 495–497) then set out three possible alternatives for approaching environmental issues through the framework of pragmatic sociology: first, by incorporating the new environmental issues into the existing orders of worth; second, by affirming the emergence of a novel ‘green’ order of worth; or, third, by a ‘serious readjustment’ to the whole model and the ways it offers to account for criticisms of injustices. While Lafaye and Thévenot demonstrated how environmental issues could be accounted for by the original set of orders of worth, the conclusion from the outset has been that those orders cannot contain totally environmental issues and that there seemed to be ‘permanent overflow’ at the boundaries of the original framework (Lafaye and Thévenot 1993, 510). Later, Thévenot and others (2002, 241) noted that the category of the green worth is ‘currently being developed and is far from being as well illustrated or strongly integrated’ as other, more established forms of worth. Based on these initial observations, it has therefore been suggested that there would be a novel order of worth in construction (Blok 2013; Centemeri 2015; see also Murdoch and Miele 1999 and Murdoch, Marsden, and Banks 2000).

Although Lafaye and Thévenot’s list of options offered by the model is useful as a logical classification, these three options are in fact not separate but in contentious relation with each other. Environmentalist thinking, as a form of a potential new order of worth, has developed so far that it resists being incorporated into the other orders of worth (Thévenot, Moody, and Lafaye 2000). As an example Jamison (2001, 41) argues that ‘while the dominant, or hegemonic, culture seeks to incorporate environmental concern into its established modes of operation, seeds are also being planted, in the name of sustainable development, for new forms of social solidarity.’ Conversely, the previously established principles of justification resist new forms of worth that challenge them through critique. Furthermore, all previously established principles resist change in the form of ‘serious readjustment’ as previous investments in these forms make them important and worth defending – they are precisely what is seen to make things valuable – and people are often unwilling to give up these conventionalized formats of certainty and worth (Thévenot 1984, 2014).

Therefore, a new form of worth is required to provide something that the other orders are unable to account for (Lafaye and Thévenot 1993, 511–512). A new principle needs to be distinguished from previously established principles, emphasizing the processes of critical differentiation between various conventionalized formats. As Boltanski and Thévenot (2006, 47) state, ‘the development of a higher common principle on the basis of a new social bond always goes hand in hand with a critique of bonds constructed in conformity with other principles’. A new common principle is articulated by defining what it is not and how it provides a new way of organizing social relations. By presenting other forms of worth as particular, the new principle presents itself as a general form of common good, according to which commonality can be organized.

In his reading of Boltanski and Thévenot’s work, Bruno Latour (1998) argues that the incorporation of natural entities necessitates the ‘modernist’ starting points of the model to be altered. According to Latour, the underlying human-centric focus of the model – its ‘common humanity’ – is not able to account for the emerging ecological conflicts that are dismantling the separation between nature and culture. In other words, Latour states that Boltanski and Thévenot have resorted to a humanist reading of classic political tests that leads unavoidably to the conception of a ‘detached’ human being and does not consider how humans could not exist without nonhuman beings. Green commonality, in Latour’s definition, should be understood by starting from the uncertain boundaries of collectives, assemblages, or actor-networks (see Latour 1993, 2004).

Thévenot (2002, 78) responds to Latour’s view that ‘“green” critiques and justifications are not new insofar as they integrate nonhuman beings into evaluations but rather because they rest on a different kind of generalized linkage’. Boltanski and Thévenot’s (2006) original model does have room for the role objects play in stabilizing different polities into common moral worlds and focuses on the material support from which critical capacities are gained. Boltanski and Thévenot’s pragmatic sociology does not account for materiality ‘in general’ but as meaningfully structured through different conventionalized formats (Thévenot 1984, 2014). Instead of generalized collectives of various entities – human or nonhuman – which can and should be investigated in their actual enactments, pragmatic sociology offers a way to further analyze both how materiality and nonhuman objects are engaged in action and how they are differentiated from one another (Guggenheim and Potthast 2012, 172).

Therefore, the novelty of a new form of worth lies not only in the emergence of novel objects but also in the way they can be viewed as constituting a novel form of worth. Arguing for the emergence of a network-based worth, focused on mediating, Boltanski and Chiapello state that

networks, however large, are not any newer than the market was when Adam Smith wrote Wealth of Nations. But, it seems that it was not until the last third of the twentieth century that mediating … became autonomous, set apart from other activities behind which it had until then been hidden, and was identified and valued in itself. (2005b, 168–169; emphasis added)

Pragmatic sociology then examines different forms of evaluation through which association with reality is made (Centemeri 2015, 300; Thévenot, Moody, and Lafaye 2000, 266). The role of objects can be considered to be twofold in these processes: different orders of worth bring into vision different kinds of objects, so a new form of worth can be supposed to introduce novel objects to the coordination of common life. At the same time, these objects are not passive receptacles of meanings but must support various justifications and critiques (Murdoch, Marsden, and Banks 2000), and they can also disturb established orders (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006).

In this framework, objects are approached through the notion of test, which is a ‘creative and dynamic process of demonstrating what is relevant in a particular situation (and de-emphasizing or ignoring what is not relevant), and attributing “worth” to the relevant entities’ (Thévenot, Moody, and Lafaye 2000, 267). Central to such a test is the capacity to produce a sense of reality, of what the ‘true nature’ of both humans and things is, including the confirmation of their worth. As Ricoeur (2000, 86) already noted, the focus on testing justifications ‘is the part of Boltanski and Thévenot’s work that runs the greatest risk of being overlooked.’ And, indeed, their approach has since been confused to focus only on discourse (see e.g. Fourcade 2011), even though for them, justifications emerge from the coming together of both moral principles and various objects. Justifications (as well as critiques) emerge from practical situations, where the strength of the bonds between actors and objects are tested. In Boltanski and Thévenot’s terminology, the ‘polities’ of moral principles become ‘worlds’ through the incorporation of objects (e.g. Ricoeur 2000).

Different worlds establish this in differentiating ways. Whereas in the test of the inspirational world one needs to leave others behind and set off on a spiritual journey to find one’s true self, in the domestic world gathering at a ritual like a family occasion or wedding shows what is truly relevant and the true worth of the participants. Objects mobilized in these events appear as meaningfully different, as a gift embodies a different form of worth than a scientific instrument (in the industrial world) or a valuable product (in the market world). While this bares resemblance to the notion of trials, applied in ANT (see Virtanen et al. 2022), pragmatic sociology connects tests to distinct forms of worth. However, establishing a distinct green reality test has been problematic, so we focus especially on this aspect of the emerging green order of worth (Lafaye and Thévenot 1993; Blok 2013; Centemeri 2015).

Pragmatic sociology emphasizes that, aside from making a legitimate connection to a global object such as the climate, actors need to qualify a given situation according to a generalized principle (Thévenot, Moody, and Lafaye 2000). The focus is therefore not in the uniqueness each material encounter, but on the possibilities to generalize the relevance of a particular situation through a legitimate conventionalized principle. Justifications and critiques are examined as acts of generalization that aim to go ‘beyond proximity, towards others treated in a general way’ (Wagner 1999, 347). Objects are central in such acts of generalization, and ‘green objects’ should be able to support generalization beyond particularity. Such acts of generalization are relevant because, if successful, they can solidify a bond with nature, bringing together a new moral principle with requalified material objects. Recalling the posthumanist focus on the ethical, discussed earlier, Vallee (2022, 12), notes that the new posthuman condition requires “a commitment to the ‘I protect you to protect me’ attitude between humans, and between humans and other-than-human entities” (emphasis in original). It is the construction of such commonalities, based on shared forms of good, that pragmatic sociology is geared towards.

In sum, this directs attention into a green principle that is co-constructed with distinct green objects. Through such a bond the green world would be able to form a sense of a distinct socio-material reality with a unique form of ecological worth. Establishing this is seen to operate through critical differentiation, where green critique towards other forms of worth aims to set it apart from previously conventionalized worlds.

In the next two sections we will analyze the green critique that the organic movement has presented towards conventional modes of food production. This discussion draws on the authors’ previous empirical analyzes on the development and institutionalization of organic agriculture in the Finnish context (Lehtimäki 2019a; 2019b; 2021; Lehtimäki and Virtanen 2020). Here, our focus will be on the different ways advocates for organic agriculture have attempted to critically differentiate organic principles and practices from what they define as techno-chemical agriculture. By applying a framework for analyzing common worlds (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006, 140–144) that specifies the aspects of a justificatory world, we examine the extent to which organic advocates have been able to establish what could be considered a new moral bond and a distinct conception of nature. Following this, we move on to what we term the natural scientific counter-critiques of organic agriculture, and attempts to test the worth of organic principles and practices.

Organic agriculture and meaningfully different materialities

This section examines how advocates for organic agriculture have focused both on mimicking ecological processes and in differentiating their practices from the techno-chemical methods of conventional systems. Our aim is to show that both aspects are essential in the re-qualifications of agriculture and food according to the green worth. The organization of the section follows roughly Boltanski and Thévenot’s (2006, 140–144) framework for analyzing common worlds.

Advocates for organic agriculture hold that previously dominant production methods, based on the extensive use of agrochemicals and industrial methods, have made the negative impacts of agriculture on the environment too profound. Industrialized, techno-chemical agriculture, which is geared towards achieving high yields by using artificial chemicals, has therefore resulted in a situation that is no longer sustainable. These unsustainable environmental impacts also connect to a general trend where the quality of foodstuffs is argued to have declined due to intensive production. This problematic, or critical, situation therefore requires new practical engagements and a novel moral bond.

Advocates for organic agriculture have noted that, while organic methods might produce smaller yields (i.e. be less efficient), this is made up by the higher quality of the products (Kivelä and Pöytäniemi 1984). Rejecting the market-industrial compromise of conventional agriculture, organic agriculture aims to establish a new way of assessing production which involves rejecting the focus on ‘quantity’ and preferring ‘quality’ instead. As a further contrast to conventional modes of production, advocates emphasize that the notion of quality refers not only to the particular qualities of individual products but also is to the ‘overall quality’ of production (Rajala 2006, 35). This points to the generalized qualification of food production, combining elements such as being holistic, ecological and healthy. At the same time, generally referring to something as quality food leaves open what is meant by quality. Such attempt to critically differentiate quality from quantity have directed actors to finding ways to define the preferable qualities in order to solve the situation.

The distinct (claimed) qualities of organic products, such as being pesticide-free and more nutritious, are connected to the holistic aims of how they are grown and are manifested in the ecological activity of organic farmers, who work to enhance biological activity and diversity in the soil to increase the vitality of crops and benefit other forms of life connected to farms. The holistic approach leads to assessments of the limits and justification of human actions that involve interfering with nature by posing questions whether some actions are meaningful or necessary (Rajala 2006).

The main difference in the quality of production compared with convention agriculture is a different relation to nature, as organic agriculture is ‘about far-reaching cooperation with the different parties of the agro-ecosystem’ (Rajala 2006, 31). While the farmer is assigned with a privileged role in guiding this system, the different parties are seen to include various nonhuman actors inhabiting ecosystems. Therefore, while not presenting a complete symmetry between human and nonhumans, the perspective of organic agriculture nevertheless posits its activity as essentially dependent on the cooperation between humans and nonhumans. Here the farmer embodies the qualities of a ‘great person’ if he or she manages the agro-ecosystem in a way that enhances the natural processes in it.

To re-qualify agricultural production according to the green principle, a central aim of the organic movement has been to define fields and crops as ecological entities. Instead of being understood as solely production units with monoculture crops invested with inputs, advocates of organic agriculture have emphasized the role of fields as habitats. The ‘health’ of the soil is central to this line of thinking, as it foregrounds the organic qualities of topsoil and the organisms living in the soil:

The field is much more than just a substrate for the crops. There are numerous other plant species growing in the field. The plant population hosts different kinds of insects and other small animals, there are earthworms and microscopic organisms in the soil, and birds flying over the field etc. They are all interacting with each other. (Rajala 2006, 23; emphasis added)

At the same time, conventional agricultural practices are defined as attempting to reduce this abundance of life by focusing solely on maximizing yields of the harvested plants. The use of pesticides and the focus on high yields are defined as particular aims fixed on a narrow perspective which neglects the complexity of ecosystems. The ‘much more’ in the above quotations can be taken therefore as meaning the abundance of life inhabiting crops and fields, but it can also be taken as a reference to a form of generality that reaches beyond the focus on industrial production of food that only considers efficiency and profits. Different forms of life are made visible as well as the defining quality of production.

This new rationale for production therefore results in major changes in the equipment, or furniture, of action (Thévenot 2002). Organic practices aim to remove industrial objects such as ‘artificial’ fertilizers and replace them with more natural alternatives, such as crop rotation, and the use of organic fertilizers and organic pest control methods. For example, organic agriculture emphasizes the work done by micro-organisms and plants but also aims to substitute the chemical force of industrial fertilizers with human labour. In addition, the emphasis is on the different meaning according to which these new substances are qualified with:

Even though these organic substances are technically used in a similar way as pesticides, their purpose and effects are completely different. They are not meant to destroy any organisms that are considered harmful, but instead to make the plants stronger directly or through the soil. (Kivelä and Pöytäniemi 1984, 80; emphasis added)

The aim of organic methods is not efficiency and maximized crop production but instead to feeding and nurturing the soil and thus the whole field ecosystem. Sustained biological activity, increased soil organic matter and other enhancements of soil quality will lead to thriving crops and healthy food. At the same time, the multiplication of new entities does not present a simple emergence of new objects and relations. Green qualifications are created by critically differentiating them from the industrial methods of techno-chemical agriculture.

Furthermore, ecological thinking does not stay on the level of fields as ecosystems but commonly emphasizes the interconnections between nature as a whole and various sectors of society:

Organic farming is based on a holistic view in which the ecological, economic and social effects are accounted for both locally and globally. Nature is understood as a whole which has inherent value on its own. Humankind has a moral obligation to practice agriculture in a way which does not impoverish but instead maintains and diversifies nature. (Schepel 1994, 6)

This definition of organic agriculture is based on a compromise similar to that of sustainable development. The compromise thus presents a challenge to the new principle, as actors are required to maintain ecology as a distinctive form of worth within the compromise. Critical differentiation is necessary for the articulation and independence of the new principle, but various political struggles also necessitate compromises. Such compromises make the emerging green worth more acceptable to opponents, but simultaneously limits its possibilities (see Blok 2013; Author).

A commitment to organic principles – e.g. giving up efficient artificial fertilizers – leads to decreased yields and increased labour. While sacrificing efficiency and high yields, that have long been the markers of good production, the commitment to the ecological common good is achieved. This is, however, only a temporary loss, provided one rejects immediate and short-sighted gains while achieving the greater gain of sustainability in terms of ensuring future generations the ability to continue production. Valuable actions maintain and enhance ecosystems and are based on ‘far-reaching cooperation with nature.’ Actors and objects gain their worth through their contribution to the ecosystem, and new entities like micro-organisms, earthworms, fungi and the soil rise to prominence. In emphasizing the dependence of human activity on nature, organic agriculture highlights the interconnectedness of all parts of the ecosystem. But instead of a generalized interconnectedness, these green bonds are critically contrasted with exploitative and instrumentalist relations to nature. In this way, they also emphasize that this dependence necessitates a caring and maintaining approach.

The new principle is also able to redistribute worth. Instead of high-yielding, efficient production, the capacity to adapt to the environment and to maintain natural qualities within production units are now the most worthy characteristics of agriculture. Green critique, presented by the advocates of organic agriculture, argues that techno-chemical food production has become artificial and disconnected from ecological realities, while organic methods re-establish this bond with nature. The once-celebrated success of industrial agriculture is now characterized as having been possible only by depleting non-renewable resources and thus only a particular, unsustainable phase. Organic agriculture, on the other hand, can be made a general form of production.

To further emphasize, this crucial ecological embeddedness of human activity is emphasized, this is not presented as a generalized materiality but instead differentiated as a new way to qualify this materiality. However, it has encountered resistance from those sceptical of the possibilities of organic methods. In the next section, we will move to discuss these counter-critiques that not only emphasize efficiency as a solution to environmental problems, but also highlight the different conceptions of nature behind the two alternatives.

Opposing differentiation: industrial counter-critiques and testing green justifications

Like numerous other environmental initiatives that have aimed to challenge technological solutions, organic agriculture has also come on in for sharp criticism that questions its actual benefits. We will discuss first the attempts to generalize the qualities of organic agriculture by implementing it on a global level and how this has been contested. These challenges have focused on efficiency, testing organic methods’ capacity to produce enough food. After this, we will examine another form of testing that has challenged the accuracy of organic principles. We argue that while organic agriculture has been able to pass the first test of efficiency, the second one, which involves accuracy, has presented it with more significant problems.

Previous discussion on pragmatic sociology have examined green justifications through the connections between the local and global, focusing especially on biodiversity and climate change as qualities of the global ecosystem (Lafaye and Thévenot 1993; Blok 2013; Centemeri 2015). However, instead of demonstrating the increased solidity of the notion of green worth, the rise to the global level has led authors to point out problems, especially related to testing and distributing this novel worth. Lafaye and Thévenot (1993) argue that, as the connection between particular environments and the global environment can only be made through certain equipment and only after gaining special training, this form of testing is not open to everyone and thus does not fulfil the requirements of a legitimate test. Centemeri (2015, 316) points to the ‘often uncertain or ignored’ articulation between the local and global, which leads to a lack of solid methods by which to test the green worth, whereas Blok (2013, 501) stresses the ‘deep-rooted uncertainties’ in relations with nature and in engagements with non-humans.

In debates about organic agriculture, the relation between the green and industrial worths has been situated also in the global context, while presenting similar problems. Opponents of organic agriculture have repeatedly claimed that organic methods are not able to ‘feed the world’ due to lower yields and inefficient production methods (e.g. Trewavas 2001b; Connor 2008; see also Tomlinson 2013). While this is based partly on the civic worth – everyone’s right for sufficient nourishment – the efficiency of production is an essential part of the relation to nature and environmental impacts. The argument is that, due to lowered yields, organic agriculture requires more land to produce the same amount of food as conventional production. Because of this need for extra land, organic agriculture would actually be more harmful to biodiversity because it would lead to more natural ecosystems being converted to farmland. From this point of view, making production even more efficient is a better way to conserve natural habitats.

These critiques therefore question the ability of green methods to achieve green ends through measurements of efficiency and, at the same time, uphold the boundary between nature and (agri)culture. Stating that organic agriculture is simply unable to produce enough food for current global needs makes humanity dependent on techno-chemical production to survive. The continued existence of the current population is tied to the use of agrochemicals and engineered crops that enables efficient production of the required amounts of food: ‘abandoning technology is not the answer; improving technology to remove the hazards ensures continued benefit to both mankind and the environment’ (Trewavas 2001b, 177). Efficient technology thus facilitates the common good of both humans and nature.

Regardless of these critiques, organic agriculture, aided by the increasing environmental crisis, has been able to dismantle the primary status of this test, regardless of these attempts to maintain efficiency as key criterion for successful and valuable production. Productivity remains a part of agriculture, but agriculture is increasingly assessed based on its environmental impacts (e.g. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2017; United Nations Environmental Programme 2021).

However, as mentioned, contesting green justifications based on efficiency has not been the only counterargument. Green justifications are also regularly opposed on the grounds of their accuracy. Opposing the distinction between organic and conventional agriculture based on the green order of worth, critics offer a different qualification of conventional agriculture that changes the way it relates to organic agriculture: ‘conventional agriculture is a diverse set of technologies using the best available knowledge, whose ultimate goal is the safe, efficient provision of foods in abundance and at lowest price’ (Trewavas 2001a, 409; emphasis added). This qualification makes reference to efficiency and profits, but also to the best available knowledge that is used rationally to produce food.

Such a view is then contrasted to the ‘ideological’ principles of organic agriculture, that irrationally rule out the use of certain technological solutions from the outset: green practices and the critique of industrial methods are framed as a refusal to consider this ‘best available knowledge.’ However, even though they criticize the ‘environmental superiority’ of organic farming, these critics nevertheless note that the aims of organic agriculture – maintaining soil fertility, avoiding pollution, promoting animal welfare – would be ‘hard to quarrel with’ (Trewavas 2001a, 409); the green world is therefore acknowledged, but the green qualities of organic agriculture are discredited as ‘the lack of scientific data makes them hard to verify.’ Critics also point to various scientific experiments that have, in their view, shown the ineffectiveness of organic methods (see Author 1b). It should be noted that advocates for organic agriculture commonly refer to numerous research results in their justifications. Long-lasting field experiments, meta-analyses and laboratory tests on product qualities are presented to document the benefits of organic agriculture.

Regardless of the results, these analyzes nonetheless situate tests within the accurate measurements of the industrial world that aim to determine the efficiency of various methods. Determining the worth of an agricultural production system leans heavily on scientific research, deemed problematic by Lafaye and Thévenot (1993). In this context, advocates for organic agriculture have been able to shift the focus of what is to be measured: testing the green qualities of production should not focus on measuring chemical qualities but on biological productivity and assessing how alive the soil is, advocating therefore for a changed sense in relevance (cf. Thévenot, Moody, and Lafaye 2000). However, testing green qualities has largely remained close to scientific experiments.

However, critiques directed at organic agriculture focus on the ‘unscientific’ nature of green justifications as these are allegedly impossible to verify. The attempts by organic advocates to differentiate themselves from the techno-scientific principles and practices of the industrial world are unacceptable to those who are unwilling to draw a distinction between the ecological, green conception of nature and the industrial conception of nature. In the industrial critiques of organic agriculture, the organic principles and rules are too rigid and thus framed as ‘ideological’ (cf. Boltanski and Thévenot 2006, 231; Chiapello 2003). They are not considered to be open to testing or change, and worth appears to be permanently attached to organic agriculture.

The opposition towards a distinct sense of reality is also illustrated in the critiques directed at the understanding of organic agriculture as producing natural or chemical-free products. Distinctions between natural and artificial production, where the former would produce chemical-free products, is to some unacceptable. This is because for the opponents of organic agriculture, there simply is no unnatural, artificial or chemical-free reality. Instead, nature consists of everything there is and all things in this world are made from chemicals. Such critiques are perhaps best illustrated by the satirical research article, that describes ‘all those consumer products, to our knowledge, that are appropriately labelled as ‘Chemical free’’, and then consists of a two blank pages (Goldberg and Chemjobber 2014). They therefore resort to a conception of nature, where differentiation is essentially impossible as ‘nature’ already encompasses everything there is (see e.g. Eder 1996; Pellizzoni 2016). Environmental problems are thus recognized, but there appears to be no need for a new worldview.

The green reality test?

Critics of organic agriculture contest its access to a distinct form of reality and the notion that it has a particular ‘directory’ of qualified objects. Even though these critics recognize and acknowledge environmental problems as a significant issue, efficiency is still considered the best way to achieve it, just as scientific accuracy is regarded as the best way to justify the means of achieving this common goal.

Building on the new definition of the situation – the environmental crisis and the existential importance of natural ecosystems – green justifications nevertheless argue for the need to reconsider conceptions of what is relevant. Like many other environmental movements, organic agriculture also promotes a ‘precautionary principle’ (Rajala 2006, 14) or a ‘principle of care’ (Luttikholt 2007), according to which environmental issues require a special sense of caution due to their crucial importance to the survival of humanity. Connected to these principles is the notion that action cannot be postponed until there is absolute scientific certainty, as the risks are too significant; when science cannot provide absolute certainty, actors seek certainty somewhere else, and the green principle is one place to find it (for further discussion on the precautionary principle, see Yearley 2005, 136).

The differentiation of a new principle is therefore connected to the need to create a novel moral bond that reconciles the problems created by existing forms of worth. While the intent may not be to discredit science as such, science as a form of certainty is not regarded as providing adequate grounding for that bond. The attempt to test green qualities therefore demonstrates a changed sense of relevance by for example pointing towards observing the abundance of life and vitality of the soil’s ecosystem.

Even though Thévenot, Moody, and Lafaye (2000, 241) do not discuss the issue, they note that a reality test for green worth would be based on sustainability, and this has indeed been the case for organic agriculture, as well as many other ecological debates. As mentioned, faced with critiques about the feasibility of organic methods, advocates for organic agriculture commonly refer to long-term field experiments that are said to demonstrate the sustainability of organic principles and practices (e.g. Mäder et al. 2002). Sustainability can also be seen to operate as a form of generality: sustainable production can be maintained in the future, while techno-chemical production is limited to a particular period that will inevitably end when non-renewable resources are depleted and natural ecosystems will no longer be able to support it.

But field experiments used as proof for sustainability still take the form of scientific experiments and focus on measurable quantities of organic matter and biodiversity. In addition, using sustainability as the green test could present two other kinds of problems. First, it postpones the confirmation of worth to the future: sustainability can be confirmed only after a long time. Second, sustainability is also commonly thought to have multiple dimensions, therefore presenting a setting ill-suited for testing. Both challenges question the openness of the green worth for testing. For now, it seems that the test that reveals the actor’s true character is whether she is willing to let go of the exploitative and instrumentalist relations based on market and industrial worths and accept a place as part of nature rather than above it. This, however, offers only a negative definition: by rejecting other forms of worth, one shows commitment to the emerging new worth.

Pragmatic sociology put into the test: the state of the green worth and posthuman bonds?

Following this discussion on green critique in the debates over organic agriculture, how well can the green worth be said to have fared? Based on the case of organic agriculture, it appears to fulfil most of the requirements set for the polity model in Boltanski and Thévenot’s work. These characteristics are summarized in Table 2. In the green order of worth, equivalence is constructed through interdependence and by framing the worth as operating as part of ecosystems. A worthy actor recognizes its part in the ecosystemic whole and acts in a way that sustains and proliferates the abundance of life. Entities such as animals, plants, fungi and other nonhumans gain novel relevance as part of this mutually enhancing and interdependent collectivity.

Table 2. Characteristics of the emerging green order of worth and how it is critically differentiated.

Polity model	Green worth	Rejected form of worth (differentiation)
Principle of equivalence	Interdependent and ecosystemic	Instrumental
Form of worth	Holistic, intrinsic value of nature, necessity for human life	Technical, quantified, parts disconnected from the whole (subjects disconnected from objects)
Format of relevant information	Animals, plants, fungi (abundance of life)	Nature as a passive object to be measured and used
Relations between beings	Maintaining, enhancing, dependent	Disconnected and isolated
Human qualification	Environmentalist, caring, cooperative	Exploitative
Reality test	Sustainability?	Quantification and reduction to parts

However, this study highlights the incompleteness of a green reality test as the defining character of greenness as an emerging form of worth. Environmental problems indeed evoke a changed sense of the concrete conditions for human activity (Catton and Dunlap 1978) but differentiating the environmental world from the technological and instrumental one that initially produced the environmental problems presents complications in empirical situations. In our analysis, the most central complication is produced by this dependence on the industrial worth as a way of ‘knowing nature,’ while at the same time the it is identified as part of the problem (cf. Yearley 2005).

According to Lafaye and Thévenot (1993), the key challenge to the green test is that reaching the global environmental scale requires the technical instruments of the industrial world. However, achieving a global scale is not the same as generalization, as size does not imply generality. The atmosphere, for instance, is global, but it is not general, and ‘from the viewpoint of the universal, the global looks rather small-scale’ (Yearley 1996, 17). Therefore, even though environmental conflicts and debates refer to global environmental problems, making these connections should not be limited to the performance of entire ecosystems or Earth system science, which construct mediations to global environments with technical instruments. Moreover, along with objects that support and mediate the connection between environmental debates and global problems, a green critical capacity requires a principle of ecology to which actors can refer (cf. Boltanski and Thévenot 2000, 210). Future studies could aim at further pinpointing the emerging green worth from conventionalized forms of action that do not reach for the global scale through natural science but generalize their green bonds through other forms of equivalence instead.

Nevertheless, uncertainties do remain in practices that aim to test and confirm the green worth (Blok 2013), and the ‘holistic’ approach in organic agriculture also underlines this clearly. This is of course in no way surprising, as environmental action has long set itself against economic growth. We would then suggest that studies focus on investigating how critical differentiation operates in the compromises where those advocating for environmentalist action need to maintain ecology as an independent element within the compromise, and not as incorporated into other forms of worth – most notably the market worth, as is often the case in instances of ‘greenwash.’ While Blok (2013) points towards uncertainties in testing the green worth, he focuses specifically on such a compromise setting, i.e. that of carbon markets. Compromises are, however, ill-suited for testing, and the focus should be on settings, where the new form of worth is ‘purified’ from external elements (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006). Our investigation, however, points to the need for specifically focusing on situations where the green worth would be differentiated clearly from other forms of worth and articulated as valuable in itself. This requires the identification of green tests that are able to legitimately distribute this new form of worth.

Our examination of the emergence of green worth as a critique of industrial worth suggests that a successful green critique needs to be able to create a distinct ‘access’ via testing to nature that can challenge the one promoted by the natural sciences. Even though an ecological morality has long attempted to establish its difference from natural-scientific forms of knowledge (Eder 1996; Yearley 2005), knowing nature on a generalized level still relies heavily on a techno-scientific approach and a mastery of nature (cf. Pellizzoni and Centemeri 2022). But the relation to natural science is further complicated by contemporary political currents that aim to dismantle the authority of science. In our view, this further emphasizes the relevance of the green worth as a publicly legitimate form of justification, which challenges the exploitation of nature but is not reduced to the level of particular interests.

Discussions within pragmatic sociology show that, regardless of the emphasis on materiality, ecological problems and the emergence of the green worth have put strains on the regime of publicity (Latour 1998; Blok 2013; Centemeri 2015; 2017). Boltanski and Thévenot (2006) did account for different forms of nonhuman ‘actors’ originally, most prominently in the inspirational world, that is inhabited by various spiritual beings. Nevertheless, these were also considered as objects of a particular world, relevant to the human actors engaged with them. A central issue why new ‘objects’ pose problems to the previous regime, is that they are living beings with agency and intentionality, which does not fit to the previously set boundaries between division of subject and object, as is the case with animals. However, as for example Tovey (2003) shows, the worth of nonhuman animals is not completely identical with environmental valuation.

To contribute to the potential extension of the theory of justifications and orders of worth, we suggest a focus on critical differentiation as a way to approach the emergence of a new form of worth, while keeping in mind the tensions and opposition posed by other orders of worth. Following this, the emergence of critical reactions to green valuations suggest that the green worth is indeed able to distribute worth in a novel way, demonstrated by the increased sense of injustice when observed from, for example, the point of view of industrial worth. At the same time, the counter-critiques challenge the emergence of this novel worth and (possibly) the overall shift to more ecological practices that goes along with it.

Conclusion

A vast body of research has discussed the distinctiveness of an emerging ecological rationality, and pragmatic sociology can contribute to this discussion by focusing on the process of articulating a new ecological bond. Pragmatic sociology offers an analytical framework that directs attention to the instances where actors engage in critique of established relations to materiality. It does not postulate a generalized materiality, but instead analyzes how actors themselves challenge problematic conventions related to, for example, market economy and industrial technology, and attempt to construct new bonds with the environment and material objects. It provides then an analytical framework that can grasp the ways people make distinctions between socio-material relations. Materiality and objects are thus conceptualized as central parts of action and commonality; a way is opened for social theory and research to better account for environmental problems and ‘the physical’ (Dunlap and Catton 1979; Murdoch 2001), but this is achieved by also taking into account the various forms of sense-making that structure collectivities.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Academy of Finland: [Grant Number 312624].

Notes on contributors

Tomi Lehtimäki

Tomi Lehtimäki is postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki. He received his PhD in 2021 in sociology, with his dissertation examining the organic agriculture movement in Finland. He is currently working on a project focused on nonhuman animals, law and emotions. He is also working on the study of voluntary carbon offsetting as a form of market moralization.

Mikko J. Virtanen

Mikko J. Virtanen is a versatile sociologist with a passionate scholarly orientation and an unswerving commitment to academic teaching. His scholarly expertise extends from social theory, social science methodology, and qualitative research methods to hands-on studies of topical phenomena. Most recently, Virtanen has focused on environmental knowledge and climate marketisation, health ethics, and vaccination, along with energy markets and infrastructure, to generate original outputs of both case studies and research design building.