Philosophy of Food

Catalog description

Our choices about what to eat, what not to eat, with whom to eat, and what even counts as food express some of our deepest, and also unquestioned, values. This course is a critical reflection on and assessment of the assumptions, attitudes, and practices about our food values. Topics include the ways that science and the media contribute to, and distort, our understanding of health and nutrition; the social and environmental consequences of our eating habits; what, if any, moral obligations we have to adopt specific eating habits; and the ethical, social, and political significance of our cultural culinary traditions. Research will be conducted through a careful reading of philosophical texts, trips to restaurants, community gardens and farms, and, of course, by eating together.