Philosophy of Food and Fat

Catalog description

This majors seminar will explore some of the philosophical issues related to obesity and food. We'll discuss a number of related topics, such as the nature and causes of obesity, how food relates to personal identity, gender, and religion, questions about whether the government or society as a whole should be trying to fix the obesity epidemic, whether corporations are responsible for the problem, and the ethics and possible outcomes of different kinds of food fetishism (such as only eating locally-produced food). Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the topic, the readings will come from philosophy as well as other fields including sociology, public health, and complex systems research. There will be popular pieces as well as full philosophy articles. The class will be structured as a cooperative learning seminar, where everyone in the class is expected to help everyone else learn. The course will push you to understand and communicate clearly about material that is often difficult to understand. Along with introducing you to some topics in philosophy, this course will help students become better skilled in understanding and intelligently questioning sophisticated arguments, which can come in handy in a large number of pursuits.