PHIL 134Food, Values, and Health

3 credits · Philosophy · Penn State

This course studies the ethical and social issues connected to food, personal and cultural eating habits, body image and ideas of health, and agricultural practices and industrialized food production. We will discuss the following sorts of questions: In what ways are cooking and eating central to our human identity? What do judgments about being anorexic, overweight, or eating unhealthily mean and do? How strong are the arguments for vegetarianism, veganism, or raw-food-ism? Ought we to eat as our Paleolithic ancestors did? If the future holds engineered meat, GMO fruit, and Soylent shakes, what are we to think? Should food-companies be allowed to advertise to children? Is alcohol more like food, like medicine, or like drugs? Students will pursue answers to such food-ethical questions by learning relevant moral and social theory, discussing past and contemporary approaches to these issues, and analyzing case studies. We will pay particular attention to food as a symbol with psychological, social, and spiritual meanings and effects.