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Document Details : Title: Enriching Good Eating Author(s): DEAN, Megan A. Journal: Ethical Perspectives Volume: 31 Issue: 1 Date: 2024 Pages: 11-28 DOI: 10.2143/EP.31.1.3293468 Abstract : One of the central assertions in Anne Barnhill and Matteo Bonotti’s Healthy Eating Policy and Political Philosophy: A Public Reason Approach is that 'food and eating have many kinds of value for individuals, families, and communities', and this value 'can be both positive and negative'. One implication of this view is that healthy eating may have significant disvalue for some eaters while unhealthy eating may be highly valuable. Thus, healthy eating interventions may result in a significant loss of value or increase in disvalue in eaters’ lives. The authors contend that public health policymakers should take this into account, arguing that a policy likely to result in significant losses of value or increases in disvalue is unjustifiable. In this paper, I argue that Barnhill and Bonotti’s values pluralism about food and eating offers a welcome departure from three common oversimplifications of the ethical importance of food and eating in human life: an ‘all about paternalism’ view, a healthist view, and a hedonistic view. This values pluralism enriches and enhances our understandings and normative assessments of ‘good food’ and ‘good eating’, and makes space to recognize a wider range of ‘good eaters’ than any of these oversimplifications can accommodate. This is important because being identified and treated as a ‘bad eater’ can have morally significant consequences, including damage to the eater’s agency. Thus, beyond its importance for food policy, it would be beneficial for a wide range of conversations about food and eating to adopt a values pluralist perspective. However, since some value derives from sources – such as false beliefs or oppressive identities – that may not be worthy of respect, more needs to be said about whether all value and disvalue should be treated as equivalent before this perspective can be responsibly deployed in any context. |
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