Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health

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New York University

Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health

E33.2288 ETHICAL CONTROVERSIES IN NUTRITION, FOOD STUDIES,

AND PUBLIC HEALTH

Spring 2010 [version as of January 26, 2009]

Registration information

30 hours: 3 points

Time: Mondays, 4:55 – 6:35 p.m.

Place: 194 Mercer, Room 207

Instructor: Marion Nestle, Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health (see Office hours by appointment (via e-mail), 35 W 4th St, 12th Floor.

Assistant: Maya Joseph or (941) 468-0305

Office hours: Mondays 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. at Third Rail coffeehouse, 240 Sullivan Street (between Bleecker and West 3rd). Also by appointment.

Course Description:

This course deals with ethical values—moral judgments of right and wrong and good and bad--related to food systems, defined here as the connections and interconnections among agriculture, food, nutrition, and public health from the standpoint of food production and consumption. The course is concerned with such matters as the health and nutritional consequences of food production and marketing, dietary advice to the public, and food choices. Through case studies involving extensive reading and analysis, students investigateand analyzecurrent ethical dilemmas in such areas as industrial and alternative agriculture and their effects on farm animals, farm workers, and the environment; food product advertising and marketing;hunger, malnutrition, and ways to treat conditions of undernutrition; dietary guidance; and school food. Each case illustrates one or more ethical issues and their implications for diverse stakeholders in food systems: producers, marketers, government officials, health professionals, and the public.

What is ethics?

According to Wikipedia (not a bad starting point),ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality, such as what the fundamental semantic, ontological, and epistemic nature of ethics or morality is (meta-ethics), how moral values should be determined (normative ethics), how a moral outcome can be achieved in specific situations (applied ethics), how moral capacity or moral agency develops and what its nature is (moral psychology), and what moral values people actually abide by (descriptive ethics).

Readings

All students are expected to do all the reading for every class, to try to make sense of it, and to come to class with thoughts, comments, and questions about the material.

Books: The course requires extensive reading as a basis for class discussion. The six required books are listed in the outline under Assignments. Most have been published within the last year or so (one is not out until later in the semester) and represent distinct, current points of view.

Papers: Additional required readings either are posted on Blackboard or linked to the Internet.

Current events: Read a daily paper of your choice—in hard copy or online—to keep up with current events related to class topics. With luck, Congress will pass food safety legislation and we will hear about development of the 2010 edition of the Dietary Guidelines during the period in which this class meets.

Evaluation

1. Class participation and presentations (40%)

Class participation: This class will be run as a seminar, not a lecture course. Participation in discussions is essential. All students are expected to provide comments in class on all assigned readings. In every class session, a few students will assume primary responsibility for discussion of their parts of the reading, summarizing key ethical issues, and commenting on them. Presenters for the first couple of weeks will be organized during the first class. The final presentation schedule should be set by week #3. Presenters for each week should divide up the material so each presenter is responsible for covering one part of the material in detail (but in the context of the readings as a whole).

Presentations: Aim for 5 to 7 minutes to explain in your own words what engaged you in your share of the readings, what you think the authors meant, or what you found particularly interesting, difficult, or absurd. In preparing your presentation, you should assume that all students have read the material. Do not—under any circumstances—waste class time by summarizing anything except the key points or the particular ethical issues raised in the material. The point is to demonstrate engagement with the material, even if it’s just to explain what you hated about it or could not understand.

2. Term paper (60%)

Students will write a term paper to be developed in consultation with instructors. Papers should be about 15 pages of text (double spaced). Additional pages can be used for references (required); an annotated list of Internet and library sources (required); and tables, figures, or appendices (optional). Papers are expected to be presented in standard format for research term papers, putting footnotes at end as endnotes. If you are not sure how to do this, ask. Papers must produce evidence of substantial research into library and Internet sources. They must not be plagiarized (an issue to be discussed in class). To construct the paper, select an issue of interest, identify the ethical issues relevant to that issue following the model in the reading by Wilmut and Bruce, provide a summary of those issues, chose a position on at least one of them, and defend that position.

Note key dates:

• OnFebruary 22 and March 1, class time will be set aside for students to present brief summaries of their proposed term paper topics.
• March 22 turn in a summary of the ethical issues in your term paper topic (following the model in Wilmut & Bruce). This should be no more than 2 typed pages.
• On May 3, there will be an opportunity for brief summary presentations of key issues and findings from term papers.
• Term papers DUE: May 14, 5:00 p.m.

SCHEDULE OF TOPICS, ASSIGNMENTS, AND READINGS

CLASS / TOPIC / ASSIGNMENTS
January 25 / Introduction / Wikipedia entry on ethics
February 1 / Background: ethics and ethical issues / Blackburn, S. Being Good: An Introduction to Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Dahan NM, Gittens M. Business and the public affairs of slavery: a discursive approach of an ethical public issue. J Business Ethics, 10 July 2009. Used with permission.
DeLind LB. Hitching our wagons to the wrong stars? Considering the local food movement (paper presented to a May 2009 conference). Used with permission.
February 8 / Food ethics: historical perspective / Coff C. Excerpts: Food and ethics in history; and Food ethics and the production history. In: The Taste for Ethics: An Ethic of Food Consumption. Springer, 2006: 16-30 plus references.
FAO. Ethical Issues in Food and Agriculture
February 15 / President’s Day holiday
February 22 / Food ethics: issues / Peter Singer and Jim Mason. The Ethics of What We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter. Rodale Books, 2007.
DUE: Half the class proposes term paper topics.
March 1 / Case study: eating animals / Michael Pollan. Chapter 17. The ethics of eating animals. In: Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. Penguin, 2007:304-333.
Jonathan Safran Foer. Eating Animals. Little, Brown and Company, 2009.
Whaley SE, et al. The impact of dietary intervention on the cognitive development of Kenyan school children. J Nutrition2003;133: 3965s–3971s.
Nestle M. Plagiarism case study.
DUE: The rest of the class proposes term paper topics.
March 8 / Case study: hunger and what to do about it
Case study: weaning foods and food aid / Pinstrup-Anderson P. Eliminating poverty and hunger in developing countries: a moral imperative or enlightened self-interest? In: Pinstrup-Anderson P, Sandøe P, eds. Ethics,Hunger and Globalization: In Search of Appropriate Priorities. Springer, 2007:15-27.
DeSchuetter O. The right to food and the political economy of hunger. Rome, November 18, 2009 at
www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/food/docs/McDougall18November2009.pdf.
FAO. The Right to Food. Read Voluntary Guidelines Parts I and II; browse Part III at
Medicins sans Frontieres. Malnutrition: How much is being spent? An analysis of nutrition funding flows 2004-2007, November 2009.
Enserink M. The peanut butter debate. Science 2008;322:36-38.
Isanaka S, et al. Effect of preventive supplementation with ready-to-use therapeutic food on the nutritional status, mortality, and morbidity of children aged 6 to 60 months in Niger. JAMA 2009;301:277-285.
Holla R, Menon L. The hunger bazaar: ethical issues in public private partnerships in nutrition and conflicts of interest. MFC Bulletin [India], August-September 2008.
March 15 / Spring break
March 22 / Case study: GMOs
Case study: cloning / DUE: Ethical issues outlinefor term paper topic (using Wilmut & Bruce as model)
Thompson, P.B. Food Biotechnology in Ethical Perspective, 2nd ed. Chapter 2: The presumptive case
for food biotechnology (pp. 55-72). Chapter 7: Ethics and environmental impact (pp. 165-194). Chapter 8. Social Consequences (pp. 195-231). Bibliography (pp. 309-334).
FAO. Genetically Modified Organisms, Consumers, Food Safety and the Environment.
Wilmut I, Bruce D. Dolly mixture: cloning by nuclear transfer to improve genetic engineering in animals. In: Bruce D, Bruce A, eds. Engineering Genesis: The Ethics of Genetic Engineering in Non-Human Species. Earthscan, 1998:71-76.
March 29 / Case study: dietary advice
Case study: food marketing / Dietary Guidelines for Americans
2010 edition: Mestel R. 2010 means…(drumroll)…new dietary guidelines. Los Angeles Times, January 12, 2010 at For current status, meeting reports, etc., see
2005 edition:
Earlier editions:
Gussow JD, Clancy KL. Dietary guidelines for sustainability. J Nutrition Education 1986;18(1):1-5.
Gussow JD. Dietary guidelines for sustainability: twelve years later. J Nutrition Education 1999;31(4):194-200.
Nestle M. Ethical dilemmas in choosing a healthful diet: Vote with your fork! Proceedings of the Nutrition Society (UK) 2000;59:619-629.
Joseph M, Nestle M. The ethics of food. Lahey Clinic Journal of Medical Ethics 2009;16(1):1-7.
Smart Choices. See posts at . Click on Smart Choices and read in chronological order, starting from the first post in April on page 2, and following relevant links.
April 5 / Case study: school food / Poppendieck, J. Free for All: Fixing School Food in America. University of California Press, 2010.
April 12 / Case study: sustainable agriculture / FAO. Ethics of Sustainable Agriculture Intensification ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/007/j0902e/j0902e00.pdf
April 19 / Wendell Berry. Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food. Counterpoint, 2009.
April 26 / Case study: climate change / Anna Lappé. Diet for a Hot Planet. Bloomsbury, 2010 (book will be available in mid-March).
May 3 / Student presentations
May 13, 5:00 p.m. / Term papers due