- The Oxford Handbook of Food Ethics
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Sustainable Agriculture, Environmental Philosophy, and the Ethics of Food
- Farming, the Virtues, and Agrarian Philosophy
- Food, the Environment, and Global Justice
- Genetically Modified Food
- Local Food Movements: Differing Conceptions of Food, People, and Change
- Concerning Cattle: Behavioral and Neuroscientific Evidence for Pain, Desire, and Self-Consciousness
- The New Hunter and Local Food
- Ethics for Fish
- The Ethical Basis for Veganism
- Arguments for Consuming Animal Products
- Consumer Choice and Collective Impact
- Religious Dietary Practices and Secular Food Ethics; or, How to Hope that Your Food Choices Make a Difference Even When You Reasonably Believe That They Don’t
- The Clean Plate Club? Food Waste and Individual Responsibility
- Racial Imperialism and Food Traditions
- Food Sovereignty, Justice, and Indigenous Peoples: An Essay on Settler Colonialism and Collective Continuance
- Food, Fairness, and Global Markets
- Multi-Issue Food Activism
- Public Justification and the Politics of Agriculture
- Paternalism, Food, and Personal Freedom
- Deceptive Advertising and Taking Responsibility for Others
- Food Labor Ethics
- The Moral Burdens of Temporary Farmwork
- Eat Y’Self Fitter: Orthorexia, Health, and Gender
- Food Insecurity: Dieting as Ideology, as Oppression, and as Privilege
- Shame, Seduction, and Character in Food Messaging
- Obesity and Responsibility
- I Eat, Therefore I Am: Disgust and the Intersection of Food and Identity
- Morality and Aesthetics of Food
- Food Choices and Moral Character
- The Etiquette of Eating
- The Ethics of Being a Foodie
- Who You Are Is What You Eat: Food in Ancient Thought
- Food Ethics in the Middle Ages
- You Are What You Eat, But Should You Eat What You Are? Modern Philosophical Dietetics
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter explores and defends the idea that the etiquette conventions governing dinner parties, whether formal or informal, have moral significance. Their significance derives from the way that they foster and facilitate shared moral aims. I draw on literary and philosophical sources to make this claim, beginning with Isak Dineson’s short story, “Babette’s Feast.” I employ the concept of ritual from Confucius and Xunzi, as well as Immanuel Kant’s detailed discussion of dinner parties in the Anthropology. Kant’s account, in particular, helps illuminate how properly conducted dinners can enhance our understanding and promote moral community among the people who attend. I conclude that dinner parties play an important role in the moral life, and that the etiquette conventions governing them derive their binding force from their contribution to that role.
Keywords: etiquette, conventions, dinner parties, Immanuel Kant, anthropology, Babette’s Feast, Confucius, Xunzi, moral community
Karen Stohr is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University and Senior Research Scholar in Georgetown’s Kennedy Institute of Ethics.
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- The Oxford Handbook of Food Ethics
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Sustainable Agriculture, Environmental Philosophy, and the Ethics of Food
- Farming, the Virtues, and Agrarian Philosophy
- Food, the Environment, and Global Justice
- Genetically Modified Food
- Local Food Movements: Differing Conceptions of Food, People, and Change
- Concerning Cattle: Behavioral and Neuroscientific Evidence for Pain, Desire, and Self-Consciousness
- The New Hunter and Local Food
- Ethics for Fish
- The Ethical Basis for Veganism
- Arguments for Consuming Animal Products
- Consumer Choice and Collective Impact
- Religious Dietary Practices and Secular Food Ethics; or, How to Hope that Your Food Choices Make a Difference Even When You Reasonably Believe That They Don’t
- The Clean Plate Club? Food Waste and Individual Responsibility
- Racial Imperialism and Food Traditions
- Food Sovereignty, Justice, and Indigenous Peoples: An Essay on Settler Colonialism and Collective Continuance
- Food, Fairness, and Global Markets
- Multi-Issue Food Activism
- Public Justification and the Politics of Agriculture
- Paternalism, Food, and Personal Freedom
- Deceptive Advertising and Taking Responsibility for Others
- Food Labor Ethics
- The Moral Burdens of Temporary Farmwork
- Eat Y’Self Fitter: Orthorexia, Health, and Gender
- Food Insecurity: Dieting as Ideology, as Oppression, and as Privilege
- Shame, Seduction, and Character in Food Messaging
- Obesity and Responsibility
- I Eat, Therefore I Am: Disgust and the Intersection of Food and Identity
- Morality and Aesthetics of Food
- Food Choices and Moral Character
- The Etiquette of Eating
- The Ethics of Being a Foodie
- Who You Are Is What You Eat: Food in Ancient Thought
- Food Ethics in the Middle Ages
- You Are What You Eat, But Should You Eat What You Are? Modern Philosophical Dietetics
- Index
