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The pleasures of eating analysis
The importance of food in our lives
The importance of food in our lives
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Recommended: The pleasures of eating analysis
Chloe Tong
10/10/14
PHIL 4300
Kaplan
Why isn’t the pleasure of food enough?
This article is explaining the issue of how people perceive food to be one of the least pleasurable things to worry about. The author explains that the amount of pleasure by eating and drinking is not as great as it seems (25). Based on this, the author believes that we should spend more time on other things that gives us pleasure and pay less attention to food. There are two different points of view in this article that support the argument that eating and drinking brings pleasure to people. The quantitative strand states that the amount of pleasure produced by eating and drinking are often over exaggerated. The qualitative strand states that the feeling of pleasure gotten from eating and drinking is not as great than the kind produced from other experiences.
Some questions were brought up in order to clear up any confusion about the discussion of quality and quantity of pleasure. When comparing quantity and quality, most people say that they get more pleasure from doing one thing than another (25). Another issue that was brought up was if we could separate the pleasures we get from eating and drinking and other pleasures. The author infers that the real difficulty people have is isolating the pleasures of food and the
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Plato discusses how eating and drinking and the pleasures of food aren’t pleasures worth having. They are merely disguised as false pleasures and are only reliefs of pain, which humans mistake for pleasure (32). An example of this is hunger. When we eat, it only satisfies our hunger or ‘relieves our pain’ temporarily. The author is not very fond of Plato’s arguments saying that the pain is relieved through the psychological urges for food rather than the physical want for it. The argument does not support the claim that pleasures of eating and drinking are not genuine
In the article by Wendell Berry titled “The Pleasures of Eating” he tries to persuade the readers of the necessity and importance of critical thinking and approach to choosing meals and owning responsibility for the quality of the food cooked. He states that people who are not conscious enough while consuming products, and those who do not connect the concept of food with agricultural products, as people whose denial or avoidance prevents them from eating healthy and natural food. Berry tries to make people think about what they eat, and how this food they eat is produced. He points to the aspects, some which may not be recognized by people, of ethical, financial and
The theory of hedonism is the view that pleasure is the only thing that is intrinsically valuable, thus making it so that our lives are only truly good to the extent that we are happy. The Argument from False Happiness challenges the view of the hedonist: the hedonist believes that a life is good so long as there is happiness, regardless of where the happiness comes from, whereas critics of hedonism argue that a life filled with false beliefs is worse, despite the fact that the person may still be as equally happy as someone with true beliefs. In this essay, I will show how hedonism is drastically discredited by the following argument as it is clear to see how false happiness makes a life significantly worse for the person living it: If hedonism
In the introduction, the reader is given an immediate feel of the essay is about and is already clear on the purpose of the article which is to guide the reader to “Eat responsibly”. The writer avoids any errors of fact and any misinterpretation or misrepresentation of any facts. In compliance with the essay the title “The Pleasures of Eating” relays the thoughts of the author as he suggests that the true “Pleasure of Eating” is in the process, from personally growing the food to preparing it and knowing fully well the hard work and preparation needed to put the food on the table. The discussion does not stray from the topic at hand rather it stays focused talking about important information with apposite points. The points in this essay where each given their own merit by neither over nor underemphasizing any of them. Undeniably the author assumes that most people access their information about food from commercials and do not actually put in any effort to know what goes into their food, though people do at least try to take a stand by seeking out organic food products nevertheless they are deceived as the government agencies set in place to aid them instead works against them with lax guidelines. The essayist observes the interactions between the
Another problem is that some pleasures are more alluring than others. Pleasure does not deal with just quantity, quality is also important. The old saying, “You ...
The second classic criticism of Utilitarian Principle is that Mill’s dichotomy of higher and lower pleasures create the need to calculate the happiness derived from each category of pleasures. This has left critics asking “Is a dissatisfied Socrates better off than a satisfied fool?” In response, Mill says that people learn to distinguish physical (or lower) pleasures from mental (or higher) pleasures with training. We possess the tendency to favor the higher pleasures, as we are human beings rather than mere
...t that many of these situations are fading. Increasingly, we resort to eating as a kind of automatic action, indulging in "fast food" or even eating while walking. One thing I believe Kass failed to realize was that the human body is very important. It urges us daily for the different pleasures in life. See Kass believes that we are stuck in a sense of informality of much that is current today. He writes, on the last page, "Recovering the deeper meaning of eating could help cure our spiritual anorexia. From it we can learn the essential unity of body and soul, and we can relearn the true relations to the formed world that the hungering soul makes possible” (Kass 231). My only question is, will we ever understand what it means to eat?
Throughout the essay, Berry logically progresses from stating the problem of the consumer’s ignorance and the manipulative food industry that plays into that ignorance, to stating his solution where consumers can take part in the agricultural process and alter how they think about eating in order to take pleasure in it. He effectively uses appeals to emotion and common values to convince the reader that this is an important issue and make her realize that she needs to wake up and change what she is doing. By using appeals to pathos, logos, and ethos, Berry creates a strong argument to make his point and get people to change how they attain and eat food.
In the article, “The Pleasure of Eating” by Wendell Berry, Berry was right about the fact that there should be a “Food Politics”. This article talks about “eating responsibly” and “eating agriculturally”. If you haven’t heard of these terms, they vary in Berry’s article. So “Eating responsibly” and “Eating agriculturally” basically means that everyone is expected to see and know about what they are eating. Nonetheless, not all fruits and vegetables are healthy. You might need to spend some time to take a look at the brand, price, and the facts about the products. Imagine, if Berry came to your dinner table? How do you get or purchase your food? What will you serve him? If Berry were to show up to my dinner, the best
Mill’s qualitative hedonism of pleasures faces problems because of its lack of clarity in its description of pleasures, mainly because it seems that his idea of pleasure seems to encompass such a wide range of mental states. He also loses credibility with his controversial competent judges, and especially the inconsistency with a more textbook view of hedonism.
On the other hand, one milkshake had a much higher glycemic index from the carbohydrates. After the few hours the blood sugar levels went down leaving the men hungry again. But after they ate, the region of the brain that is related to addictive drugs and behaviors was triggered. In this paper, food addiction is discussed and shown that it is a real problem that further critical analysis and experiments should be conducted on such issue. Unreasonable food consumption and its relation to obesity and binge eating illustrate clinical and public health concerns.
However, we can wonder if the pleasures that derive from necessary natural desires are what actually brings us happiness, since having a family, friends, a good job and doing fun things seem to bring the most joy in life. Plato’s ideas on life are even more radical, since he claims that we should completely take difference from our bodily needs. Therefore it seems that we should only do what is necessary for us to stay a life and solely focus on the mind. Although both ways of dealing with (bodily)pleasure are quite radical and almost impossible to achieve, it does questions if current perceptions of ‘living the good life’ actually leads to what we are trying to achieve, which is commonly described as
Many people in America, from toddlers to the elderly, have shown numerous signs of bad health. People have the desire to keep on eating due to more, new things being merchandised as “new and improved items” from the producers. For example, nowadays, people are eating pure junk that they find satisfying on the grocery food shelf. As, stated by Michael Pollan, in his article, “Eat Food: Food Defined” he affirmed that “real food is the type of things that our
Eating as entertainment is often referred to as emotional eating, which means using food to fulfill some other emotional need like loneliness, boredom, or sadness. You might sit in front of the TV and eat a whole pack of cookies. Or, you might find yourself eating a gallon of ice cream that one weekend when all of your friends are too busy to hang out. Emotional eating can lead to problems losing weight or result in you gaining unwanted pounds. if you are having problems with eating to entertain yourself, you need to learn how to [[Eat Healthy | develop a healthier approach to eating]].
When talking about pleasure there needs to be a distinction between the quality and the quantity. While having many different kinds of pleasures can be considered a good thing, one is more likely to favor quality over quantity. With this distinction in mind, one is more able to quantify their pleasures as higher or lesser pleasures by ascertaining the quality of them. This facilitates the ability to achieve the fundamental moral value that is happiness. In his book Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill offers a defining of utility as pleasure or the absence of pain in addition to the Utility Principle, where “Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (Mill 7). Through this principle, Mill emphasizes that it is not enough to show that happiness is an end in itself. Mill’s hedonistic view is one in support of the claim that every human action is motivated by or ought to be motivated by the pursuit of pleasure.
It is astonishing how little time is spent by an individual physically looking at the food they are putting in to their body. The act of just sitting there alone and staring at one’s food is not interesting. Actually eating is dull and feels repetitive as all one is doing is biting the food, chewing, swallowing, and then the same actions repeat again. A person wants to be distracted with a restaurants nice view, a conversations with a friend, or even just watching their favorite television show in bed. So not only are you sitting or lying in that comfortable sedentary position, you have a distraction to keep you entertained from the lackluster act of eating, but also if you are not paying attention to what you are eating you can consume more food and at the same time not feel guilty about it. For instance, there is a difference in the way one feels about eating a bag of salty and fattening chips if they are actually physically staring at the chips and watching how many they are consuming compared to having their eyes glued to a television screen while the bag of chips is just next to them and they are consuming as they watch. You are more likely to feel guilty and have the urge to stop eating if you are actually looking with your eyes on what you are eating. Of course eating while watching entertainment is