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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Lyrasis IVIembers and Sloan Foundation http://www.archive.org/details/malnutritioncosmOOwood Malnutrition and Cosmopolitanism: A Case for Personal Accountability A Senior Honors Thesis in the Department of Philosophy Sweet Briar College By Joanna Katherine Wood To be Defended on Wednesday April 19, 2006 and Approved on Wednesday, May, 2 2006 ^hU^c Prof. Matthew Calarco, Thesis Project and Faculty Advisor/Date M3lO(^ tof^ynn Laufehberg, 2 A -^/? //- ;". David Schwartz, 3*^ Reader/Date Wood 1 Abstract Malnutrition and Cosmopolitanism: A CaseforPersonal Accountability discusses malnutrition as being the most important human rights concern and examines Thomas Pogge's theory of cosmopolitanism as a plausible ethic to deal with the problem. Cosmopolitanism is a global care ethic comprised of three major elements: individualism, universality, and generality. This project reconfigures Pogge's theory ofcosmopolitanism to include both an institutional and interactional conception (personal accountability) as both are necessary for a fully realized global ethic that provides a framework which will eliminate malnutrition and hunger. Supplementing Pogge's institutional conception of cosmopolitanism with an interactional conception will compel persons to recognize how inextricably connected they are through their daily food consumption and to take personal accountability for their consumption choices. Pogge states, "The common point is thoughtlessness. Poverty so extensive and severe as to cause 18 million deaths a year requires a reflective moral response from each and every one of us."' Accordingly, the moral consideration inherent in cosmopolitanism provides a way in which all individuals can participate in changing the global order. The current global arrangement allows first-world countries to dictate the production of third-world countries to the detriment of third-world citizens. Cosmopolitanism, hopefully, will reduce this binding control, so that third-world citizens will be able break free from the cycle of malnutrition. ' Thomas Pogge. "Cosmopolitanismand Sovereignty."Chap. 7, in WorldPoverryandHuman Rights. Maiden. MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2004. 145. s Wood 2 Introduction All persons stand in certain moral relations to one another: we are required to respect one another's status as ultimate units of moral concern- a requirement that imposes limits upon our conduct and, in particular, upon our efforts to construct institutional schemes." The collision of white middle-class consumer values with malnourished individuals of third-world countries and their plight is highly problematic. I approach this dilemma from a first-world American perspective. 1 intend to argue that malnutrition is the worid's most serious human rights violation. All individuals belong to the global food scheme on all levels, whether as first world consumers who direct the production of certain foodstuffs or as malnourished individuals in the third worid. This universal participation should require co-responsibility and cognizance oftransnational connections through food. The work of the cotemporary moral philosopher, Thomas Pogge, provides a compelling framework with which to approach this problem. The universal need for food relates to one of the three primary qualities of Pogge's theory of cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitan global theory promotes an ethic that expresses how "persons [are] the ultimate units of concern for everyone."^ Because of his moderate proposals, Pogge' -Ibid.169. ' Ibid,