Kate Manne: Demoralizing Fatness

215 South Depeyster Street,Kent OH 44240

25 April, 2023

Description

Fatness is often moralized. Through a variety of channels—the news, entertainment, social media, and ordinary conversation—fat bodies are depicted as a moral problem, and fat people as a moral failure. The atmosphere may be one of moral panic or, by turns, patronizing concern and ostensibly well-meaning hand-wringing. But the best argument to the conclusion that one is morally obligated not to be fat—namely, that fatness represents a burden on the health care system—turns out to be surprisingly weak. Not being fat is simply not a moral obligation. Manne concludes by debunking why fatness has wrongly been moralized, in view of the disgust often garnered by fat bodies.