Professor Marcel Verweij, from Wageningen University, The Netherlands will be delivering a seminar titled "Who is responsible for healthy nutrition?" 

Abstract:

Food security and healthy nutrition are key factors for healthy lives. Whereas food security and food safety are generally considered a responsibility for the state, healthy nutrition is often seen as primarily a responsibility for individual consumers themselves. To what extent is the latter ethical judgment justified? One argument could be that state interference with people's food choices would be a form of paternalism. In this talk I defend paternalism and claim that responsibility for healthy nutrition is shared among different parties, including citizens, state, and food companies. 

About the Speaker:

Marcel Verweij is Professor of Philosophy at Wageningen University, The Netherlands. His research focuses on ethical and philosophical problems in relation to public health and preventive medicine. In this area he has fulfilled consultative roles for the Health Council of the Netherlands and for the World Health Organization. Together with Angus Dawson he is founding editor-in-chief of Public Health Ethics, a journal published by Oxford University Press.