A note to the article by Louis Bignami Repubblica.it published on July 23, 2010 entitled 'A world without meat: it is said to be "cleaner"'. I apologize for the brevity of my remarks, the result of a more immediate reaction to reading the article that the weighted analysis, which, given its subject matter, would need a much broader articulation of what I can give here.
I was struck by the superficiality of the piece of Bignami on eating meat. In particular, I would like to point out two heavy omissions that seem significant to a certain way of affrontare la questione del vegetarianesimo.
1. L'autore descrive un aspetto molto importante della scelta vegetariana, ossia la sua 'motivazione verde', ignorando completamente l'aspetto morale della scelta vegetariana (esso stesso non facilmente riducibile al solo 'non far soffrire gli animali'). L'autore potrebbe rispondere che l'intento del suo articolo è quello di concentrarsi solo sul primo aspetto ma non sul secondo. Tuttavia uno degli 'argomenti forti' del suo ragionamento pro-carne (o comunque di quello di cui si fa portavoce) è che le popolazioni povere della terra vivono di allevamento di piccole dimensioni e, se tutti diventassimo vegetariani, cosa ne sarebbe di loro? Di cosa vivrebbero, vista la loro già povera diet and their small market? How do you decide who can continue to breed animals (to eat of course, because the idea of \u200b\u200btaking care of animals for any other reason is not even considered), and on what basis? These are moral considerations, that the article is presented as a dilemma, and as such difficult to face, when they should be part of our cultural debate, if not be taught as part of our civic education (and, above all, moral). Not too difficult to make decisions because I do not think a line of argument convincing, especially if these are not decisions taken at the expense of 'simple', namely absolute and absolutist as 'eating the flesh or all or none', which is proving to be rough as short-sighted for the resolution of such sensitive issues. And the author does not save even a vague mention of the so 'all eat less meat', which merely shift the problem if they are not characterized nor 'all' or the 'eat less'. The author seems to me much more interested in the only 'meat' view of the cooking series which launches in the second part of the article.
2. The message is that you can pass a single analysis that shows the permessibilità (moral and social) of a certain choice: the cost-effectiveness. However, this analysis is poor which is part of the environmental problem of eating meat. The considerations the CBA are presented as the only ones to be taken into account, ignoring a very interesting debate about what is necessary, the desirability of such a model of decision making in these areas. Specifically, being a vegetarian can not be reduced to an optional cost-effectiveness, as it is associated with a lifestyle choice, and then wrapped considerations and scruples of a different nature, not easy to reduce nor reducible to mere utilitarian considerations (utilitarian in non-technical sense, since utilitarianism understood as theoretical position about the moral discourse has some internal resources to account certain aspects of personal choices that are not intended directly or indirectly in the quantitative maximization of utility).
final consideration. The reservations that I wanted to express here are logical in nature, even before the ethics seems to me that the article is deficient in terms of argument, more than the moral. I think the kind of 'scientific' that the author Squaderno are so shortsighted as they are harmful, primarily for our democratic coexistence, which draws its lifeblood from the public debate on these issues so delicate, and not the victim of force underestimated when 'science' (be it statistics, chemistry or environmental) it imposes solutions from analysis of data passed off as neutral but implicitly moralizing, thus taking away from the moral discussion of the various actors involved, the only, in my opinion, we should cure ourselves. Since this is a lifestyle, rather than a choice based on raw data, vegetarianism Read more deserves a debate that involves both the experts (scientists with their data and their projections, economists with their studies, geo- politicians) are all the protagonists of these choices with their personal experiences, their readings and their ways of seeing things. In addition, if the issue touches a very sensitive question as thorny as that of the future of the people of third world and Their criticism is vital conditions related to meat consumption directly (their growth) and indirect (the theft of resources that could be allocated to NGOs, which are used to subsidize the food of the rich countries), a satisfactory solution can not be some articulated in terms of a cost / benefit but should be articulated through an imaginative effort to try to imagine situations other than those present in which these persons can meet their needs and develop a lifestyle that requires or less being a vegetarian.
Too often and easily vegetarianism has been accused of elitism, when in fact this has a tremendous impact on the lives of people distant from us, and motivations rooted in the care of his conduct in relation to the other, as well as that of animals and the environment. Being vegetarian is right, among other things, have some scruples to animals, the environment and people affected by our choices about eating meat, and therefore its permissibility can not be reduced to a mere numerical calculation, which can only quantify the pros and cons of a certain status quo, because what we need is to change the way we think, act and live. A change in our way of life must necessarily pass through a more profound and complex than the analysis of some data about the greater efficiency and convenience of the lamb than beef we can offer. An examination of the outcome of which will be not only a decision about whether or not to eat meat, but rather a change in the way of representing the same animal, and morally tolerate the description of living things in terms of efficiency and convenience. The world, or almost entirely, horrified at the thought of speaking in these terms of human beings. Vegetarians are horrified at the thought that this scruple interests and only a part of living beings. And there is no trace of this can be either in the data on the cost-effectiveness with which the author concludes in favor of a so cheap 'Certainty': best chicken and pork. Certainly not for them.
Sarin Marchetti
ps just now read the original article (that is, popular science) referenced in the piece of Bignami. I must say that there is much difference between the two (eg Bignami omit the parts of the original in which they propose some alternatives to harmful practices such as intensive farming that maybe it was worth mentioning, as the most interesting part of ' article). My reservations against the proposed line of argument, common to both the original article that his 'Italian version,' remain, even if the article in the New Scientist is much more serious and objective of what came out on the Republic. If nothing else, notwithstanding the myopia of the principle of the dialectic and adopted, the original article compares the views of pro-and anti-vegetarianism in a more sober and less hurried than the Italian.
You can read the original article by Bob Holmes, you
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727691.200-veggieworld-why-eating-greens-wont-save-the-planet.html
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