Philosophy of Nutrition. A Historical, Existential, Phenomenological Perspective

Abstract

The paper develops a philosophy of nutrition, based on the idea that nutrition is the fundamental condition of possibility of the existence: being presupposes eating. Eating meat historically presupposes preying, hunting or fishing, that is killing other animals. This violence is at the roots of our civilisation: it transformed human way of life, human way of being. Violence over other species then spreads as violence at the level of the same human, social, relationships. Violence over other species has been called “work” and now the division of work allows the majority of individuals for a life without preying and without violence and so for spreading a new way of thinking and feeling, a new way of living. A new antispeciesist ethics become possible, based on a vegan style of living.