What does that mean moral agency? Absolutely so moral agency is when you're treated as an individual who can comprehend ethical concepts and act accordingly, you can either choose to adhere to or not the moral standards and these ethics are universal and I have a whole section in my book about that. Do you think people have forgotten what ethics are? I don't know if they've forgotten, because I do think that there is. I think that, underneath all of the social conditioning, we have this voice of our conscience, which speaks to us, but I do think that you can like that. That'S that's!
Nice! That'S very good! Yeah! That'S really important!
On top of that, though, you can layer upon all of this conditioning and I think that people want to act in an ethical way. Generally speaking, of course, there's exceptions to this, but we're talking about the the aggregate here and when they, you know, everyone perceives themselves to be the protagonists in their own story: the story of their lives. We all fancy ourselves to be the hero and that's why the the archetype of the hero is seen throughout every kind of story of all time. You can look at Joseph Campbell's work here of a thousand faces we project into the story and identify with the protagonist. Most often, of course, there's the antihero and, like I said, there's exceptions to ROS, but that proves the rule.
But, as I said these you know a moral agency and self-determination and and those sorts of things are all core concepts of my book. I don't use those words. I don't use that language. I tried to keep a little more simple than that, but when I say self-determination of course, if you're handed a book on the science of diet, you can choose to either adhere to the out the guidelines there and avoid diet, and you know avoid heart: disease. Cancer diabetes, you can conduct yourself according to will call them nature's rules, nature's laws or not and of course, as I said, there's an ethical component, but the the point I'm getting to Lisa is that there's four main arguments for veganism the first one is the medical And I spend quite a great chunk of the book looking at the medical data, we have over 60 years of medical data into this and, as I said, it's out there, just people don't really read medical literature.
People don't read in that mechanistic data, the white pages. It'S not it's not as fun as fiction, not as fun as you know, Netflix and chilling. The the second thing, the second perspective for eating a plant-based diet is the anatomical case, which we very briefly touched on and there's so much there. You could call that the evolutionary biology case, the third one is the environmental case, which I know is a hot-button issue for you and we can get into that a little bit later and, of course, the fourth one is the ethical case. There is a parallel perspective, which is the economical argument. I did not include that because it is not a truism, it's a rule of thumb, meaning just because, just because most of the time eating a plant-based diet is more affordable doesn't mean it holds true.
In every scenario is not true in every city, it's not true in every culture and just because just because you can make an economical argument, someone who's, rich and very wealthy. You might say well that doesn't apply to me, because I can afford anything I want. So I didn't even bother it's kind of an exercise in futility. Yeah! That'S that's true, so Adam I just want to tell people that you are Adam. Riva is on wox on beautiful questions right now and he's talking about his new book called humans are herbivores, a scientific case for veganism.
We are here with Adam Riva. My name is Lisa Jacobson, I'm your host for beautiful questions and Adam is talking about his book. Humans are herbivores, a scientific case for veganism, and he was just telling us about four structures that actually are the architecture of the book. Am I saying that four perspectives that lend credibility to the case for veganism, okay, so, okay, I want you to go through them again and we're going to go more slowly, because I was also trying to get a grip. I mean I understand them, but I really want them to. I want the pieces of what you worked on to actually something to sink into.
Whoever is listening and it for a just a second say: I'm gon na think about that because after all, you know we're humans we're trying to get people to come into our church. You know we want people to believe, because it's the time you know new new ideas, new perspectives, new Sciences, new arts, arts patterns in in environmental changes, emerge through all of these environmental eras. There are changes we didn't dress now, like we dress in the 60s.
That went with a whole context, so let's go back to the four perspectives. The four I know I keep changing your word, the four you could call it the four arguments for veganism four arguments: okay, tell us before I do. Let me preface it by saying this: I fully understand that what I'm doing is I'm taking the earth out of the center of the solar system and I'm putting the Sun there and I'm saying look how much more sense that makes.
But what happens when you challenge the orthodoxy? Is you're greeted with a lot of uproar and vitriol, and I think that, no matter how good of an ambassador you are for your brand or your message, you can't dispel the underlying conflict that emerges between two beings. When you have an identity, clash or an ideology clash, and the point that I'm getting at with that is, if I'm coming into a conversation and I'm attempting to change your mind, it's an innocent, altruistic motive, because I think that you'll benefit greatly from what I have To offer, in this case you know, medical medical literature, medical perspectives that can obviate you know, disease and illness, and that down the line. You know I have a gift that I want to give you, but I have to contend in this dance with your ego and and familiarity to people. Are you know it's hard to change because people get you know you're, throwing off equilibrium in a very fundamental way. By saying you know you, you cannot do that anymore because it's harmful to your health and it's like a panic and then it's anger.
Yeah absolutely - and I would say, there's an element of fear there, because when you admit that you're wrong publicly, even if it's one-on-one with an individual, because we come from a history of warfare and tribalism and trust me, those that architecture of the brain is still there. The reptilian brain is still very intrusive in our everyday interactions. No matter how much we attempt to repress that and come into our engagements in a grounded beautiful way, I think that the best way to convince people is in the privacy of their own mind, which is why I authored a book and, I think, documentaries, work in A similar fashion is because, but books are a little bit better because you're often well, I don't know anyone who reads a book literally the same book with someone simultaneously, but you can watch a documentary together. You sit side by side on a couch book. Clubs read books at the same time together. Okay, that's true!
That'S true! That'S actually, a really schools do that with their students. Okay, I'm out corrected yeah. Well, I'm not trying to correct you, but I'm like well. Could you imagine a classroom full of young people reading this with their science teacher or their art teacher the history tea any interdisciplinary way of looking at this, because it covers all all of the whole complex living systems? That'S very true!
