What About Plants?

[Guest guest]

while i don't agree 100% (i think plants have their own *needs*, they just don't

have a nervous system), some good points

 

 

 

A Frequently Asked Question: What About Plants?

 

One of the questions most frequently asked of any vegan is: “what about

plants?†Indeed, I do not know any vegan who has not gotten that question at

least once and most of us have heard it many times.

 

Of course, no one who asks this question really thinks that we cannot

distinguish between, say, a chicken and a head of lettuce. That is, if, at your

next dinner party, you chop a head of lettuce in front of your guests, you will

get a different reaction than if you were to carve a live chicken. If, while

walking in your garden, I step on a flower intentionally, you may quite

correctly be annoyed with me, but if I intentionally kicked your dog, you would

be upset with me in a different way. No one really thinks of these as equivalent

acts. Everyone recognizes that there is an important difference between the

plant and the dog that make kicking the dog a morally more serious act than

stepping on a flower.

 

The difference between the animal and the plant involves sentience. That is,

nonhumans—or at least the ones we routinely exploit—are clearly conscious of

sense perceptions. Sentient beings have minds; they have preferences, desires,

or wants. This is not to say that animal minds are like human minds. For

example, the minds of humans, who use symbolic language to navigate their world,

may be very different from the minds of bats, who use echolocation to navigate

theirs. It is difficult to know. But it is irrelevant; the human and the bat are

both sentient. They are both the sorts of beings who have interests; they both

have preferences, desires, or wants. The human and the bat may think differently

about those interests, but there can be no serious doubt that both have

interests, including an interest in avoiding pain and suffering and an interest

in continued existence.

 

Plants are qualitatively different from humans and sentient nonhumans in that

plants are certainly alive but they are not sentient. Plants do not have

interests. There is nothing that a plant desires, or wants, or prefers because

there is no mind there to engage in these cognitive activities. When we say that

a plant “needs†or “wants†water, we are no more making a statement

about the mental status of the plant than we are when we say that a car engine

“needs†or “wants†oil. It may be in my interest to put oil in my car.

But it is not in my car’s interest; my car has no interests.

 

A plant may respond to sunlight and other stimuli but that does not mean the

plant is sentient. If I run an electrical current through a wire attached to a

bell, the bell rings. But that does not mean that the bell is sentient. Plants

do not have nervous systems, benzodiazepine receptors, or any of the

characteristics that we identify with sentience. And this all makes scientific

sense. Why would plants evolve the ability to be sentient when they cannot do

anything in response to an act that damages them? If you touch a flame to a

plant, the plant cannot run away; it stays right where it is and burns. If you

touch a flame to a dog, the dog does exactly what you would do—cries in pain

and tries to get away from the flame. Sentience is a characteristic that has

evolved in certain beings to enable them to survive by escaping from a noxious

stimulus. Sentience would serve no purpose for a plant; plants cannot

“escape.â€

 

I am not suggesting that we cannot have moral obligations that concern plants,

but I am saying that we cannot have moral obligations that we owe to plants.

That is, we may have a moral obligation not to cut down a tree, but that is not

an obligation that we owe to the tree. The tree is not the sort of entity to

which we can have moral obligations. We can have an obligation that we owe to

all of the sentient creatures who live in the tree or who depend on it for their

survival. We can have moral obligations to other humans and nonhuman animals who

inhabit the planet not to destroy trees wantonly. But we cannot have any moral

obligations to the tree; we can only have moral obligations to sentient beings

and the tree is not sentient and has no interests. There is nothing that the

tree prefers, wants, or desires. The tree is not the sort of entity that cares

about what we do to it. The tree is an “it.†The squirrel and the birds who

live in the tree certainly have an interest in our not chopping down the tree,

but the tree does not. It may be wrong morally to chop down a tree wantonly but

that is a qualitatively different act from shooting a deer.

 

Talking about the “rights†of trees, as some do, is to invite equating trees

and nonhuman animals and that can only work to the detriment of the animals.

Indeed, it is common to hear environmentalists talk about our responsibly

managing our natural resources and including nonhuman animals as a

“resource†to be managed. That is a problem for those of us who do not see

nonhumans as “resources†for our use. Trees and other plants are resources

that we can use. We have an obligation to use those resources wisely, but that

is an obligation that we owe only to other persons, be they human or nonhuman.

 

Finally, a variant of the plant question is the question: “what about

insects—are they sentient?†No one really knows for certain as far as I am

aware. I certainly give insects the benefit of doubt. I do not kill insects in

my house and I try never to step on them when I walk. In the case of insects,

the line may be difficult to draw but that does not mean that a line cannot be

drawn—and drawn clearly—in the majority of cases. We kill and eat at least

ten billion land animals every year in the U.S. alone. This does not include all

the sea animals who we kill and eat. Maybe there is a question about whether

clams or mussels are sentient, but there is no doubt that all the cows, pigs,

chickens, turkeys, fish, etc. are sentient. The nonhumans from whom we get milk

and eggs are undoubtedly sentient.

 

The fact that we may not know whether insects are sentient does not mean that we

have any doubt whatsoever about these other nonhuman animals; we do not. And to

say that we do not know whether insects are sentient so we cannot assess the

morality of eating the flesh or using the products from nonhumans we know

without doubt are sentient, or of bringing those domesticated nonhumans into

existence for the purpose of using them as our “resources,†is, of course,

absurd.

 

Gary L. Francione

 

Don't know, don't care, don't talk, don't stare, don't know, don't care

We live in fear the end is near and we are easy to control

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