Difference between revisions of "Plant ethics"

Revision as of 01:41, 14 October 2020

A commonly used argument among anti-vegans is that plants should be given moral consideration.

Basic knowledge in the field of neuroscience and/or evolutionary biology will make it quickly apparent that plants' sentience is pseudoscience. There is empirical and indisputable evidence that plants are not sentient--they lack the structure that would allow for sentience (no central nervous system to process and interpret information subjectively). Scientific consensus is that plants aren't sentient. [1]

"We begin by stating simply that there is no evidence for structures such as neurons, synapses or a brain in plants."

Plant sentience is a completely bogus concept that's unfounded, basing itself on no evidence and going against evidence. The central nervous system and the parts of a neural network required to allow sentience to exist aren't unclear, and are well understood. Certain small insects (such as flees) are in a grey area and may already be non-sentient, let alone plants. Plants' sentience is a belief that can only exist if there is ignorance (or willful ignorance) of basic neuroscience/evolutionary biology, as it's not only disproven, but absurd.

Consciousness and intelligence

People trying to make a case for plant ethics tend to often use 'consciousness' as the main reason why plants should have inherent moral value.

Consciousness is a very vague term, often used interchangeably with sentience, but still being a vague concept that leaves room for interpretation. What is X supposed to be conscious of?
They usually rely on consciousness for two reasons:

• lack of knowledge of a well defined word expressing awareness and subjectivity (e.g. sentience), or
• as a way to cover their bases--dishonestly being intentionally vague, so that they can't easily be proven wrong. If a good argument is used against them they have wiggle room to change the meaning of consciousness. This is usually done by including other vague terms like intelligence into it (i.e. plants have consciousness, because they have intelligence, just like other beings that have consciousness).

There is no clear agreed-upon definition of consciousness. Possible definitions range from wakefulness, to selfhood, to mental state, to mental processes, to sentience, to having a soul and other spiritual meanings.

This is why it's important to establish the meaning of the language used before delving into a discussion, and why using the term sentience is a much better way to convey the concept of awareness/feelings/wants/subjective experience.

Because of the vagueness of the term consciousness, people often use that as reason as to why consciousness would be not well understood, and that therefore it wouldn't known who/what it applies to. Which leads to the conclusion that the line where beings/things to whom qualities such as awareness, feelings, wants, and the ability to have subjective experiences apply to, is either up to interpretation or is simply not known by science.
This is why it's important to not use sentience interchangeably with consciousness, as one is well-defined term, while the other is vague and easily interpreted differently.

If:
1. Sentience = consciousness
2. Consciousness is vague and undefined/unknown
Then:
3. Sentience is vague and undefined/unknown

The term 'intelligence' is used in a similar fashion, smearing the meaning of sentience with vagueness and uncertainty.

Intelligence is defined by Wikipedia as

"Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be described as the ability to perceive or infer information, and to retain it as knowledge to be applied towards adaptive behaviors within an environment or context."

It's apparent how such a loose definition can be applied to anything that can perform a task.
Computers have intelligence, skin has intelligence, plants have intelligence, even a calculator has intelligence. Intelligence can refer to many different things, and it isn't remotely interchangeable with sentience, or with any of the concepts held by sentience.

An argument often used for plant ethics is that plants have intelligence to do different tasks. But that doesn't indicate sentience, as there are plenty of example of other things doing the same tasks, even in a significantly more complex way, that aren't sentient. What plants do is a survival strategy, and can be classified as intelligence--but intelligence isn't sentience (more explained below).

Commonly used arguments

Plants' intelligence

- Plants have the intelligence to gather information about their surroundings, and act accordingly (i.e. grow towards the sun). They're therefore sentient.

Gathering data and using it isn't inclusive of sentience, it's a task performed by many things. Self-driving cars are also able to gather information about their surroundings, and act accordingly. But they aren't sentient.

- Plants have the intelligence to communicate (i.e. sending signals to other plants for incoming threats). They're therefore sentient.

Communication is found in many places, from basic electrical wiring, to Alexa. Many software programs communicate, sending notices and alerts for various stuff (such as apps telling us X is happening). Communication is intelligence, but doesn't mean sentience.

• in work*