is it not more cruel to eat plants?

we know that plants (Archaeplastida) are alive 1 2

we know they form memories 3

we know they can react to their environment in the short medium and long terms 4

we know they communicate 5

we know they have melatonin, serotonin, and a host of other chemicals that our own brain uses to convey information and do its sentience 6 7

we know they experience discomfort or some subjective experience 8 9 (counterpoint 10)

they are a living thing that has survived 2300 million years of evolution which is enough time and complexity to evolve sentience

it is possible they have language that we do not think of as symbolic representation.

in fact its entirely possible that they not only possess sentience in botanic terms, but also in neuronal terms.

it is possible they have volition and agency that does not fit the animal mechanisms of these, these are all possible and not all that difficult to imagine

all of these put together indicates that they are highly likely to be sentient even if not in the human/animal sentience spectrum or mechanism terms. 11 12

the thing that makes them different from animals, and animal sentience and their pain different from animal pain , is that we do not have sensory immediate direct empathetic (SIDEy) access to it.

empathetic access to animal pain is why we consider them sentient. there’s a model of pain in our selves that has an uncanny resemblance to the model of pain in almost all other animal bodies which we are able to access or simulate or react to via empathy (and experiments).

so the reason why we think its OK to eat plants is really that we feel no empathy for them that is automatic and hardwired the way a mirror neuron 13 is hardwired. (it’s not, i know, but you know what i mean)

we find it problematic when people and governments do not listen to those without a voice or the people without a voice that we understand, those who do not have guns, have the wrong germs and no steel. do we not have an entire industry or two built around just giving voices to those who do not have voices?

we do recognize that committing violence on them is wrong and reprehensible.

so do plants not have a good reason to have rights?

at the very least the right to be recognized as alive and possibly sentient

and the right to be not snuffed out thoughtlessly

and the promise that we will do everything we can to hear their voices and one day the confederacy will have voting plants and not just planted votes.

Note:

For non-facetious reading material from real professionals, consider the following instead:

Hansen, M.J. A critical review of plant sentience: moving beyond traditional approaches. Biol Philos 39, 13 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-024-09953-1

Myers, N. (2015). Conversations on Plant Sensing : Notes From the Field. Nature and Culture, 3, 35-66. Link to PDF

Hamilton, A., & McBrayer, J. (2020). Do plants feel pain?. Disputatio, 12(56), 71-98.

The minimal Intelligence lab – they try to figure out what intelligence is. Rigorous and philosophically exciting.

Footnotes

  1. Because they have an entry in the EOL: C Michael Hogan (Lead Author);Daniel Robert Taub (Topic Editor) “Plant”. In: Encyclopedia of Earth. Eds. Cutler J. Cleveland (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment). [First published in the Encyclopedia of Earth July 19, 2010; Last revised Date August 15, 2011; Retrieved September 27, 2012. Encyclopedia of Earth. https://eol.org/docs/discover/plants ↩︎
  2. Also here: https://www.eol.org/pages/42430800 ↩︎
  3. Gabriela Auge, Valentin Hankofer, Martin Groth, Rea Antoniou-Kourounioti, Irja Ratikainen, Christian Lampei, Plant environmental memory: implications, mechanisms and opportunities for plant scientists and beyond, AoB PLANTS, Volume 15, Issue 4, July 2023, plad032, https://doi.org/10.1093/aobpla/plad032 ↩︎
  4. Baucom RS, Heath KD, Chambers SM. Plant-environment interactions from the lens of plant stress, reproduction, and mutualisms. Am J Bot. 2020 Feb;107(2):175-178. doi: 10.1002/ajb2.1437. Epub 2020 Feb 14. PMID: 32060910; PMCID: PMC7186814. ↩︎
  5. Farmer EE, Ryan CA. Interplant communication: airborne methyl jasmonate induces synthesis of proteinase inhibitors in plant leaves. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1990 Oct;87(19):7713-6. doi: 10.1073/pnas.87.19.7713. PMID: 11607107; PMCID: PMC54818. ↩︎
  6. Ramakrishna A, Giridhar P, Ravishankar GA. Phytoserotonin: a review. Plant Signal Behav. 2011 Jun;6(6):800-9. doi: 10.4161/psb.6.6.15242. Epub 2011 Jun 1. PMID: 21617371; PMCID: PMC3218476. ↩︎
  7. Baluška, F., Mukherjee, S., & Ramakrishna, A. (Eds.). (2020). Neurotransmitters in plant signaling and communication. Springer. ↩︎
  8. Appel, H.M., Cocroft, R.B. Plants respond to leaf vibrations caused by insect herbivore chewing. Oecologia 175, 1257–1266 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-014-2995-6 ↩︎
  9. Anda-Larisa Iosip et al, DYSCALCULIA, a Venus flytrap mutant without the ability to count action potentials, Current Biology (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.12.058 ↩︎
  10. Draguhn, A., Mallatt, J.M. & Robinson, D.G. Anesthetics and plants: no pain, no brain, and therefore no consciousness. Protoplasma 258, 239–248 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00709-020-01550-9 ↩︎
  11. Trewavas A (2016) Intelligence, Cognition, and Language of Green Plants. Front. Psychol. 7:588. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00588 ↩︎
  12. Baluska, Frantisek. (2016). Should fish feel pain? A plant perspective. Animal Sentience. 1. 10.51291/2377-7478.1052. ↩︎
  13. Lamm C, Decety J, Singer T (February 2011). “Meta-analytic evidence for common and distinct neural networks associated with directly experienced pain and empathy for pain”. NeuroImage. 54 (3): 2492–2502. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.10.014. PMID 20946964. S2CID 6021487. ↩︎