>Why wouldn't they feel pain? If they don't require a conscious experience of pain to thrive in their environmental niche, then we can reasonably assume they w

>Why wouldn't they feel pain? If they don't require a conscious experience of pain to thrive in their environmental niche, then we can reasonably assume they wouldn't have it. It's a good reason why we don't expect plants to experience pain. >Anything that didn't feel pain would soon be evolved out. You have to distinguish between nociception and a conscious experience of pain. Nociception is required for just about any multicellular organism. But the experience of suffering due to noxious stimuli only serves a purpose in the context of conscious planning of behavior.