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There are several responses to the "plants have senses" rebuttal: If you care about the well being of plants, you should still prefer to eat plants rather than

by howlin 6y ago

There are several responses to the "plants have senses" rebuttal: If you care about the well being of plants, you should still prefer to eat plants rather than animals. The trophic level of animals in the food chain necessitates that they will eat more calories of plant matter than would provide calories of food upon being eaten. Secondly, you should look at the sorts of plants being consumed and where they fall in the plant's life cycle. Fruits and nuts have been evolved to be eaten by animals. Staple crops such as grains and pulses are generally harvested from plants that have already lived to maturity and died off. Really it's only fresh greens and tubers that require the damage or destruction of a living plant. Lastly, it's important to recognize the evolutionary purpose of sensing pain and suffering from it. Animals use pain and suffering to detect harmful situations and learn how to avoid them in the future. This process consists of sensations, memory and adaptive behavior. Plants may have "reflexive" responses to stimulus, but these responses aren't adaptive and aren't affected by previous experience (mostly... there are some exceptions). There would be no evolutionary purpose for plants to develop a sense of suffering if they have no practical use for that sensation.

kaycebasques 6y ago
> If you care about the well being of plants, you should still prefer to eat plants rather than animals. The trophic level of animals in the food chain necessitates that they will eat more calories of plant matter than would provide calories of food upon being eaten. To put this into more laymen's terms, meat cultivation dramatically increases the total amount of plants that we need to grow. As mentioned in my other comment: > 70-75% of soybeans grown globally are for livestock, only 6% are used for human food products (meat eaters often try to claim that soy production is terrible for the environment; surprise, surprise, meat consumption is the main driver) So, it's a bit counterintuitive, but globally switching to a plant-based diet would actually dramatically reduce the total amount of plants that we are raising, and therefore would dramatically reduce overall suffering of plants (if they suffer)
- nec4b 6y ago
  "So, it's a bit counterintuitive, but globally switching to a plant-based diet would actually dramatically reduce the total amount of plants that we are raising, and therefore would dramatically reduce overall suffering of plants (if they suffer)" Only if you believe you are more efficient at digesting grass and other plants than animals.
52-6F-62 6y ago
The "plants have senses rebuttal" as you put it is only an illustration that exposes the absurdity of the whole attachment of ethics to consumption of any form in and of itself. The only logical endpoint is that humans should just off themselves so we don't participate past one cycle of reabsorption into the Earth's environment. One way or another, everything is going to die and be consumed by another living organism. That's why it's absurd. You can arbitrarily pick your own resolution, but it's only arbitrary until you exit the cycle completely.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  > The only logical endpoint is that humans should just off themselves so we don't participate past one cycle of reabsorption into the Earth's environment. That would obliterate all future human happiness. It doesn't stand up even under a cold utilitarian conception of morality.
  - 52-6F-62 6y ago
    I thought the whole premise was that we needed to limit the suffering of other living things that aren't humans at all costs, not about human happiness.
    - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
      Very few people hold that moral view. There are various reasons people become vegan or vegetarian, there's no single premise.
      - 52-6F-62 6y ago
        Doesn't that then go further to the point? It's not a matter worth moralizing over—rather a personal preference and pragmatic approach to that end.
        MaxBarraclough 6y ago
MaxBarraclough 6y ago
> There would be no evolutionary purpose for plants to develop a sense of suffering if they have no practical use for that sensation. You've made interesting points, but I think the most important point here isn't one of biology but of moral philosophy: animals presumably outrank plants in terms of moral standing. Torturing a person is presumably worse than torturing a mosquito. A person has more capacity for pain than a mosquito, and in turn the mosquito has more capacity for pain than does a heap of sand. I figure plants lie further down the ranking than mosquitoes, for the reasons you've just explained. They're certainly further down than farmyard animals. It would be considerable moral progress to switch from torturing billions of chickens and pigs, to torturing billions of plants (and that's ignoring that a plant in a farm environment is likely 'happier', in its own terms, than a livestock animal). A vaguely related TED talk on how brains ultimately exist to orchestrate movement, and essentially nothing else: https://youtu.be/7s0CpRfyYp8?t=15 https://youtu.be/7s0CpRfyYp8?t=15
- morelisp 6y ago
  > animals presumably outrank plants in terms of moral standing. In aggregate I probably agree but one thing I've wondered, especially in the last year as I started gardening during lockdown, is if that's really universally true. Large, long-lived plants - redwoods, oaks, saguaros, and so on - seem very close to the same niche in the plant kingdom humans occupy in the animal one. They exert significant energy to cultivate and modify their environment; they gather and store resources they do not immediately need; they change "behavioral" patterns significantly and cyclically over the course of their life; they maintain vast communication networks. I have no doubt a pig "outranks" a mosquito. But I also suspect a redwood outranks a mosquito. The middle is all fuzzy though - where does my cucumber (which exhibits relatively complex reproductive behavior to attract pollinators, and expresses significant "wants" in terms of vining and leaf facing) lie in relation to mosquitos, or aphids, or bees?

by howlin 6y ago

kaycebasques 6y ago

> If you care about the well being of plants, you should still prefer to eat plants rather than animals. The trophic level of animals in the food chain necessitates that they will eat more calories of plant matter than would provide calories of food upon being eaten. To put this into more laymen's terms, meat cultivation dramatically increases the total amount of plants that we need to grow. As mentioned in my other comment: > 70-75% of soybeans grown globally are for livestock, only 6% are used for human food products (meat eaters often try to claim that soy production is terrible for the environment; surprise, surprise, meat consumption is the main driver) So, it's a bit counterintuitive, but globally switching to a plant-based diet would actually dramatically reduce the total amount of plants that we are raising, and therefore would dramatically reduce overall suffering of plants (if they suffer)

nec4b 6y ago
"So, it's a bit counterintuitive, but globally switching to a plant-based diet would actually dramatically reduce the total amount of plants that we are raising, and therefore would dramatically reduce overall suffering of plants (if they suffer)" Only if you believe you are more efficient at digesting grass and other plants than animals.

52-6F-62 6y ago

The "plants have senses rebuttal" as you put it is only an illustration that exposes the absurdity of the whole attachment of ethics to consumption of any form in and of itself. The only logical endpoint is that humans should just off themselves so we don't participate past one cycle of reabsorption into the Earth's environment. One way or another, everything is going to die and be consumed by another living organism. That's why it's absurd. You can arbitrarily pick your own resolution, but it's only arbitrary until you exit the cycle completely.

MaxBarraclough 6y ago
> The only logical endpoint is that humans should just off themselves so we don't participate past one cycle of reabsorption into the Earth's environment. That would obliterate all future human happiness. It doesn't stand up even under a cold utilitarian conception of morality.
- 52-6F-62 6y ago
  I thought the whole premise was that we needed to limit the suffering of other living things that aren't humans at all costs, not about human happiness.
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    Very few people hold that moral view. There are various reasons people become vegan or vegetarian, there's no single premise.
    - 52-6F-62 6y ago
      Doesn't that then go further to the point? It's not a matter worth moralizing over—rather a personal preference and pragmatic approach to that end.
      - MaxBarraclough 6y ago

MaxBarraclough 6y ago

> There would be no evolutionary purpose for plants to develop a sense of suffering if they have no practical use for that sensation. You've made interesting points, but I think the most important point here isn't one of biology but of moral philosophy: animals presumably outrank plants in terms of moral standing. Torturing a person is presumably worse than torturing a mosquito. A person has more capacity for pain than a mosquito, and in turn the mosquito has more capacity for pain than does a heap of sand. I figure plants lie further down the ranking than mosquitoes, for the reasons you've just explained. They're certainly further down than farmyard animals. It would be considerable moral progress to switch from torturing billions of chickens and pigs, to torturing billions of plants (and that's ignoring that a plant in a farm environment is likely 'happier', in its own terms, than a livestock animal). A vaguely related TED talk on how brains ultimately exist to orchestrate movement, and essentially nothing else: https://youtu.be/7s0CpRfyYp8?t=15 https://youtu.be/7s0CpRfyYp8?t=15

morelisp 6y ago
> animals presumably outrank plants in terms of moral standing. In aggregate I probably agree but one thing I've wondered, especially in the last year as I started gardening during lockdown, is if that's really universally true. Large, long-lived plants - redwoods, oaks, saguaros, and so on - seem very close to the same niche in the plant kingdom humans occupy in the animal one. They exert significant energy to cultivate and modify their environment; they gather and store resources they do not immediately need; they change "behavioral" patterns significantly and cyclically over the course of their life; they maintain vast communication networks. I have no doubt a pig "outranks" a mosquito. But I also suspect a redwood outranks a mosquito. The middle is all fuzzy though - where does my cucumber (which exhibits relatively complex reproductive behavior to attract pollinators, and expresses significant "wants" in terms of vining and leaf facing) lie in relation to mosquitos, or aphids, or bees?