Asparagus scream! Plants are alive – why is it okay to make them suffer?

Okay, let’s begin with the obvious questions of fact. We can then move into the correlated philosophical question.

Other authors have expounded on this issue of fact therefore we need only repeat some of their arguments:

Peter Singer and Gary Francione argue that sentience is a means to an end. That end is life. Pain, for example, has its obvious evolutionary advantages: Painful stimuli is experienced as harmful; in response, sentient beings move away from the source of pain as a means to preserve life. The capacity to experience pain and mobility then, are products of evolution. As Singer argues, why would trees for example, have evolved to experience pain – sentience – if they did not also evolve the ability to flee the source of pain? To argue that necessarily stationary objects have evolved to subjectively feel a burn is dubious at best.

This move’s into a second response: When grass is cut, do the blades of grass show some external sign that they are suffering? Do they avoid the grass clippers? Is their coloration altered? Does a blade of grass indicate any external signs that it is aware of the lawn mowing experience? Clearly, no.

Finally, as Francione argues, plants and rocks have no indicia of sentience. They do not have a central nervous system; they don’t have an epicenter where stimuli fires and messages are exchanged (a brain); they don’t produce chemicals suggestive of sentience; etc.; etc.

When viewed as a whole then, the evidence must lead you to the assumption that plants are not sentient. Likewise, it would be un-parsimonious, given this same evidentiary structure, to claim that most nonhumans don’t subjectively experience their lives like most humans - that they are not internalizing their lived experiences as you and I do.

When presented with this perfectly cogent argument the response is as predictable as it is poorly reasoned: “Okay, I understand all that, but you still don’t know that plants suffer, nor do you know that nonhumans do.” Subtext – neither plants nor nonhumans speak human language therefore you can never know.

Unfortunately for the proponent of this damaged argument, herein lies the rub: Neither you nor I, nor anybody else knows that any other individual, human and nonhuman alike, feels the way you do – experiences the things you do – suffers the way you do – can be happy like you. We don’t know because we cannot know; we assume.

From the moment individuals began thinking about what ought to guide our interactions with others – is there a limit to what I can do to you? – ethical theorists, theology, philosophers, and moralists necessarily make one foundational assumption: Other people feel.

Think about it:

It’s a part of our condition that we sometimes lie - what if I’m being deceptive when I say this hurts?

Perhaps others are mere “automata,” living machines: we make audible noises when damaged, like stricking a cord in a clock; however, the experience is not felt?

Maybe every other person in this world is simply a well designed robot - cleverly programmed to mimic your responses to specific external stimuli?

We just cannot know in the same way the person advancing the argument that we don’t know that plants are not suffering seems to suggest is necessary. The best we can do is gather the relevant evidence (e.g., evolutionary history, common physiology, how a being reacts to something that I would experience as painful), and assume.

Of course, some assumptions are sound – founded on evidence – while others are not; they are based on faith, which is belief without evidence. It’s curious that those who would press me on this issue ask for this kind of knowledge while they unknowingly rely on assumptions when having a discourse about how we ought to treat each other.

The double standard is palpable, but it’s prudent and I understand. As Francione argues, it’s most likely the result of some discomfort with their own diet, which means this is a conversation we vegans and vegetarians will have hundreds if not thousands of times. Therefore we must provide good reasons why this inane counter-argument is so deeply flawed. That’s okay with me because we have reason on our side.

I often leave it at this: If I were holding a baby pig in one hand and an apple in the other, and you were to see me throw both against a brick wall as hard as I could, is there some moral and empirical difference between what I’ve done to the pig and what I’ve done to the apple? Hypotheticals such as this have been articulated by many different people and they’re all equally persuasive because the answer is both a priori and a posteriori so obvious: Of course there’s a difference - the baby pig suffers the pain and distress of the experience, while the apple just is.

Of course we could also discuss how veganism is the morally correct choice even if plants suffer because of the inefficiency and wastefulness inherent in funneling plant protein through nonhumans so as to produce animal protein. If plants feel pain, we ought to consume them directly as opposed to wasting them through food production: sending 15-25 pounds of plant protein through a nonhuman to get 1 edible pound of animal protein in return is a lot of unnecessary suffering given that we could simply eat all those plants directly.

Crossposted @ That Vegan Girl

Sections: Vegan Theory
Topics: pain, sentience, suffering, Theory, veg, Vegan