The ‘Plants Feel Pain’ Argument Is Faulty
Print This Post
The NY Times recently featured an article about how some people think plants might feel pain. I’ve heard this argument my entire life. “But what about the plants?” the meat-eaters whine as they chow down on plants and animals.
It’s completely absurd to argue against veganism with a ‘plants feel pain’ argument. Here are five reasons why:
- Nonvegans cause more harm; vegans cause less harm. Plain and simple.
- We know for certain that animals feel pain. Plants probably don’t feel pain. Animals definitely feel pain.
- If plants feel pain, it’s certainly not the same kind of pain that animals feel. This is not like this.
- Eating animals increases your risk for cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity while a plant-based diet reduces your risk of disease.
- Animal agriculture is far more responsible for global warming than plant agriculture.
Just look them both in the eye. And then try to argue that it makes more sense to kill and eat both than to only kill and eat the potato:
This is people grasping for straws in their attempt to justify eating meat.
Good post, but you don’t need to qualify that statement. Plants don’t feel pain.
VEGdaily has a good response to the NY Times ridiculousness:
http://vegdaily.com/2009/12/dear-new-york-times-editor-surely-you%E2%80%99re-joking/
Some other points:
1) we need plants to survive but eating animals is unnecessary luxury that damages others and the planet.
2) plants can only react to stimuli without processing it through central nervous system, it is very different from what we call pain. Some materials can do the same thing.
3) if they wrote that animals can think, it would make a conflict in media but when it is claimed that plants think, it seems common. Why? Because they don’t make it as rational argument but rather as an emotional attack.
4) it is much more easier to go vegan than make sure that the animal is “humanely” raised and slaughtered.
Please send also responds to NYT because people who are not vegans yet don’t read vegan websites. We should all write and be descriptive and friendly – thee are people who do care about animals have the right to know and those who don’t care won’t listen anyway.
allthatshines´s last blog ..allthatshines: RT @greenforyou: Southeast Asia Exports 35 Million Wild Animals in a Decade #green http://bit.ly/4rTVQy
I read that article and it’s so typical. Everyone knows that vegetables also feel, but they are built mostly of water, don’t have a highly developed nervous system as people and animals do, so they do feel some unpleasant feelings, but not pain as the slaughtered animals do (the so called free range as well).
We may try to avoid eating root vegetables, as you need to kill them in order to turn them into food, but vegetables that don’t need to be killed like kale, brussels sprouts etc. and fruit are almost totally free of violence.
This is all very nice, but it doesn’t prove the argument wrong one bit. I’m vegan and all, but still, this could be better.
If it were true that plants feel pain, which most will agree it probably isn’t, it just makes omnivores twice as bad as veggies and vegans. They eat fruit and veg so I think they need to shut up. Oh boy, If that’s the extent of their argument, we have absolutely nothing to worry about… They try to make something bad out of people caring enough to save animals lives by comparing animals pain and suffering to fruit and veg..It’s too daft to laff at really.
Kai is exactly right. This “argument” addresses nothing expressed in the NYT article. It is entirely anthropocentric when not totally irrelevant.
Dennis, the thesis statement in the above article is:
“It’s completely absurd to argue against veganism with a ‘plants feel pain’ argument.”
Just as the NY Time article used a relatively unrelated hook about vegans to grab attention for an article about plant science, this article uses a relatively unrelated hook about the NY Times article to grab attention about animal sentience.
Uh-huh.
Always remember, being a vegan means never having to have your food forgive you!
“Nonvegans cause more harm; vegans cause less harm. Plain and simple.”
- What kind of argument is this? LOL
“We know for certain that animals feel pain. Plants probably don’t feel pain. Animals definitely feel pain.”
- What is your defenition of pain? I red in one site, that if plant don’t scream and run that means it does not feel anything. WOW. The fact is that cutted plant reacts immediately. If it does not feel pain in same way you do, it doesn’t mean that it don’t feel pain at all.
“If plants feel pain, it’s certainly not the same kind of pain that animals feel. This is not like this.”
- WHAT?!?! Who are you to decide?
“Eating animals increases your risk for cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity while a plant-based diet reduces your risk of disease.”
- Leave it to people to decide, OK? Even most healthy people wont live for ever.
“Animal agriculture is far more responsible for global warming than plant agriculture.”
- Can you provide satatistics, scientific research?
Rycka –
I start with the last point. You want stats and research regarding the relationship between animal agriculture and global warming? Sure, check out: http://www.vegansoapbox.com/11-articles-about-meat-the-environment/
and http://www.vegansoapbox.com/topics/environment/
Regarding human health: http://www.vegansoapbox.com/veganism-is-healthy/ and http://www.vegansoapbox.com/topics/health/
Regarding pain, please watch:
Some years back a highly reputable anthropologist wrote a book demonstrating that it was precisely plant agriculture that began the process of blight on this planet. In brief, agriculture made it possible to feed huge numbers of people which resulted in the change from relatively small numbers of nomadic meat-eaters to the creation of huge urban centers. These urban centers, over time, produced most of the things we complain about—which could not have been created to any great extent by nomadic carnivores.
Bye the way, the perception of pain is an extremely complex issue that involves individual, species, historical, and cultural differences. Strictly speaking, I do not know what sensations another organism might be experiencing, whatever they might be. All that is perceived is external behaviors. That plants do not run screaming does not mean that some sort of discomfort, anxiety, or death-process is not in the plant psyche. Arguments against plant feelings are no more or less than anthropocentric projection onto something that is just different from ourselves—and is that not the cause of a whole lot of trouble in this world. On an issue of this important, one must assume the worst case and accept the infliction of “pain” on all life or else starve to death!
Dennis wrote: “one must assume the worst case and accept the infliction of ‘pain’ on all life or else starve to death!”
I disagree. STRONGLY.
Remove the word “all” and replace it with “some.” And I’ll disagree less.
Anyone who believes that plants feel plain must choose which kinds of life should suffer so that we may eat it.
Our choices are:
a) eat lots of plants AND lots of animals
or
b) eat some plants
Literally, the choice is:
a) do lots of damage to animals, the environment and your health
or
b) do minimal damage to animals and the environment, but none to your health
Uh-huh. And you conveniently ignore the issue about plant agriculture & damage to the environment, i.e., the rise of large urban areas with 7-figure populations chewing up & pooping up the world a mile-a-minute. Nomadic meat-eaters could never accomplish such levels of developmental damage. It is also arguable that plant agriculture makes genocidal war possible. Pile on billions of tons of insecticides and herbicides and, well, I guess I’m just not seeing anything compelling, let alone conclusive, about any of your responses. To put it mildly, you present no evidence that meat-eating contributes anything extra to environmental damage.
I see.
You and I are using the same word, “meat” to describe two different things. I am using it to describe the food labeled as meat at grocery stores and restaurants. You are talking about dead animal flesh scavenged or hunted by nomads. Are you a nomadic subsistence hunter?
For the record, the dictionary definition of “meat” includes the edible portions of fruits and nuts, too. Are you going to argue against veganism using more twisted logic based on an equivocation of the word “meat”?
Dennis, this is for you:
“the rise of large urban areas with 7-figure populations chewing up & pooping up the world a mile-a-minute.”
How is that relevant to the modern world? What’s done is done: giant cities exist. How is continuing to eat animals going to change that?
Louche´s last blog ..Cross-Training in Social Justice Movements
The juxtaposition of the cow and the potato does not strengthen your argument. It instead shows that it is really the “more like me a being is the less I want to eat it” sort of thing. Of course I can’t look a potato in the eye, but neither can I into the eyes of a number of animals.
I don’t understand the need to claim that plants absolutely can not feel pain.
“the ‘more like me a being is the less I want to eat it’ sort of thing.”
Guess what? That’s OK. There’s where most people begin to over come their prejudices. They realize they have plenty in common with the “othered” and begin to stop othering.
I just worry about arguments based filiation. Should we treat Others with respect and dignity because they are like us?
Royce, you dope. The “look the potato in the eye” thing was a gag. Get it? Potatoes have eyes.
Vegans do not have to prove that plants aren´t sentient beings to make their case; even if ONE SINGLE PLANT suffers equally or even MORE than a cow, think about how many plants the cow has to eat to grow big before it goes to the slaughter. If plants are sentient, then the meat industry would cause even more harm. This one´s a no-brainer.
I think that people come up with arguments like these as a sort of last resort…but…but..
There might be some truth in it though (just a little tiny bit ). I mean I can only guess at what an other organism experiences. How could you really prove anything (except them not having a nervous system and all.) But still assuming they’re living and therefore have some experience because of it. Animals need to eat,drink, and have space, You could feed them on grass so tada more plants “killed”. The amount of and acces to safe drinkingwater is surely not going to increase either. And all the space the cow takes up during it’s life is a lot more than you would need to feed yourself with.
Anyway I never take it really seriously.
On Dennis his comments:
It’s true that Nomadic meat-eaters caused the world less harm than practically all people in “western countries” do now. That’s not because of them eating meat though but their (as we would call it) minimalistic lifestyle and way way way smaller populations. Ans yes living like they do prevents getting such a huge worldpopulation. There are a lot of different kinds of agriculture, some really harmfull,pesticides and monocultures suck. But there are other ways to do it and just like grass fed meat this is done on a much smaller scale (unfortunately)but very practically possible on a big scale. You could make an argument on a meat eater that eats only organic vs a vegan that eats purely supermarket veggies. But an organic vegan wins from an organic meateater. I say organic knowing organic doesn’t neccesary mean perfectly environmentally less harmful but this comment is already to long to say it otherwise. Veganism can feed the (over)population, world wide meat eating just can’t not with grass fed or hunting either.
The human worldpopulation is way to big, it’s no good to any of us this is the case. True, absolutely true. But it is where we are now.
I don’t think of killing half of us as a solution. I mean I think we all agree on eating humans is not the way to go right, very soylent green and all but no thanks
.
But even if we would go back to the original way of life we would lose a lot of the good things society has giving us. For instance sometimes cutting our lifespan in half. Depending on wich “original” way of life you would chose and how and where you live right now.
I often get arguments like this from meat eating friends. And while it’s not a bad argument. None of them chose to live primitive.They actually live way less sustainable than i do with or without taking food into account.
I have mixed thoughts on veganism, but not on the environmental effect it has.And i should learn to keep my comments short and current.
And i meant can’t instead of can’t not. that was a typo
A marine biologist turned environmental researcher, applied himself to the task of scientifically proving whether or not plants feel pain, eggs feel pain and so forth. His name is Lyall Watson, the book is The Romeo Error.
His research proved it: when a plant is exposed to a flame, it feels a type of response able to be proven: on a lie detector. That when 6 eggs are in a carton, and one of them is taken out of the carton and put in a pot of boiling water, the other 5 eggs show a “scream” type of response on the lie detector. That later on, the worst “scream” (going by the output of lines on the lie detector tape), a terrible thing happens, when a baby is being aborted and the lie detector has it’s electrode on the mothers’ belly.
There is the “wilt” experience, and this is very important for those of us that routinely apologise to a parsley plant because we just wanted to pick some and eat some: say to the plant: “I’m going to take some of your growth”, wait a few second (7 seconds) and the plant’s natural response is to “wilt”: it’s lifeforce, the part that makes it feel alive, will go downward into the roots, temporarily; and THEN pick the parsley/plant whatever, and it won’t feel pain or problems. As soon as the person walks away, the lifeforce and “beingness”, the awareness of the plant, recovers.
I do suppose that the above is why the Holy Bible does not ban the eating of vegetables in case we hurt the vegetable.
Try Lyall Watson as a wonderful author who has investigated miracles (to see if they happen: and proved they happen); a book also called Lightning Bird, about deepest Africa and exploring the people there. “Gifts of Unknown Things” is the book he wrote about miracles. Whether or not you agree, you will be entertained nicely, and probably, after reading Mr Watson’s books, you will be more knowledgeable. If he investigates something and has not found the answer, he says precisely: “I don’t know, YET, but I’ll research this”: he’s humble and no pretender. Lyall is a New Zealand Author, and has proven to myself that surely, even Mother Earth, all of her, has a type of AWARENESS, so I feel we must, we being humankind, learn to be kinder and more gentle, and that every kindness, every kind thought, word and deed, adds to the sum total of kindness on Earth. Please extrapolate.
from Jessica. (A bookshop in Auckland, New Zealand, called Pathfinders, or Goodeys, could supply by mail order, the above books). Happy carrot-stick eating.
Let’s try again about those carrot-sticks and how plants do have a negative response to pain: being picked, cut, pruned.
To harvest potatoes, carrots, parsnips and other such vegetables:
To get them to “wilt in sympathy” so they cannot feel the pain, indeed the approaching person can apologise, say they need to eat and that they are about to be harvested: and within a few seconds, the parts of the carrot that have the awareness, goes into the surrounding dirt and is not harmed, that’s a type of “wilt in sympathy”: THEN harvest. It seems the awareness goes through the very bottom of the carrot, that little root right at the bottom of it. If a man had 70 carrots in his garden, we would ask him to leave in the ground, uneaten, 7 carrots, that Mother Nature could enjoy, and that insects and birds and so forth will enjoy, even just to admire the look of them, or even to provide a nice habitat. Hens, chickens, enjoy looking at carrots, and it’s a companion gardening repeller and healer of Avian Influenza, so please grow some carrots in the henhouse area, and leave them be. It does seem kinder to eat nuts and fruit, of course, if there were a plentiful supply, berries included, and if enough variety of vitamins and minerals were available. If it were cruel to harvest carrots, there would have been very, very strong warnings in the Sacred Scripts. In fact, scripturally, in various religions, there are clear warnings, mostly about diet it’s: do not eat the meat of the pig. Its’ a health warning and it’s a humane warning, since the pig is known as being very, very intelligent. Remember to, to give a few seconds warning to trees when you are about to prune them, so the tree’s energy can go downward to avoid hurting the tree’s branch when using the loppers or seceteurs, later once the branch has been pruned, the lifeforce/awareness will return unharmed. Please take it easy on the feelings of the chickens, they are born to lay eggs plus other reasons, and they are NOT there for someone to keep on and on and on thieving those eggs: they are for the mother hen to enjoy laying and raising her own little babies. Please respect that. And of course, to eat chicken-flesh is eating the babies of a motherhen. Other animals: same thing. Animals like viewing pretty countryside, too. I protest too, against factory-farms, they are the cruellest, most horrible places for those living inside them.
from Jessica.