I have written extensively about how the Swiss Constitution declared the legal intrinsic dignity of individual plants (and an ethics committee declared the “decapitation” of a wildflower to be immoral). I have also written how Nicaragua’s new constitution created the “rights of nature,” co-equal to the rights of humans. Now the folly has gone one step further, by imputing morality to the lives of plants, spread, no less, in the august pages of the New York Times. Science columnist Natalie Angier discusses the undeniable complexity of plant life, and anthropomorphizes away, to the point that she attributes ethics to plants. From her column:
It’s a small daily tragedy that we animals must kill to stay alive. Plants are the ethical autotrophs here, the ones that wrest their meals from the sun. Don’t expect them to boast: they’re too busy fighting to survive.
Sigh. Plants are not ethical. That requires thought and free will. And what about Venus fly traps? They digest their insect prey alive. Oh, the horror, the tragedy!
It is easy to make fun of this, but there is a deep nihilism beneath the folly. Extrapolating the sophisticated biology of plants into something involving ethics and cognition is profoundly destructive of human exceptionalism, which is very dangerous. Indeed, I find it acutely ironic that as we see increased advocacy for the depersonalization of the most vulnerable human beings so as to justify their terminations or use as natural resources, we also witness increasing arguments to personalize flora and fauna.
December 26th, 2009 | 3:01 pm
It’s horribly sad.
This type of rationalization must be what makes the destruction of the seeds of endangered plants illegal and yet justifies abortion because the life is only “potentially” human.
God help us.
December 26th, 2009 | 3:53 pm
There is a gossamer barrier between psychosis and sanity that is most readily seen in this kind of amoral nonsense. What it really exemplifies is the inability of a very large segment of our educated (so-called) class of men and women to make the rational and moral distinctions required to be considered adults in any meaningful sense. We have millions of rather large human beings from their twneties on up who are still emotionally sitting at their desk in a high school classroom listening to some half-literate pompous sermon on being compassionate to disease bearing insects.
December 26th, 2009 | 4:42 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Margie, reina jackson. reina jackson said: Are Plants Ethical Beings?: Plants are the ethical autotrophs here, the ones that wrest their meals from the su.. http://bit.ly/6T8krO [...]
December 26th, 2009 | 7:09 pm
You ain’t seen nothing yet: There are people who assert the intrinsic dignity of rocks and minerals, and use this to argue that mining is inherently immoral.
December 27th, 2009 | 8:36 am
There are a strain of children’s movies that while innocent and wholesome enough also portray animals and plants as moral equals to humans. One storyline of a recent film of this type portrayed a lion as guilt ridden due to his being a carnivore! He was constantly haunted by urges to eat his best friends which were of course other animals.
Is pantheism returning in full force?
December 27th, 2009 | 9:07 am
G. K. Chesterton again: when good religion is abandoned it will be replaced by bad religion. With pst I say: stay tuned for more, and for worse!
December 27th, 2009 | 9:47 am
[...] on the moral value of non-human life fall utterly short and are part of the problem. Consider his latest argument/rant in this regard; of the personalization of plants he says: there is a deep nihilism beneath the [...]
December 27th, 2009 | 9:42 pm
At least people in “vegetative” states might now stand a chance of not being terminated.
December 28th, 2009 | 12:16 pm
Plants as ethical beings? That resonates with me. I always found broccoli to be a bit holier-than-thou.
December 28th, 2009 | 12:21 pm
And how does feeding on light make you ethical when you will kill for light? All sorts of plants try to shade each other out so they get all the light and the others starve.
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