That’s a territory apart from veganism. Plants can’t think and they don’t feel pain, because they don’t have brains or nervous systems. This isn’t a difference in degree; it’s a difference in kind. I’m not saying those people are wrong, but as a moral stance it isn’t a logical extension of veganism.
Who knows? Maybe all matter is conscious and brains just have more complex consciousness. The hard problem of consciousness is unsolved and panpsychism is one hypothesis.
Yeah, but you can’t base moral decisions on “who knows?” You have to base them upon what you do know. Of course, you could be wrong, because anybody could be wrong. You do the best you can based upon the information you have.
I think moral decisions should make some allowances for gaps in our knowledge. It wasn’t that long ago that we didn’t use anaesthesia on babies because we assumed they couldn’t feel pain. Consciousness remains a pretty conspicuous gap in our knowledge, I’m not sure moral decisions can safely disregard known unknowns.
In my view plants can “feel pain”. If you break a wig off a branch the tree will react to it, start trying to heal the damage, sometimes redirect growth to other branches that weren’t damaged. If you cut through its bark it will send coagulants to stop the sap loss, then try to regenerate the tissues. Basically if you damage a part of it it reacts in different ways to mitigate or avoid it, which is fundamentally what pain is.
I won’t claim they can think but I also wouldn’t dismiss that right away. Of course this strongly depends on what we mean by “thinking” but if you believe that individual ants can think, some plants are not that far behind in terms of decision-making.
All that said, veganism is still obviously correct within that framework, because eating animal products causes more suffering even to plants then just eating plants directly.
That’s a territory apart from veganism. Plants can’t think and they don’t feel pain, because they don’t have brains or nervous systems. This isn’t a difference in degree; it’s a difference in kind. I’m not saying those people are wrong, but as a moral stance it isn’t a logical extension of veganism.
I’m not sure we understand consciousness thoroughly enough to make such a confident claim.
You think that you can have consciousness without a brain?
Who knows? Maybe all matter is conscious and brains just have more complex consciousness. The hard problem of consciousness is unsolved and panpsychism is one hypothesis.
Yeah, but you can’t base moral decisions on “who knows?” You have to base them upon what you do know. Of course, you could be wrong, because anybody could be wrong. You do the best you can based upon the information you have.
I think moral decisions should make some allowances for gaps in our knowledge. It wasn’t that long ago that we didn’t use anaesthesia on babies because we assumed they couldn’t feel pain. Consciousness remains a pretty conspicuous gap in our knowledge, I’m not sure moral decisions can safely disregard known unknowns.
this can’t be proven
You can’t prove that a rock doesn’t think or feel pain, either. You can’t prove that the Invisible Pink Unicorn doesn’t exist.
right. so I don’t go around making arguments based on claims like that
By extension what about the millions of bacteria they kill if they get sick and take antibiotics? Vor any other number of things of that nature.
In my view plants can “feel pain”. If you break a wig off a branch the tree will react to it, start trying to heal the damage, sometimes redirect growth to other branches that weren’t damaged. If you cut through its bark it will send coagulants to stop the sap loss, then try to regenerate the tissues. Basically if you damage a part of it it reacts in different ways to mitigate or avoid it, which is fundamentally what pain is.
I won’t claim they can think but I also wouldn’t dismiss that right away. Of course this strongly depends on what we mean by “thinking” but if you believe that individual ants can think, some plants are not that far behind in terms of decision-making.
All that said, veganism is still obviously correct within that framework, because eating animal products causes more suffering even to plants then just eating plants directly.