Swiss Government Issues Bill of Rights for Plants
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 05. 9.08
Revolution is in the air, as the Swiss Government's Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology concludes that plants have rights, and we have to treat them appropriately. A majority of the panel concluded that "living organisms should be considered morally for their own sake because they are alive." The Weekly Standard, which is appalled, gives an example of how a farmer mowing his field is OK, but if he carelessly decapitates flowers while walking home, that is immoral. It suggests that "The animal rights movement grew out of the same poisonous soil." Patrick Metzger at Green Daily suggests that "this concept is a little extreme even for the most committed treehugger."
Having scanned the report, I am not so sure that it is that far off base. It isn't just Julia Butterfly Hill who has fought for the rights of trees, and there are many who fall in love with their garden and protect their tomatoes like their pets, and give them the proper reverence when they are eaten. They don't pick them and throw them against the wall.
Millions of Jains refuse any food obtained with unnecessary cruelty, and many will not eat root vegetables because it kills the plant; it is not like this is a new idea.
They are not, like the Weekly Standard suggests, writing a vegetable Bill of Rights, they are only saying that all living things should be treated with respect. How can one argue with that? Download the PDF report here.
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agreed.
It's all about balance.
I believe in sentient rights, as a Vegan. However, I don't think that consideration of plants counts as something moral. That said, i always feel self-conscious about stepping on grass.
GREAT! Now I might have to move to Switzerland instead of Scandinavia. I LOVE this idea.
One should treat EVERYTHING with respect, not just living things. For instance, our earth. If we had thought of what CO2 emissions might be doing to the planet back in the 40s we wouldn't have this problem with global warming.
Is this really necessary?
These people should take BIO101 and understand where the energy to fuel their windy decrees comes from.
I eat roots and love it. In fact, I had the most amazing mashed potatoes of my life tonight.
Should morality really have a place in legislation, when quite clearly, there is no such thing as an universally accepted concept of what is immoral? Morals are essentially religous assertions and are not appropriate to engrain law in a multifaith society. In the absence of this, the only appropriate derivation of law can be along the principles that Jeremy Bentham laid out - i.e. that the purpose of government is to ensure the freedoms and priveleges for the greatest number. This rather precludes moral legislation in a secular society. On this line, preserving genetic diversity is in the interest of all humans, so yes it is selfish and harmful to society to harm rare plants. This is obviously different to mowing a large monoculture (also my lawn doesn't die when I cut the grass).
Interestingy, Bentham was one of the first animal rights proponents and argued that the treatment of an animal should by based on its ability to suffer and not on its ability to reason. Though plants can show physical signs of stress, even as a plantsman, I would find it hard to suggest that they can suffer in the absence of consciousness.
I wish we could hear the trees screaming of pain while the chain saw is cutting them down.
Plants should certainly be valued and treated with respect as living things. Cruelty is not really the issue. Nothing that nature produces should be waste or mindlessly destroyed.
When you see beautiful wild flowers and forests it can make one want to kill anyone who deliberately destroys these things. It is a matter of social order amongst humans that those of us who love nature should not be provoked by others who have no such appreciation.
Valuing plants is self-evidently central to protecting the ecology.
What about rocks? I have this sneaking suspicion they have feelings too!
i find it amusing coming from a country that allows hunting cats for fur.
please stop this, what is this the 4th diminsion?
plants right, and what eles the right of microbs and viruses to exist???
help the poors dying by hunger in africa, before waiting time and efforts on somthing rediculous
People have to help people and people have to and need to love and help each other.IPeople with the smartest minds and with Earths great natural wealth should and can save all of beutyfull people and the beutyfull plants and all of the beutyfull life of Earth.Life we are all beutyfull.
lrn2spel
Plants do not have a nervous system; they cannot feel or know anything that you do to them. They are not conscious.
" all living things should be treated with respect. How can one argue with that?"
Easily. The respect must be based on something in the object such as moral capacity, capacity for enjoyment or happiness, rationality, inter alia. This is why it is morally worse to decapitate a chimp than to decapitate planaria. It is also why (pace vegans) it is thought permissible to kill and eat anything from plants up to cows and other, as we say, higher animals, while killing people, even for a good purpose (e.g. food) is generally thought to be impermissible.
Put another way: if there is *any* moral difference in killing other living beings than human beings, then there is an open argument justifying killing those other beings when it suits our purposes. Morality ain't always pretty.
This is a very good step in honoring life on the planet, even though I think governments are destructive and unnecessary. The point is to honor life in all its forms and not simply "use" plants and animals, but to have deep gratitude and respect for each thing consumed. We oughtn't to cause needless destruction, that seems to be the "root" of the issue to me - are we encouraging life or death in the cosmos? It's unrealistic to abstain from all forms of death, insofar as I'm aware, but to destroy life just to destroy it or for pleasure seems to cause harm both to the ecosystem which would subtly benefit from more life and to the individual who inculcates a destructive spirit.
"Plants do not have a nervous system; they cannot feel or know anything that you do to them. They are not conscious."
Partly true -
Plants do not have a nervous system and they don't seem to be conscious but they do have highly complex chemical signals and are able to both 'know' and respond when they are touched for instance. Our time scales are radically different, but the signal are far more complex than synapse firing and we don't have much idea what information they communicate.
A reasonably well referenced popular book on the subject is 'Intelligence in Nature' by Jeremy Narby
All I can say is, complete and utter nonsense! There are so many ways the time creating this nonsense could have been spent effectively and in ways that could change communities and the world. This is waste of minds, money and time.
I would suggest to those above who don't believe any moral consideration needs to be regarding plants, to read Peter Tompkins' Scret Life of Plants for a very fascinating journey in the understanding of flora.