Swiss Ethicists Consider Plants' Feelings

Emotions and opinions require higher brain functions. Insects, plants, fungi and rocks do not have them.

This is what you get when you pander to the anti-humanist, anti-science, eco-religion retards and sane people stand idly by and let them.

In a fair and just world these idiots who are willing to gamble with the life of billions would be relegated to the rubber-room for the good of society.

this is great! finally people are beginning to realize that all life is meaningful. I plan to be a geneticist and even though I'm sure it would be a headache to have these sorts of rules in place, it will make scientists more thoughtful and patient.

"Should we now defend the dignity of microbes and viruses?"

Viruses are not living things. Microbes do their own experiments with pieces of DNA all the time, it's hard to say that genetic experiments wouldn't be in their favour.

They shouldnt have let all those ethicists watch The Happening.

Is this a joke?
I don't see funny as one of the tags.

Plants feelings? Geez Louise this is effed up. C'mon plants are made for eating. I'm not for GE food on principle of messing with nature. I don't believe plants of any sort have a self-aware consciousness. All life has its own reactionary systems and life sustaining functions, but not "feelings" as human associate them.

I've often wondered why vegetarians think they are morally superior for not eating animals.

Plants are creatures too, just a cell-wall and a nerve stem away from being a cute widdle bunny.

Be a vegetarian for health reasons, but not because you feel you are not taking lives.

I"'ve often wondered why vegetarians think they are morally superior for not eating animals.

Plants are creatures too, just a cell-wall and a nerve stem away from being a cute widdle bunny.

Be a vegetarian for health reasons, but not because you feel you are not taking lives."

I"m with Brennan. Whether your a meat eater or not your still killing something that lives and breathes.

I'm vegetarian because I believe that the way animals are currently raised and killed violates their interest in not feeling pain (when I say pain I refer to the experience of pain, whether the original cause be mental or physical).

I believe that a thing that can't feel pain has no interests at all - if it can't feel pain, ie can't be hurt, how can you cause it harm?

So far as current scientific evidence can reasonably show, plants don't feel pain (that I know of - correct me if you've found something that indicates otherwise). So plants can't be harmed, or have interests. So the plant doesn't care if it's sterile.

However I do agree that plants shouldn't be sterilised without good reason (eg risk of spreading as a pest). Modern commercial crops, while well adapted to a set of conditions, are overly vulnerable to change. We need the genetic diversity that comes from the ability to breed to ensure we have the flexibility to adapt our crops to these changes.

Summary: I agree (mostly) with the result, but there is no reason to give plants "moral consideration... for their own sake".

Mostly because they don't have 'their own sake'...

brennan:

Clearly you do not understand the vegetarian/vegan ethic: it's all about that nerve stem. It's all about reducing suffering. Animals feel pain; they evolved a system for feeling pain so as to use the ability to move away from harmful things. A plant does not move out of harms way, it just lets tissues die off and tries to grow more from less- or un-damaged parts.

Besides, only a small minority of vegetarians actually think they are "morally superior." The problem is that what many percieve as a sense of moral superiority is in reallty confusion and frustration over how people can accept the completely unnecesary suffering of animals on their behalf.

When someone like myself wakes up one day and realizes what it has to take to 'produce' animal products on a large enough scale to feed everyone, the inevitable conclusions seem so obvious it is difficult to remember what it was like to not percieve things this way or to imagine continuing to do so.

Intensive dairy farming is pretty cruel. Vegetarians who eat cheese and other dairy products (myself included) don't really have too much of a leg to stand on ethically, apart from maybe contributing less to the exploitation of other sentient beings. I feel that all life should be respected whether it is sentient or not. The moves by the Swiss parliament and this article bring this issue back into the public domain, which in my opinion, is a very good thing

This is good, Plants should have the right to have their 'feelings' for want of a better term taken into account.
They are living beings and a vital part of our planets ecosystem.
If you think of it in ethical terms, plants have..
use values for us humans, as a form of food etc,
they have existance value in that they have the right to continue to exist and reproduce,
they have intrinsic value, they are valuable in themselves.
all of these values and many more are put foward by philosophers, environmentalists and others and it is important that these views are taken into account when policy is being made, or plants are being 'designed' for profit or alturistic ends.
It is great to see the Swiss Government is acknowledging values other than human chauvinistic ones, we are not the only things on this planet that matter and we need to be reminded of that every now and then.
- I am sitting an exam on environmental policy today, ethics comes up alot when you are trying to design policy.

Yet plants put out signals when attacked, actively defends itself etc
Are they aware? Hmmm, once was a time animals were thought not to have feelings, and there are doctirs that think infants dont feel pain.
They obviously react to the enviroment.
GM has yet to really do much but create superpigweed among cotton etc. And eliminate diversity that would otherwise help ensure survival of species.
But heck it is ok, we dont need to be careful, we dont need diverse food, dont need to becareful science will always save us.