Is “more ethical” really enough if you accept that plants can suffer? You’re still essentially saying one group of living things’ suffering is acceptable to you. Isn’t that like saying the holocaust of the Jews was bad, but the holocaust of the Roma at the same time was fine because there were fewer Roma than Jews? Does “less” matter when we’re talking quantities so massive?
I don’t think there are easy answers to any of these questions. Not if you want to approach them from an honest philosophical level.
No worries. My point was that I cannot make a claim at this point that plants definitely do not feel pain and suffering regardless of whether or not I am willing to eat them. There are other reasons good not to eat meat, such as environmental reasons, but I cannot honestly say for certain that when I eat a plant, harvesting it did not cause it pain and suffering because the more we learn about plants, the more we learn that they do have similar systems to animals in many ways even though they do it differently.
Does that make it more ethical in terms of causing pain and suffering to eat a plant rather than an animal just because their pain is not from same sort of nervous system as an animal’s? Can we be certain that their reactions to being harmed or in trouble in some way, such as the chemical signals and the mother tree examples above isn’t an expression of pain and suffering? I honestly do not know. We all have to eat to survive, so we have to make choices on this regardless of what the science tells us. The only way out of this, as someone else pointed out, is Star Trek replicators.
We also just don’t know enough yet, so this discussion is more speculative because we just don’t have good definitions for ‘pain’ and ‘suffering’ outside of our limited human perspective. It sure seems like all mammals feel pain. It’s hard to tell if insects feel pain. It’s really hard to tell if plants feel pain.
Pineapple tries to eat you back when you eat it, if that makes you feel any better. That painful sensation in your mouth that fresh pineapple causes is a digestive enzyme that the fruit releases to prevent animals from eating it. Works on humans about as well as capsaicin.
Like I said, I’m going to keep eating plants. It’s just something to think about in terms of what suffering means and what people are willing to interpret as suffering and what they will accept when it comes to killing a living thing.
If our ability to modify ourselves reaches sci fi levels, allowing us to photosynthesize and fix amino acids from nitrogen in the atmosphere (or if there’s any hope of making that happen), then that likely will be the new vegan position.
I know you’re being flippant, but I do like the idea of coming up with a variety of ways for humans to get food which don’t require life at all. Finding a way to make a construction worker photosynthetic but also finding a way for an office worker to be chemosynthetic. Hydrogen and methane are in abundance on the planet and bacteria can use them as food. Maybe one day we can too
It’s the fish argument all over again. Some vegetarians reason they can eat fish because fish has simple enough nervous system that it can be aware of its suffering. Sure it reacts to pain, but is it aware?
Similarly, grass may react to damage, but have such simple systems that you can’t even call it pain, much less that they have any awareness of pain
Not at all, it’s just a reaction. When you drop your mentos into Diet Coke, you see a very excited reaction, but do you really call that an emotion or can you really connect that with any entity’s awareness?
Mentos and Diet Coke are not alive. Plants are. Mentos and Diet Coke are also not having reactions to being damaged that signal that damage to other cans of Coke and packs of Mentos. Plants do. That is not a good analogy.
There is an interesting catch to this argument, which is that in a human body we can eliminate pain by using general anesthesia or nerve blockers. Locally the body still reacts to damage but the actual person doesn’t experience any pain because it isn’t communicated to their consciousness. If we accept that being unconscious precludes experiencing pain then it follows that consciousness is a pre-requisite for pain.
On the other hand if it’s still unethical to inflict damage on a living thing without consciousness then is it unethical to operate on a sedated person even though they don’t consciously experience pain?
Very interesting points, and this was the sort of discussion I was hoping to have. These are complex ethical questions without simple answers and in 100 years, people may look back at any eating choices made in this time, be they vegan or 100% carnivore, to be absolutely nuts because none of us have figured out that the real key to good and ethical nutrition is everyone eats a soup made from cloned moose DNA and petroleum. Science is constantly changing and moving on, so who knows? But it’s an interesting thing to talk about, at least to me.
For now, I am on the side of those who say it is not ethical to eat meats, but it is ethical to eat plants. In 20 years of plant science? Who can say?
Is “more ethical” really enough if you accept that plants can suffer? You’re still essentially saying one group of living things’ suffering is acceptable to you. Isn’t that like saying the holocaust of the Jews was bad, but the holocaust of the Roma at the same time was fine because there were fewer Roma than Jews? Does “less” matter when we’re talking quantities so massive?
I don’t think there are easy answers to any of these questions. Not if you want to approach them from an honest philosophical level.
I don’t accept that, but even if I did, you should still act to minimize suffering as much as possible.
Do you really believe that killing a plant is the same as killing an animal?
I literally wrote this:
I guess you didn’t actually read my entire post before you responded.
Honestly it just seems like you’re trying to contort yourself into a knot that allows you to eat meat without feeling bad?
First four words of my initial post:
Did no one read it?
Ah my bad, I misread the original comment, just woke up lol.
No worries. My point was that I cannot make a claim at this point that plants definitely do not feel pain and suffering regardless of whether or not I am willing to eat them. There are other reasons good not to eat meat, such as environmental reasons, but I cannot honestly say for certain that when I eat a plant, harvesting it did not cause it pain and suffering because the more we learn about plants, the more we learn that they do have similar systems to animals in many ways even though they do it differently.
Does that make it more ethical in terms of causing pain and suffering to eat a plant rather than an animal just because their pain is not from same sort of nervous system as an animal’s? Can we be certain that their reactions to being harmed or in trouble in some way, such as the chemical signals and the mother tree examples above isn’t an expression of pain and suffering? I honestly do not know. We all have to eat to survive, so we have to make choices on this regardless of what the science tells us. The only way out of this, as someone else pointed out, is Star Trek replicators.
We also just don’t know enough yet, so this discussion is more speculative because we just don’t have good definitions for ‘pain’ and ‘suffering’ outside of our limited human perspective. It sure seems like all mammals feel pain. It’s hard to tell if insects feel pain. It’s really hard to tell if plants feel pain.
Pineapple tries to eat you back when you eat it, if that makes you feel any better. That painful sensation in your mouth that fresh pineapple causes is a digestive enzyme that the fruit releases to prevent animals from eating it. Works on humans about as well as capsaicin.
Like I said, I’m going to keep eating plants. It’s just something to think about in terms of what suffering means and what people are willing to interpret as suffering and what they will accept when it comes to killing a living thing.
under what ethical system?
If our ability to modify ourselves reaches sci fi levels, allowing us to photosynthesize and fix amino acids from nitrogen in the atmosphere (or if there’s any hope of making that happen), then that likely will be the new vegan position.
Photosynthesis would probably not work too well for people who aren’t outside a lot. But there might be other possibilities.
Sounds like a good way to incentivise touching some grass.
I know you’re being flippant, but I do like the idea of coming up with a variety of ways for humans to get food which don’t require life at all. Finding a way to make a construction worker photosynthetic but also finding a way for an office worker to be chemosynthetic. Hydrogen and methane are in abundance on the planet and bacteria can use them as food. Maybe one day we can too
I agree, those things would be desirable.
It’s the fish argument all over again. Some vegetarians reason they can eat fish because fish has simple enough nervous system that it can be aware of its suffering. Sure it reacts to pain, but is it aware?
Similarly, grass may react to damage, but have such simple systems that you can’t even call it pain, much less that they have any awareness of pain
Why can’t you call it pain? Plaints obviously are aware of it if they react to it.
Not at all, it’s just a reaction. When you drop your mentos into Diet Coke, you see a very excited reaction, but do you really call that an emotion or can you really connect that with any entity’s awareness?
Mentos and Diet Coke are not alive. Plants are. Mentos and Diet Coke are also not having reactions to being damaged that signal that damage to other cans of Coke and packs of Mentos. Plants do. That is not a good analogy.
what do you mean by “alive”, and why should that matter?
There is an interesting catch to this argument, which is that in a human body we can eliminate pain by using general anesthesia or nerve blockers. Locally the body still reacts to damage but the actual person doesn’t experience any pain because it isn’t communicated to their consciousness. If we accept that being unconscious precludes experiencing pain then it follows that consciousness is a pre-requisite for pain.
On the other hand if it’s still unethical to inflict damage on a living thing without consciousness then is it unethical to operate on a sedated person even though they don’t consciously experience pain?
Very interesting points, and this was the sort of discussion I was hoping to have. These are complex ethical questions without simple answers and in 100 years, people may look back at any eating choices made in this time, be they vegan or 100% carnivore, to be absolutely nuts because none of us have figured out that the real key to good and ethical nutrition is everyone eats a soup made from cloned moose DNA and petroleum. Science is constantly changing and moving on, so who knows? But it’s an interesting thing to talk about, at least to me.
For now, I am on the side of those who say it is not ethical to eat meats, but it is ethical to eat plants. In 20 years of plant science? Who can say?