"The Silent Scream of the Asparagus"
As promised, I have written a longer piece Switzerland embodying the "dignity" of plants into its constitution in a published in this week's Weekly Standard (subscription may be required). First, I recount the story and the ethics committee's report, as I did here at SHS earlier.
Then, I point out that "plant rights" is not really a laughing matter:What is clear, however, is that Switzerland's enshrining of "plant dignity" is a symptom of a cultural disease that has infected Western civilization, causing us to lose the ability to think critically and distinguish serious from frivolous ethical concerns. It also reflects the triumph of a radical anthropomorphism that views elements of the natural world as morally equivalent to people.
Why is this happening? Our accelerating rejection of the Judeo-Christian world view, which upholds the unique dignity and moral worth of human beings, is driving us crazy. Once we knocked our species off its pedestal, it was only logical that we would come to see fauna and flora as entitled to rights. Eschewing humans as the pinnacle of "creation" (to borrow the term used in the Swiss constitution) has caused environmentalism to mutate from conservationism--a concern to properly steward resources and protect pristine environs and endangered species--into a willingness to thwart human flourishing to "save the planet." Indeed, the most radical "deep ecologists" have grown so virulently misanthropic that Paul Watson, the head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, called humans "the AIDS of the earth," requiring "radical invasive therapy" in order to reduce the population of the earth to under a billion.
Here is my conclusion:One Swiss scientist quoted in the editorial worried that "plant dignity" provides "another tool for opponents to argue against any form of plant biotechnology" despite the hope it offers to improve crop yields and plant nutrition.
We are disattaching ourselves from reason and will harm ourselves profoundly if we don't quickly turn this craziness around.
What folly. We live in a time of cornucopian abundance and plenty, yet countless human beings are malnourished, even starving. In the face of this cruel paradox, worry about the purported rights of plants is the true immorality.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 7:47 AM
9 Comments
9 Comments:
I'd like to know what the moral implications are for eating plants and cutting grass, pruning trees without some sort of consent. Will we hold animals accountable for eating plants, making nests in trees without consent and etc? Plants can't consent because plants are not personal beings, if they are beings at all, but if they have dignitity, it would seem they would need to be persons. I'd like to know the moral implications are for vegans who target plants for their food. If plants have dignity and it's okay to eat them, why not animals and humans?
What about the dignity of all carbon molecues?
From a reader: "I found your Weekly Standard column on "plant rights" interesting, primarily because it illuminates the scientistic mindset of many on the American Right, namely, that creation is something to be dominated. Certainly, an older Christian view (to say nothing of various other philosophical and spiritual approaches) would not have considered ridiculous the observations that, "the arbitrary killing of flora is morally wrong," or scoffed at the view that "we cannot claim 'absolute ownership' over plants and, moreover, that 'individual plants have an inherent worth.' This means that 'we may not use them just as we please.'" The will to power of modern gnosticism, the attempt to make man the master of the cosmos, is evident in the rejection of this. Given the circles you work in, I would have expected you to be somewhat familiar with the writings of C.S. Lewis, Eric Voegelin, and Francis Schaeffer (among others) on this sort of problem. To be sure, the idea of plant rights is ridiculous, but the notion of moral imperatives regarding our treatment of plants isn't."
My reply: Thanks for writing... We may not disagree. As I see it, only human have duties, and indeed, that is an essential part of what I call human exceptionalism. We have a duty to properly steward the environment, for example. We have a duty to treat animals humanely. I don't think we owe plants a duty based on their being alive, however.
But to discuss the "plant community" and the intrinsic dignity of plants is ludicrous. I have no objection to arguing about our duties and their extent to the environment, but I object to anthropomorphizing plants (or animals) to equivalent moral value or having, for example, a right not to be "decapitated." Only humans have rights and duties.
I keep all religion out of my work. I am used to being called a "Fundy" but it's the first time I have been called a Gnostic!
Thank you for writing about this.
*sigh*
I can only guess that maybe no one told them that the following video is a *parody* (and a good one, one of my all-time favorites):
"Carrot Juice is Murder" by the Arrogant Worms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmK0bZl4ILM
This interesting comment from a Berkeley reader: "I've been saying this for years: leftism is the modern incarnation of Manichaeism. If you study the religion of the Manichees, you'll see the overlaps. The "elect" of the Manichees were so worried about hurting plants, they'd only eat melons. I figure Manichaeism is a disease of over civilization. It seems to arise independently whenever and wherever life gets too soft. The Bogomils, the Cathars, the Mazdakists ... there are such trends in Buddist cultures as well. So, worrying about plants rights is a natural progression in the disease.
If I were a more enterprising fellow, I'd make my fortune in our declining civilization by selling their old texts with a new age bent."
A reader does not approve: Hi,
Someone sent me this column below. I realize this is just for a newspaper or something like that, but I wondered if you were serious about the claim (below, in bold) that it's only "logical" to think that if not just human beings have any moral rights, then plants have moral rights also. This simply doesn't follow on any of the developed and discussed theories that attempt to explain what it is about human beings and various animals that makes them such that they have any moral rights. So I wonder why anyone would think there is such a "logical" connection, especially if someone is familiar with the best of what's said about these topics, and so why you would say this.
Thanks,
"Our accelerating rejection of the Judeo-Christian world view, which upholds the unique dignity and moral worth of human beings, is driving us crazy. Once we knocked our species off its pedestal, it was only logical that we would come to see fauna and flora as entitled to rights."
Let's call it an original thought. : )
Deciding which plants to kill and which may live - isn't that speciesism?
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