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Answering Arguments Against Animal Rights |
| Part XVI -- Argument Eleven: Plants feel pain too: to avoid causing pain one would starve |
Argument eleven: plant feel pain too: to avoid causing pain one would starve.
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This is the opposite extreme from the argument which states that animals
cannot feel pain. In this argument, not only do animals feel pain: plants do too.
So, becoming a vegetarian doesn't lessen the amount of suffering in the world;
it just transfers it from animals to plants.
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While we should avoid the wanton destruction of plants, we must recognize
significant differences between animals and plants.
Plants lack a central nervous system and a brain, so it's hard to imagine
how they might experience pain. If we must chose between killing an animal
which can feel pain and has a conscious will to live, and killing a
plant which may have remote sensations of consciousness, our moral
choice is clear.
Also, if the people putting forth this argument are really concerned with
the feelings of plants, they should become vegetarians...
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...because eating plants directly uses only one third the quantity of
plants which must be fed to cattle to eventually provide the animals which
feed the human meat-eater.
So, being a vegetarian not only saves animal lives, it saves the lives of
many plants as well.
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