Providing grounds for agricultural ethics: the wider philosophical significance of plant life integrity
01 Jan 2012-pp 154-159
TL;DR: In this paper, a framework inspired by pragmatism and aesthetics is used to assess on novel grounds the specificity of plants, and it is shown that plants exhibit completely original features that make them incommensurable with animals.
Abstract: Growing and breeding plants is pivotal to agriculture including also animal keeping. To understand what agricultural ethics implies, the significance of plant life ought to be given new attention. So far, little literature has been devoted to plant ethics and granting a moral standing to plants remains a difficult endeavour at this stage. One difficulty may be that, due to the unification of biology as a scientific discipline based on the theory of evolution, plants are granted the same theoretical standing as animals. Yet, for common sense plants and animals belong to different fields of perception and experience, a difference that used to be captured by the notion of kingdom. To make sense of common sense, a framework inspired by pragmatism and aesthetics is used to assess on novel grounds the specificity of plants. By considering morphogenetic forces embodied in biophysical forms and organic performances, it is shown that plants exhibit completely original features that make them incommensurable with animals. Because of their unique ontology, plants appear to be ‘non-topos’, i.e. non-centred, unlimited, indeterminate, unsplit (having neither inside nor outside) entities. They are, along with algae, the only living beings able to directly convert sun energy into chemical energy and store it within organic matter. This matter does not represent food but their very body gradually coming to existence. Hence, although this may sound quite thought provoking, one has to realise that plant physical integrity actually encompasses soil, environment, living beings, and the cosmos. Here, the notion of integrity proves especially interesting because it captures both descriptive and normative contents. Because of their — literally — outstanding nature, plants require a completely new ethical approach. It is proposed that this is embedded to some degree in organic agriculture and agroecology. Indeed, the emergence of organic agriculture about a century ago was prompted by the advent of chemical fertilizers that caused disruption of crop life integrity at soil level. This emergence was not only an implicit call to respect plant life integrity but also a first step towards a comprehensive philosophy of agriculture, a philosophy that is clearly centred on the fertilisation of the world by plants. The recent development of farm seed and participatory plant breeding networks might represent a second step in the mental revolution that brings the plant, besides land and soil, to the forefront of agricultural concerns.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine how plant ethics first emerged from the development of plant science and yet also hit theoretical barriers in that domain, concluding that the unique ontology of plants can only be addressed through a major change from object-thinking to process-thinking and a move from ego-centric to peri-ego ethics.
Abstract: Concern for what we do to plants is pivotal for the field of environmental ethics but has scarcely been voiced. This paper examines how plant ethics first emerged from the development of plant science and yet also hit theoretical barriers in that domain. It elaborates on a case study prompted by a legal article on “the dignity of creatures” in the Swiss Constitution. Interestingly, the issue of plant dignity was interpreted as a personification or rather an “animalization of plants.” This sense of irony makes sense when one realizes that on scientific grounds the plant is a “second animal,” i.e., it differs from the animal in degree of life or some ethically-relevant criterion but not in nature. From the point of view of ethics however, plants should be defended for what they are by nature and not by comparison to external references: the ethical standing of plants cannot be indexed to animals. It is thus reckoned that to circumvent this odd fetishism, the plant ethics can only be adequately addressed by changing the theory of plant science. Common sense tells us this: plants and animals belong to radically different fields of perception and experience, a difference that is commonly captured by the notion of kingdom. In this paper we remind the ethical conversation that plants are actually incommensurable with animals because they are unsplit beings (having neither inside nor outside), i.e., they live as “non-topos” in an undivided, unlimited, non-centered state of being. It is concluded that the unique ontology of plants can only be addressed through a major change from object-thinking to process-thinking and a move from ego-centric to “peri-ego” ethics.
22 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the relationship between plants and tourism has been explored, which has been neglected in the literature, and the authors discuss plants as a life form, and explore an emergent sub-field in the study of tourism.
Abstract: This article aims to explore an emergent sub-field in the study of tourism: the relationship between plants and tourism, which has been neglected in the literature. We discuss plants as a life form...
21 citations
Cites background from "Providing grounds for agricultural ..."
...…integrity perspective is that, because plants exhibit original and outstanding features, such as the conversion of sun energy into chemical energy, their unique ontology, and so on, we require a completely new ethical approach to them (Pouteau, 2012; see the section on plant capabilities, above)....
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Dissertation•
01 Jan 2019
9 citations
Cites background from "Providing grounds for agricultural ..."
...Pouteau (2012) sees the emergence of organic agriculture and agroecology as a “first step towards a comprehensive philosophy of agriculture” (p.154)....
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01 Jan 2014
TL;DR: A comprehensive overview of ethical issues of bio-fuels and their treatment in the literature can be found in this paper, where the authors focus on the practical and policy level, where concrete ethical challenges arise and are addressed by governments and advisory and regulatory bodies, and the theoretical level where the choice of theoretical framework influences which problems and possible solutions are highlighted.
Abstract: Oil is one of the drivers of Western industrial societies. Our pattern and (increasing) quantity of oil consumption, however, is becoming more and more problematic for a number of reasons. First, oil and other fossil fuel stocks are finite and will at some point run out or become prohibitively costly to mine, both in economic and in environmental terms. Second, burning fossil fuels releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, thereby contributing to global climate change. Third, dependence on oil implies dependence on oil-producing countries – countries that might not always be politically stable or well disposed toward oil-importing countries and thus threaten the importing countries’ energy security (Landeweerd et al. 2009). Biofuels have been hailed as a replacement that had the potential to address all those problems. First, biofuels are made from plants or algae ("fuel crops") that can be cultivated indefinitely, rather than coming from a limited stock. Second, biofuels were initially considered to be "carbon neutral," where the amount of carbon emitted during combustion would be the same as the amount stored in the plant during growth, leading to a net carbon emission of zero (however, see section "Land Use"). Third, fuel crops can be grown anywhere, though conditions in the (sub)tropics favor certain kinds of crops such as oil palms, which means that it lessens dependence on oil-producing countries. In addition, two arguments are often mentioned in favor of using biofuels rather than alternative energy sources for the transport sector: First, biofuels can be blended with fossil fuels and thus can utilize our existing infrastructure, whereas the switch to electric cars or a hydrogen economy would require massive infrastructural changes. Second, heavy-duty vehicles such as airplanes cannot as yet be powered by fuel cells or batteries but could be powered by biofuels (Nuffield Council on Bioethics 2011, 19, hereafter the NCB). In practice, however, many types of biofuels have not lived up to their promises or even exacerbated problems and created normative, practical, and political challenges besides. This entry aims to give an overview of ethical issues of biofuels and their treatment in the literature. In particular, after giving an introduction on what biofuels are, this entry presents an overview of ethical challenges on two levels: the practical and policy level, where concrete ethical problems arise and are addressed by governments and advisory and regulatory bodies, and the theoretical level, where the choice of theoretical framework influences which problems and possible solutions are highlighted. Issues related to GM agriculture and intellectual property are not addressed here as those topics are covered elsewhere.
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors offer themselves as a nature guide, exploring for values, and offer to look the world over, to find the value of a life in an unexamined world.
Abstract: I offer myself as a nature guide, exploring for values. Many before us have got lost and we must look the world over. The unexamined life is not worth living; life in an unexamined world is not worthy living either. We miss too much of value.
251 citations
TL;DR: The history of changes in the meaning of photosynthesis is examined, which began with the discovery of anoxygenic photosynthetic bacteria and photophosphorylation and necessitated redefinition of the term.
Abstract: In 1893, Charles Barnes (1858–1910) proposed that the biological process for ‘synthesis of complex carbon compounds out of carbonic acid, in the presence of chlorophyll, under the influence of light’ should be designated as either ‘photosyntax’ or ‘photosynthesis.’ He preferred the word ‘photosyntax,’ but ‘photosynthesis’ came into common usage as the term of choice. Later discovery of anoxygenic photosynthetic bacteria and photophosphorylation necessitated redefinition of the term. This essay examines the history of changes in the meaning of photosynthesis.
53 citations
Additional excerpts
...They are, along with algae, the only living beings able to capture sun energy and to convert it to chemical energy, which is stored within organic matter via carbon dioxide assimilation (Gest, 2002)....
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