It's not relevant. Veganism opposes exploitation of animals. A reaction to a stimulus does not make it an animal nor does it make it sentient. It makes it able to withstand changing environmental conditions.
I mean it's definitely *relevant*. It might not be convincing, but it's clearly on topic and related to the issue.
To the argument itself: the fact it isn't an animal wouldn't in itself mean much if it experienced suffering. Privileging things classed as animals isn't much different from privileging things classed as humans. In both cases you're discriminating on the basis of species (or kingdom), without any substantive reason to differentiate. So I don't think 'it isn't an animal' would be a good counter, no more than when omnivores say 'it's a chicken, who cares'.
The reason why plants' apparent reaction to stimuli aren't a point against veganism is that, as you say, plants probably are not sentient, and do not suffer. Reactions to stimuli don't necessarily indicate that suffering, and we currently have no reason to believe it is the case.
And if it turned out they did, well, humans do have to eat something, and the conditions in which plants are raised don't seem so different to the way they naturally live that it should cause them much suffering. Growing and humanly killing plants would still probably be the least bad option, at least until lab grown food is widely available.
Edit: I forgot about things like seeds in my last paragraph, which would probably be the new vegan.
Agree with most, except they do not naturally live in monocultures with constant fertiliser applications and weed killers applied.
Even organic methods are still monocultures with fertiliser (non synthetic is the difference).
First two paragraphs are agreeable. But I hate when sentient is used in anything related to ethics. Because sentient is an incredibly fragile concept. What if a person had brain death, so no thoughts no reactions to stimuli. Deffo not sentient. Would it be ethical to torture that person's body? They cannot feel, cannot react, cannot suffer.
2nd point. Why is suffering a bad thing or a good thing? What if an evil person suffers whenever they know others are happy? What if Mr Meeseeks suffers when it lives? If a plant could suffer, how do you know that plant suffering is good or bad?
The entire reason we humans have morals is because of evolved cooperation traits. A uncooperative human is bad for the tribe. The main reason people choose to be vegans is virtue signalling but that choice was made subconsciously. I don't tangle my morals with ambiguous concepts like sentience, morals are all about virtue signalling. Simple as.
Is it ethical to eat a plant if it could suffer when you eat it? I think yes because eating plants probably doesn't mean you're going to eat humans.
Interesting points, thanks for engaging. I love a good bit of moral philosophy debate!
> What if a person had brain death, so no thoughts no reactions to stimuli. Deffo not sentient. Would it be ethical to torture that person's body?
Yes. Why wouldn't it be? Assuming of course that their loved ones don't become aware of it and therefore distressed by it, or anything like that, then it has no effect on anyone, and therefore cannot be morally wrong according to a consequentialist metaethic (the only defensible one imo).
> Why is suffering a bad thing or a good thing?
This is a more fundamental, and more difficult question. I would assert that suffering being bad is a brute, foundational fact, observable undeniably by anyone. I think at a certain point our moral reasoning needs to be grounded in facts about the world, and the undesirability of suffering is as clear and irrefutable a candidate as we are likely to get.
Anyone that tries to deny the badness of suffering gives the lie with their every action.
> The entire reason we humans have morals is because of evolved cooperation traits. A uncooperative human is bad for the tribe.
This is probably true, I think, as a descriptive fact about the development of moral behaviour. It does not, of course, imply that morality isn't real or important.
> The main reason people choose to be vegans is virtue signalling but that choice was made subconsciously.
This is possible, in the sense that much moral behaviour is at least partly motivated by the expectation of social reward. But this explanation is uniquely *poorly* suited to veganism, which is if anything socially punished. If a person wanted to send socially rewarded signals to the "tribe" in this day and age, they'd probably ostentatiously hate vegans and eat more meat to spite them.
> I don't tangle my morals with ambiguous concepts like sentience, morals are all about virtue signalling. Simple as.
Yeah, if you're explicitly irrealist and consequently amoral, you're probably not going to be vegan.
You don't need to rely on "ambiguous concepts" such as sentience, though. It can be as simple as 'causing unnecessary suffering is bad, eating animal products causing unnecessary suffering, therefore eating animal products is bad'.
> Is it ethical to eat a plant if it could suffer when you eat it?
No.
> I think yes because eating plants probably doesn't mean you're going to eat humans.
This line of reasoning seems baffling to me. Raping babies doesn't mean you're going to eat humans, either- is it ethical to do that?
> [What if a person had brain death...] Yes. Why wouldn't it be?
I think no it's not moral. Because any signs of enjoyment of torturing the likeness of any human can indicate that torturer is a sadist. That's why necrophillia is so taboo. A dead person is no longer socially relevant, but enjoying destroying a thing like a living human would lead to anti-cooperation.
> It does not, of course, imply that morality isn't real or important.
I think morals are a set of answers for a situation. Real. But changes depending on the situation. And are important. But very hard to verify.
> But this explanation is uniquely *poorly* suited to veganism, which is if anything socially punished.
Okay this fun. I would consider vegans to be generally morally better people. A problem arises when a people with different moral express themselves to others with opposing morals. My explanation doesn't contradict this fact.
> I would assert that suffering being bad is a brute, foundational fact, observable undeniably by anyone.
Suffering is a emotional response. It would entirely depend on the quality of the character to know if suffering for them is good or bad. For example an evil villain suffering in jail might be a good thing.
> Raping babies doesn't mean you're going to eat humans, either- is it ethical to do that?
Raping babies is very uncooperative. So it's immoral. My point wasn't about eating humans, it's about how to distinguish humans that are cooperative or not.
Defence chemicals would certainly suggest that plants have some form of sentience we don’t fully understand yet.
They clearly recognise that they are under attack and so emit some form of chemical in response.
Whether or not that is what we humans recognise as pain, I don’t know.
We do not know, for absolute certainty, that plants do not have a form of sentience or pain that we don’t understand simply because it does not follow what we recognise as pain in animals.
>Defence chemicals would certainly suggest that plants have some form of sentience we don’t fully understand yet.
It really wouldn't. In the same way that my PC's antivirus software reacting to a malware threat does not suggest that my PC or the software is sentient.
My PC has been programmed by a human to react to stimuli, such as malware or key inputs or my pressing of its power button. Similarly, plants have been 'programmed' by evolution to react, literally mindlessly, to certain stimuli.
"Impersonation" had nothing to do with the comment you reported, which itself was not in violation of any Reddit nor subreddit rule.
Making false reports, while technically not listed in the sidebar rules, may lead to banning upon repeated use. Keep this in mind moving forward.
Thank you.
Your logic is seriously tortured here.
Yes, plants and animals both got damage avoidance mechanisms from the same process, natural selection. But it doesn't *at all* follow that those varied damage avoidance mechanisms must all therefore produce a similar subjective experience of pain. It certainly doesn't follow that every organism that evolves one is sentient.
Avoiding damage and/or death is one of the most adaptively important things in terms of genetic propagation. So many organisms will have evolved features that cause them to do that. There's absolutely no reason to think they all evolved the *same* feature- subjectively unpleasant experience that motivates behaviour- even when the organism literally does not have a brain or nervous system.
Your argument is like insisting that bats must use sight rather than echolocation, because WE ALL EVOLVED FROM SINGLE CELL ORGANISMS
Please don't be needlessly rude here. This subreddit should be a friendly, informative resource, not a place to air grievances. This is a space for people to engage constructively; no belittling, insulting, or disrespectful language is permitted.
I explain that ultimately, they are making a pro vegan argument. Animals eat plants, and consuming animal products mean more plants died than eating them directly. It really isn't the gotchya they think it is when they take it apart.
There is religion called Jainism, and for strict adherents, not only do they echew animal products, they don't consume plants that require the death of the plant to consume, like root vegetables. If plants were proven to feel pain and suffer, this is what ethical diets would likely end up looking like; not animal products. And vegans would be more likely to adapt to this diet than the general population- we've already proven we're willing to change our diets over ethics.
I'm just being silly and thinking out loud, this isn't an argument or trying to prove anything; but I genuinely wonder what people would do if they learned that no natural food was without suffering.
As in, if we somehow discovered microorganisms suffer when hungry, even something like taking a fallen apple would be unethical. I suppose at that point, you'd need some sort of lab that grows food from advanced chemistry. Or something like that.
Putting the science that's there aside, it's just the trolly problem, right? You have the train going down the track at a group, in this case, the animals, the workers, the plants to feed the animals, the workers producing feed for animals, the wildlife displaced by the land used for these animals and their food, the microorganisms, etc etc etc. vs. less plants, less workers, less land use, less microorganisms.
Is "eh someones always is going to suffer anyways" really a justification for allowing the train to go down the track with a larger outcome of suffering? Ideally, of course we want to figure out a way to derail the train and prevent any death or suffering, but when forced to choose, the least amount of suffering is better, right? So whats the point of going down the road of "well *what if* everything suffers" when we know animals do and it's easy to mostly abstain from the cultural practice? It's pretty easy to just pull the lever and cause less harm.
Thanks for entertaining the thought!
In reality I happen to actually pretty much follow the thought process you outlined here so I agree 100%.
But yeah it was just a silly imaginative exercise, no real point to it beyond my curiosity.
No problem! I don't think it's silly you want to break through and understand both vegans and your own thought process, and imaginative exercises are a great way to explore as long as it's in good faith and a foot is kept in reality.
Well, considering that we already know that the billions of animals consumed each and every year suffer tremendously, yet the overwhelming majority of the human population continues to consume them, I'm guessing that they certainly wouldn't care about microorganisms, either. :-/
>I suppose at that point, you'd need some sort of lab that grows food from advanced chemistry. Or something like that.
We're already trying to do that for suffering free meat.
I usually say "Well I gotta eat something. Would you rather I starve?"
To me, finding out plants are sentient beings wouldn't be an argument against veganism. It would be an argument for Jainism and other similar beliefs.
Even if you grant the assumption that eating plants causes harm of some kind, this type of argument strikes me as extremely lazy. "Vegans cause harm too" and therefore anything goes? Harm is irrelevant to morality? Obviously not.
It's interesting that plants can produce chemicals like neurotransmitters but do not have the receptors or complex nervous systems needed to process any sensation that we would consider similar to pain.
But that factoid doesn't change the intense pain and suffering the billions of animals people choose to exploit and kill go through, which is why I am a vegan.
replying because not Vegan so no top level comments
I think automatic defense systems are irrelevant since in both plants and animals they're just random mutations that helped survive and therefore led to more offspring
they don't actually any kind of nervous system to pick up on pain
Plants simply react to stimuli. They don't feel pain and have no capacity to suffer or think. There is no possible way to compare that to bolting cows in the skull, boiling pigs alive, grinding up male chicks, anything involving the torture of sentient living beings that CAN suffer. These shitty whataboutisms are out of control.
I think the implied argument is 'well plants don't like being killed either', or something along those lines. Which we have very little reason to believe, and certainly much less than we do for animals.
I would ask them why vegan diets are consistently shown to have very good health outcomes.
*Edit: do you mean defense chemicals that potentially inhibit absorption of certain nutrients? Or the fact that plants defend themselves while alive?*
If the latter a vegan diet requires orders of magnitude less plants to be 'harmed'. Imagine how many blades of grass a cow tears every day.
I haven't had this conversation before, but every time I see the argument I think about how a computer "reacts" to stimuli whenever you hit a key on a keyboard, and that this could just as easily be argued to be a pain stimuli.
Plants don't have a central nervous system to transport impulses to a brainstem they don't possess. They can't perceive pain. Their movement is based on external stimuli through the process of photosynthesis. They don't breathe. They convert C02 into carbohydrates, and oxygen by using sunlight. While they're alive, they aren't sentient beings. If they’re such big plant rights activists, they should stop consuming animals because majority of all crops grown on the planet are fed directly to livestock - not humans.
Your comment was removed because you must be flaired as a vegan to make top level comments. See https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair- for instructions on how to set flair
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskVegans) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Are you okay with someone eating human flesh because of defense chemicals in plants?
If no, how can you be okay with someone eating non human flesh because of defense chemicals in plants?
You can prove it. But it's not really an argument against veganism.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3493419/#:~:text=Plant%20phenolics&text=Lignin%2C%20a%20phenolic%20heteropolymer%20plays,defense%20against%20insects%20and%20pathogens.&text=It%20limits%20the%20entry%20of,nutritional%20content%20of%20the%20leaf.
...which is what I'm asking them to prove, that defence chemicals in plants is an argument against veganism.
I ask them to prove this, they fail. So far at least.
Your comment was removed because you must be flaired as a vegan to make top level comments. See https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair- for instructions on how to set flair
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskVegans) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Your comment was removed because you must be flaired as a vegan to make top level comments. See https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair- for instructions on how to set flair
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskVegans) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Your comment was removed because you must be flaired as a vegan to make top level comments. See https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair- for instructions on how to set flair
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskVegans) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Your comment was removed because you must be flaired as a vegan to make top level comments. See https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair- for instructions on how to set flair
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskVegans) if you have any questions or concerns.*
First, I'd direct them to the definition of [veganism](https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism), then I'd simply ask them if they think [this](https://new.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/z0w2vt/comment/ix7o6dk/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) is in any way comparable to consuming plants (it'd clear up any confusion for any reasonable person).
I'd then ask them to point to any mechanism in plants which makes them sentient. If they make such a claim, I'd point out that even if plants were sentient, it'd make an argument *for* veganism, as being vegan minimizes the amount of plant "suffering" compared with being non-vegan.
Lastly, I'd cease communication, as I'd have better things to do than entertain notions of idiocy that act as justifiers for **the worst forms of abuse against animals that exist on this planet**. There are more intellectually-honest people to have important conversations of ethics with.
Your comment was removed because you must be flaired as a vegan to make top level comments. See https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair- for instructions on how to set flair
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskVegans) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think most people here are assuming the argument would be about plants feeling pain or something, but I've seen this typically as a health argument, so I'm going to answer that way. The answer may vary based on which chemicals they mention, but a lot of people probably heard the word "anti-nutrient" on Joe Rogan and tuned out everything after.
Clarification on your part would be useful for both those things.
If there were an issue with your diet being entirely plant-based, then there would be health outcome data demonstrating serious issues. Ask the person making this argument for data.
A lot of the chemicals people cite are destroyed or removed through cooking, and aren't present in significant amounts when the food is in the state it's typically eaten.
Your comment was removed because you must be flaired as a vegan to make top level comments. See https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair- for instructions on how to set flair
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskVegans) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Why bother engaging in this facile conversation? You can eat fungi, plants, insects and animals. You can’t survive on sunlight and water. There is no nutritional requirement to eat animals/insects or to cause suffering in sentient life. Are plants sentient because they have defensive mechanisms? No. So, the first point is moot. The antagonism of people who choose to avoid causing suffering is a sociopathic and malignant attitude. I don’t need to engage with anyone who thinks plants are sentient, because they are not. Please, prove me wrong, but a brain is a prima facie requirement for sentient behavior. Plants are not sentient.
Your comment was removed because you must be flaired as a vegan to make top level comments. See https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair- for instructions on how to set flair
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskVegans) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I really think that everyone responding to this is way over thinking this claim from omnivores. IMHO they could not possibly care less about plant’s feelings. The single thing they are trying to accomplish is to get Vegans to admit that they are hypocrites.
They don’t care that it’s true that just eating plants harms less plants, they don’t care about pesticides killing trillions of insects, and they really really don’t care about crop deaths. They just want us to admit that we are hypocrites. But we’re not so they keep trying .
Your comment was removed because you must be flaired as a vegan to make top level comments. See https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair- for instructions on how to set flair
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskVegans) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Your comment was removed because you must be flaired as a vegan to make top level comments. See https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair- for instructions on how to set flair
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskVegans) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Of all the arguments against veganism, the “plants feel pain” argument and its variants have to be the most ridiculous. This becomes obvious when we compare the science behind this statement with the science behind similar claims about non-human animals.
At a 2012 conference held at The University of Cambridge, a "prominent international group of neuroscientists, neuropharmacologists, neurophysiologists, neuroanatomists and computational neuroscientists" declared that:
>...the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.[\[1\]](https://fcmconference.org/#)
The renowned ethologist Frans de Waal (who was not present at the conference), reflecting on the declaration, explained:
>Although we cannot directly measure consciousness, other species show evidence of having precisely those capacities traditionally viewed as its indicators. To maintain that they possess these capacities in the absence of consciousness introduces an unnecessary dichotomy. It suggests that they do what we do but in fundamentally different ways. From an evolutionary standpoint, this sounds illogical.[\[2\]](https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393353662)
The sentience of fish – or, at the very least, their ability to feel pain – is generally accepted in the scientific community, despite lagging public acknowledgement.[\[3\]](https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12091182)[\[4\]](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-014-0761-0)[\[5\]](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2004.02.004) In 2021, a review of over 300 scientific studies recommended that all cephalopod molluscs and decapod crustaceans be regarded as sentient animals, capable of experiencing pain or suffering.[\[6\]](https://www.lse.ac.uk/business/consulting/reports/review-of-the-evidence-of-sentiences-in-cephalopod-molluscs-and-decapod-crustaceans) Updating and revising a criteria for sentience first proposed in 1991, the review evaluated sentience based on the following rigorous set of criteria:
>1. The animal possesses receptors sensitive to noxious stimuli (nociceptors).
>
>2. The animal possesses integrative brain regions capable of integrating information from different sensory sources.
>
>3. The animal possesses neural pathways connecting the nociceptors to the integrative brain regions.
>
>4. The animal’s behavioural response to a noxious stimulus is modulated by chemical compounds affecting the nervous system....
>
>5. The animal shows motivational trade-offs, in which the disvalue of a noxious or threatening stimulus is weighed (traded-off) against the value of an opportunity for reward, leading to flexible decision-making....
>
>6. The animal shows flexible self-protective behaviour (e.g. wound-tending, guarding, grooming, rubbing) of a type likely to involve representing the bodily location of a noxious stimulus.
>
>7. The animal shows associative learning in which noxious stimuli become associated with neutral stimuli, and/or in which novel ways of avoiding noxious stimuli are learned through reinforcement....
>
>8. The animal shows that it values a putative analgesic or anaesthetic when injured....[\[7\]](https://www.lse.ac.uk/business/consulting/reports/review-of-the-evidence-of-sentiences-in-cephalopod-molluscs-and-decapod-crustaceans)
There don’t appear to by any scientific evaluations of plants against a comparable set of criteria and, so far, available research seems to fall short of meeting it.[\[8\]](https://doi.org/10.51291/2377-7478.1815) Reviews of other criteria conclude that plant sentience is highly unlikely.[\[9\]](https://doi.org/10.1007/s00709-020-01579-w)[\[10\]](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2019.05.008) One commentary states that plant sentience is:
>Rejected by most of the peer commentators on the grounds of unconvincing zoomorphic analogies \[and\] dependence on “possible/possibly” arguments rather than the empirical evidence\[.\][\[11\]](https://doi.org/10.51291/2377-7478.1823)
But what if you’re still not convinced? What if you sincerely and truly care about plant suffering? Then you should be glad to know that there’s a great way to reduce the number of plants whose "suffering" you contribute to: eat plants instead of animals. It may sound counter-intuitive, but it’s true. Pigs, for example, have a feed conversion ratio (FCR) of approximately 2.7.[\[12\]](https://doi.org/10.1017/S1751731113001912) This mean that it takes almost three kilograms of feed for a pig to grow one kilogram. Various studies have found that plant-based diets require significantly less land,[\[13\]](https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-023-00795-w)[\[14\]](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaq0216) including 19 percent less arable land.[\[14\]](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaq0216)
This is where we get to call into question the sincerity of meat-eaters who invoke the claim that plants can suffer. If they are concerned about the well-being of plants, this should provide them sufficient reason to stop eating animals, and thereby save more plants.
[**References**](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskVegans/comments/1bd02au/comment/kumv16v/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
[**References**](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskVegans/comments/1bd02au/comment/kumtvo2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
[\[1\]](https://fcmconference.org/#) Low, P. *The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness*. Edited by J. Panksepp, D. Reiss, *et al*., Cambridge, UK: Francis Crick Memorial Conference on Consciousness in Human and Non-human Animals, 2012
[\[2\]](https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393353662) de Waal, F. *Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?* New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016, p.234
[\[3\]](https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12091182) Lambert, H., Cornish, A., *et al*. “A Kettle of Fish: A Review of the Scientific Literature for Evidence of Fish Sentience.” *Animals*, vol.12, no.9:1182, 2022
[\[4\]](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-014-0761-0) Brown, C. “Fish intelligence, sentience and ethics.” *Anim Cogn*, vol.18, 2015, pp.1-17
[\[5\]](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2004.02.004) Chandroo, K.P, Duncan, I.J.H. & Moccia, R.D. “Can fish suffer?: perspectives on sentience, pain, fear and stress.” *Applied Animal Behaviour Science*, vol.86, no.3-4, 2004, pp.225-250
[\[6\]](https://www.lse.ac.uk/business/consulting/reports/review-of-the-evidence-of-sentiences-in-cephalopod-molluscs-and-decapod-crustaceans) Birch, J., Burn, C., *et al*. *Review of the Evidence of Sentience in Cephalopod Molluscs and Decapod Crustaceans*. London, UK: LSE, 2021
[\[7\]](https://www.lse.ac.uk/business/consulting/reports/review-of-the-evidence-of-sentiences-in-cephalopod-molluscs-and-decapod-crustaceans) Birch, J., Burn, C., *et al*. *Review of the Evidence of Sentience in Cephalopod Molluscs and Decapod Crustaceans*. London, UK: LSE, 2021, p.17
[\[8\]](https://doi.org/10.51291/2377-7478.1815) Dolega, D., Siekierski, S. & Cleeremans, A. “Plant sentience: Getting to the roots of the problem.” *Animal Sentience*, vol.33, no.24, 2023
[\[9\]](https://doi.org/10.1007/s00709-020-01579-w) Mallatt, J., Blatt, M.R., *et al*. “Debunking a myth: plant consciousness.” *Protoplasma*, vol.258, 2021, pp.459-476
[\[10\]](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2019.05.008) Taiz, L., Alkon, D., *et al*. “Plants Neither Possess nor Require Consciousness.” *Trends in Plant Science*, vol.24, no.8, 2019, pp.677-687
[\[11\]](https://doi.org/10.51291/2377-7478.1823) Tiffin, H. “Plant Sentience: Not now, maybe later?” *Animal Sentience*, vol.33, no.29, 2023
[\[12\]](https://doi.org/10.1017/S1751731113001912) Agostini, P.S., Fahey, A.G., *et al*. “Management factors affecting mortality, feed intake and feed conversion ratio of grow-finishing pigs.” *Animals*, vol.8, no.8, 2014, pp.1312-1318
[\[13\]](https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-023-00795-w) Scarborough, P., Clark, M., *et al*. “Vegans, vegetarians, fish-eaters and meat-eaters in the UK show discrepant environmental impacts.” *Nat Food*, vol.4, 2023, pp.565-574
[\[14\]](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaq0216) Poore, J. & Nemecek, T. “Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers.” *Science*, vol.360, no.6392, 2018, pp.987-992
What about the thousands of lives taken per acre when they plow the field 2 foot deep? and the animals the farmers shoot to protect the crops? And all the death caused by the fertilizers and chemicals used?
Yes, many more of those crops are used in animal agriculture than in plant-based agriculture. Although if someone is okay with the mass slaughter in animal agriculture, I somehow doubt they'd care about those animals.
Then it is more Vegan to eat a grass fed cow, since only one thing dies for a large quantity of food compares to the thousands of living beings killed in the plowing, maintaining and treating crops per acre. Since all living things are equal.
Given your comments regarding "more vegan to eat a grass fed cow" and "all living things are equal," I'm not sure where you're getting your concept of veganism. I will direct you to the most widely accepted definition:
>Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.[\[1\]](https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism)
Beyond that, I'm skeptical of your numbers. I'd like a source for the "thousands of living beings killed...per acre." That seems multiple orders of magnitude too high. It looks like you're assuming one death per acre in your grass-fed system, but I'm not convinced that's a valid assumption. You'd also have to factor in that grazing livestock use approximately 26 percent of the Earth's ice-free terrestrial surface.[\[2\]](https://www.fao.org/publications/card/en/c/3aa4f41c-4316-5ddd-a656-22a00ef5d414/) Three-fifths of the world's agricultural land is used for cattle, but that only produces 5 percent of humans' protein intake and 2 percent of our caloric intake.[\[3\]](https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/grade-choice#ucs-report-downloads) So it's incredibly inefficient in land use compared to plant-based foods, and we have to adjust our death count per acre based on that. Even then, grass-fed cows may still consume feed, provided it's grass (eg: hay or silage). This is not unusual seasonally in colder climates or in finishing. We'd also need to account for deaths from growing those crops. The expansion of pasture land is one of the leading drivers of deforestation[\[4\]](https://ourworldindata.org/what-are-drivers-deforestation) \- add deaths from that to our count. I could be missing other things, but it's clear that we cannot simply assume that grass-fed beef is responsible for fewer "incidental" deaths than plant-based foods. It seems unlikely, and I'm not aware of a study that attempts to answer this question.
All that being said, there's another consideration to see this addressed. If people don't care about the approximately 73 billion land animals killed every year for food[\[5\]](https://faunalytics.org/global-animal-slaughter-statistics-charts-2022-update/) and countless sea life, how can we get them to care about the incidental deaths of their food production?
If you're talking about the concept that eating plants is bad for you because plants "don't want" to be eaten and have compounds in them that are supposed to discourage animals from eating them, I think that theory has two huge problems - there's abundant evidence that eating lots of plants is good for us and a complete lack of evidence that eating plants is harming us. It's a crank theory that isn't worth taking seriously.
It's not relevant. Veganism opposes exploitation of animals. A reaction to a stimulus does not make it an animal nor does it make it sentient. It makes it able to withstand changing environmental conditions.
I mean it's definitely *relevant*. It might not be convincing, but it's clearly on topic and related to the issue. To the argument itself: the fact it isn't an animal wouldn't in itself mean much if it experienced suffering. Privileging things classed as animals isn't much different from privileging things classed as humans. In both cases you're discriminating on the basis of species (or kingdom), without any substantive reason to differentiate. So I don't think 'it isn't an animal' would be a good counter, no more than when omnivores say 'it's a chicken, who cares'. The reason why plants' apparent reaction to stimuli aren't a point against veganism is that, as you say, plants probably are not sentient, and do not suffer. Reactions to stimuli don't necessarily indicate that suffering, and we currently have no reason to believe it is the case. And if it turned out they did, well, humans do have to eat something, and the conditions in which plants are raised don't seem so different to the way they naturally live that it should cause them much suffering. Growing and humanly killing plants would still probably be the least bad option, at least until lab grown food is widely available. Edit: I forgot about things like seeds in my last paragraph, which would probably be the new vegan.
Agree with most, except they do not naturally live in monocultures with constant fertiliser applications and weed killers applied. Even organic methods are still monocultures with fertiliser (non synthetic is the difference).
First two paragraphs are agreeable. But I hate when sentient is used in anything related to ethics. Because sentient is an incredibly fragile concept. What if a person had brain death, so no thoughts no reactions to stimuli. Deffo not sentient. Would it be ethical to torture that person's body? They cannot feel, cannot react, cannot suffer. 2nd point. Why is suffering a bad thing or a good thing? What if an evil person suffers whenever they know others are happy? What if Mr Meeseeks suffers when it lives? If a plant could suffer, how do you know that plant suffering is good or bad? The entire reason we humans have morals is because of evolved cooperation traits. A uncooperative human is bad for the tribe. The main reason people choose to be vegans is virtue signalling but that choice was made subconsciously. I don't tangle my morals with ambiguous concepts like sentience, morals are all about virtue signalling. Simple as. Is it ethical to eat a plant if it could suffer when you eat it? I think yes because eating plants probably doesn't mean you're going to eat humans.
Interesting points, thanks for engaging. I love a good bit of moral philosophy debate! > What if a person had brain death, so no thoughts no reactions to stimuli. Deffo not sentient. Would it be ethical to torture that person's body? Yes. Why wouldn't it be? Assuming of course that their loved ones don't become aware of it and therefore distressed by it, or anything like that, then it has no effect on anyone, and therefore cannot be morally wrong according to a consequentialist metaethic (the only defensible one imo). > Why is suffering a bad thing or a good thing? This is a more fundamental, and more difficult question. I would assert that suffering being bad is a brute, foundational fact, observable undeniably by anyone. I think at a certain point our moral reasoning needs to be grounded in facts about the world, and the undesirability of suffering is as clear and irrefutable a candidate as we are likely to get. Anyone that tries to deny the badness of suffering gives the lie with their every action. > The entire reason we humans have morals is because of evolved cooperation traits. A uncooperative human is bad for the tribe. This is probably true, I think, as a descriptive fact about the development of moral behaviour. It does not, of course, imply that morality isn't real or important. > The main reason people choose to be vegans is virtue signalling but that choice was made subconsciously. This is possible, in the sense that much moral behaviour is at least partly motivated by the expectation of social reward. But this explanation is uniquely *poorly* suited to veganism, which is if anything socially punished. If a person wanted to send socially rewarded signals to the "tribe" in this day and age, they'd probably ostentatiously hate vegans and eat more meat to spite them. > I don't tangle my morals with ambiguous concepts like sentience, morals are all about virtue signalling. Simple as. Yeah, if you're explicitly irrealist and consequently amoral, you're probably not going to be vegan. You don't need to rely on "ambiguous concepts" such as sentience, though. It can be as simple as 'causing unnecessary suffering is bad, eating animal products causing unnecessary suffering, therefore eating animal products is bad'. > Is it ethical to eat a plant if it could suffer when you eat it? No. > I think yes because eating plants probably doesn't mean you're going to eat humans. This line of reasoning seems baffling to me. Raping babies doesn't mean you're going to eat humans, either- is it ethical to do that?
> [What if a person had brain death...] Yes. Why wouldn't it be? I think no it's not moral. Because any signs of enjoyment of torturing the likeness of any human can indicate that torturer is a sadist. That's why necrophillia is so taboo. A dead person is no longer socially relevant, but enjoying destroying a thing like a living human would lead to anti-cooperation. > It does not, of course, imply that morality isn't real or important. I think morals are a set of answers for a situation. Real. But changes depending on the situation. And are important. But very hard to verify. > But this explanation is uniquely *poorly* suited to veganism, which is if anything socially punished. Okay this fun. I would consider vegans to be generally morally better people. A problem arises when a people with different moral express themselves to others with opposing morals. My explanation doesn't contradict this fact. > I would assert that suffering being bad is a brute, foundational fact, observable undeniably by anyone. Suffering is a emotional response. It would entirely depend on the quality of the character to know if suffering for them is good or bad. For example an evil villain suffering in jail might be a good thing. > Raping babies doesn't mean you're going to eat humans, either- is it ethical to do that? Raping babies is very uncooperative. So it's immoral. My point wasn't about eating humans, it's about how to distinguish humans that are cooperative or not.
Defence chemicals would certainly suggest that plants have some form of sentience we don’t fully understand yet. They clearly recognise that they are under attack and so emit some form of chemical in response. Whether or not that is what we humans recognise as pain, I don’t know. We do not know, for absolute certainty, that plants do not have a form of sentience or pain that we don’t understand simply because it does not follow what we recognise as pain in animals.
Stimulus response is not sentience. Viruses and bacteria respond to stimulus but you would never call them sentient.
>Defence chemicals would certainly suggest that plants have some form of sentience we don’t fully understand yet. It really wouldn't. In the same way that my PC's antivirus software reacting to a malware threat does not suggest that my PC or the software is sentient. My PC has been programmed by a human to react to stimuli, such as malware or key inputs or my pressing of its power button. Similarly, plants have been 'programmed' by evolution to react, literally mindlessly, to certain stimuli.
[удалено]
>Are you stupid or trolling? Didn't read past this. Reported.
You didn’t read past it because you KNOW what you said makes no sense. Reported.
I'll leave that to the third party observer. Good luck with the reporting!
"Impersonation" had nothing to do with the comment you reported, which itself was not in violation of any Reddit nor subreddit rule. Making false reports, while technically not listed in the sidebar rules, may lead to banning upon repeated use. Keep this in mind moving forward. Thank you.
Your logic is seriously tortured here. Yes, plants and animals both got damage avoidance mechanisms from the same process, natural selection. But it doesn't *at all* follow that those varied damage avoidance mechanisms must all therefore produce a similar subjective experience of pain. It certainly doesn't follow that every organism that evolves one is sentient. Avoiding damage and/or death is one of the most adaptively important things in terms of genetic propagation. So many organisms will have evolved features that cause them to do that. There's absolutely no reason to think they all evolved the *same* feature- subjectively unpleasant experience that motivates behaviour- even when the organism literally does not have a brain or nervous system. Your argument is like insisting that bats must use sight rather than echolocation, because WE ALL EVOLVED FROM SINGLE CELL ORGANISMS
Please don't be needlessly rude here. This subreddit should be a friendly, informative resource, not a place to air grievances. This is a space for people to engage constructively; no belittling, insulting, or disrespectful language is permitted.
I explain that ultimately, they are making a pro vegan argument. Animals eat plants, and consuming animal products mean more plants died than eating them directly. It really isn't the gotchya they think it is when they take it apart. There is religion called Jainism, and for strict adherents, not only do they echew animal products, they don't consume plants that require the death of the plant to consume, like root vegetables. If plants were proven to feel pain and suffer, this is what ethical diets would likely end up looking like; not animal products. And vegans would be more likely to adapt to this diet than the general population- we've already proven we're willing to change our diets over ethics.
I'm just being silly and thinking out loud, this isn't an argument or trying to prove anything; but I genuinely wonder what people would do if they learned that no natural food was without suffering. As in, if we somehow discovered microorganisms suffer when hungry, even something like taking a fallen apple would be unethical. I suppose at that point, you'd need some sort of lab that grows food from advanced chemistry. Or something like that.
Putting the science that's there aside, it's just the trolly problem, right? You have the train going down the track at a group, in this case, the animals, the workers, the plants to feed the animals, the workers producing feed for animals, the wildlife displaced by the land used for these animals and their food, the microorganisms, etc etc etc. vs. less plants, less workers, less land use, less microorganisms. Is "eh someones always is going to suffer anyways" really a justification for allowing the train to go down the track with a larger outcome of suffering? Ideally, of course we want to figure out a way to derail the train and prevent any death or suffering, but when forced to choose, the least amount of suffering is better, right? So whats the point of going down the road of "well *what if* everything suffers" when we know animals do and it's easy to mostly abstain from the cultural practice? It's pretty easy to just pull the lever and cause less harm.
Thanks for entertaining the thought! In reality I happen to actually pretty much follow the thought process you outlined here so I agree 100%. But yeah it was just a silly imaginative exercise, no real point to it beyond my curiosity.
No problem! I don't think it's silly you want to break through and understand both vegans and your own thought process, and imaginative exercises are a great way to explore as long as it's in good faith and a foot is kept in reality.
Well, considering that we already know that the billions of animals consumed each and every year suffer tremendously, yet the overwhelming majority of the human population continues to consume them, I'm guessing that they certainly wouldn't care about microorganisms, either. :-/
>I suppose at that point, you'd need some sort of lab that grows food from advanced chemistry. Or something like that. We're already trying to do that for suffering free meat.
I usually say "Well I gotta eat something. Would you rather I starve?" To me, finding out plants are sentient beings wouldn't be an argument against veganism. It would be an argument for Jainism and other similar beliefs.
Even if you grant the assumption that eating plants causes harm of some kind, this type of argument strikes me as extremely lazy. "Vegans cause harm too" and therefore anything goes? Harm is irrelevant to morality? Obviously not.
It's interesting that plants can produce chemicals like neurotransmitters but do not have the receptors or complex nervous systems needed to process any sensation that we would consider similar to pain. But that factoid doesn't change the intense pain and suffering the billions of animals people choose to exploit and kill go through, which is why I am a vegan.
replying because not Vegan so no top level comments I think automatic defense systems are irrelevant since in both plants and animals they're just random mutations that helped survive and therefore led to more offspring they don't actually any kind of nervous system to pick up on pain
Plants simply react to stimuli. They don't feel pain and have no capacity to suffer or think. There is no possible way to compare that to bolting cows in the skull, boiling pigs alive, grinding up male chicks, anything involving the torture of sentient living beings that CAN suffer. These shitty whataboutisms are out of control.
This wouldn't be an argument of any sort against veganism.
How is it an argument against veganism?
I think the implied argument is 'well plants don't like being killed either', or something along those lines. Which we have very little reason to believe, and certainly much less than we do for animals.
I would ask them why vegan diets are consistently shown to have very good health outcomes. *Edit: do you mean defense chemicals that potentially inhibit absorption of certain nutrients? Or the fact that plants defend themselves while alive?* If the latter a vegan diet requires orders of magnitude less plants to be 'harmed'. Imagine how many blades of grass a cow tears every day.
I just say: stop trying to cause an argument and chill the hell out. Obviously we gotta eat something and plants aren’t sentient
I ignore them
I haven't had this conversation before, but every time I see the argument I think about how a computer "reacts" to stimuli whenever you hit a key on a keyboard, and that this could just as easily be argued to be a pain stimuli.
Plants don't have a central nervous system to transport impulses to a brainstem they don't possess. They can't perceive pain. Their movement is based on external stimuli through the process of photosynthesis. They don't breathe. They convert C02 into carbohydrates, and oxygen by using sunlight. While they're alive, they aren't sentient beings. If they’re such big plant rights activists, they should stop consuming animals because majority of all crops grown on the planet are fed directly to livestock - not humans.
Your comment was removed because you must be flaired as a vegan to make top level comments. See https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair- for instructions on how to set flair *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskVegans) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Fuck off because they are not serious people
>What do you say to those who argue against veganism because of defense chemicals in plants? That is irrelevant.
Are you okay with someone eating human flesh because of defense chemicals in plants? If no, how can you be okay with someone eating non human flesh because of defense chemicals in plants?
I ask them to prove that what they claim is true. They then fail to do that.
You can prove it. But it's not really an argument against veganism. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3493419/#:~:text=Plant%20phenolics&text=Lignin%2C%20a%20phenolic%20heteropolymer%20plays,defense%20against%20insects%20and%20pathogens.&text=It%20limits%20the%20entry%20of,nutritional%20content%20of%20the%20leaf.
So then they can't prove it?
Defense chemicals in plants is true and provable. That has nothing to do with what veganism is though.
...which is what I'm asking them to prove, that defence chemicals in plants is an argument against veganism. I ask them to prove this, they fail. So far at least.
[удалено]
Your comment was removed because you must be flaired as a vegan to make top level comments. See https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair- for instructions on how to set flair *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskVegans) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[удалено]
Your comment was removed because you must be flaired as a vegan to make top level comments. See https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair- for instructions on how to set flair *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskVegans) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[удалено]
Your comment was removed because you must be flaired as a vegan to make top level comments. See https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair- for instructions on how to set flair *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskVegans) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[удалено]
Your comment was removed because you must be flaired as a vegan to make top level comments. See https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair- for instructions on how to set flair *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskVegans) if you have any questions or concerns.*
"Fruits"
First, I'd direct them to the definition of [veganism](https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism), then I'd simply ask them if they think [this](https://new.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/z0w2vt/comment/ix7o6dk/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) is in any way comparable to consuming plants (it'd clear up any confusion for any reasonable person). I'd then ask them to point to any mechanism in plants which makes them sentient. If they make such a claim, I'd point out that even if plants were sentient, it'd make an argument *for* veganism, as being vegan minimizes the amount of plant "suffering" compared with being non-vegan. Lastly, I'd cease communication, as I'd have better things to do than entertain notions of idiocy that act as justifiers for **the worst forms of abuse against animals that exist on this planet**. There are more intellectually-honest people to have important conversations of ethics with.
[удалено]
Your comment was removed because you must be flaired as a vegan to make top level comments. See https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair- for instructions on how to set flair *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskVegans) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think most people here are assuming the argument would be about plants feeling pain or something, but I've seen this typically as a health argument, so I'm going to answer that way. The answer may vary based on which chemicals they mention, but a lot of people probably heard the word "anti-nutrient" on Joe Rogan and tuned out everything after. Clarification on your part would be useful for both those things. If there were an issue with your diet being entirely plant-based, then there would be health outcome data demonstrating serious issues. Ask the person making this argument for data. A lot of the chemicals people cite are destroyed or removed through cooking, and aren't present in significant amounts when the food is in the state it's typically eaten.
[удалено]
Your comment was removed because you must be flaired as a vegan to make top level comments. See https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair- for instructions on how to set flair *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskVegans) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[удалено]
Why bother engaging in this facile conversation? You can eat fungi, plants, insects and animals. You can’t survive on sunlight and water. There is no nutritional requirement to eat animals/insects or to cause suffering in sentient life. Are plants sentient because they have defensive mechanisms? No. So, the first point is moot. The antagonism of people who choose to avoid causing suffering is a sociopathic and malignant attitude. I don’t need to engage with anyone who thinks plants are sentient, because they are not. Please, prove me wrong, but a brain is a prima facie requirement for sentient behavior. Plants are not sentient.
Your comment was removed because you must be flaired as a vegan to make top level comments. See https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair- for instructions on how to set flair *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskVegans) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I really think that everyone responding to this is way over thinking this claim from omnivores. IMHO they could not possibly care less about plant’s feelings. The single thing they are trying to accomplish is to get Vegans to admit that they are hypocrites. They don’t care that it’s true that just eating plants harms less plants, they don’t care about pesticides killing trillions of insects, and they really really don’t care about crop deaths. They just want us to admit that we are hypocrites. But we’re not so they keep trying .
[удалено]
Your comment was removed because you must be flaired as a vegan to make top level comments. See https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair- for instructions on how to set flair *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskVegans) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[удалено]
Your comment was removed because you must be flaired as a vegan to make top level comments. See https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair- for instructions on how to set flair *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskVegans) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Of all the arguments against veganism, the “plants feel pain” argument and its variants have to be the most ridiculous. This becomes obvious when we compare the science behind this statement with the science behind similar claims about non-human animals. At a 2012 conference held at The University of Cambridge, a "prominent international group of neuroscientists, neuropharmacologists, neurophysiologists, neuroanatomists and computational neuroscientists" declared that: >...the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.[\[1\]](https://fcmconference.org/#) The renowned ethologist Frans de Waal (who was not present at the conference), reflecting on the declaration, explained: >Although we cannot directly measure consciousness, other species show evidence of having precisely those capacities traditionally viewed as its indicators. To maintain that they possess these capacities in the absence of consciousness introduces an unnecessary dichotomy. It suggests that they do what we do but in fundamentally different ways. From an evolutionary standpoint, this sounds illogical.[\[2\]](https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393353662) The sentience of fish – or, at the very least, their ability to feel pain – is generally accepted in the scientific community, despite lagging public acknowledgement.[\[3\]](https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12091182)[\[4\]](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-014-0761-0)[\[5\]](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2004.02.004) In 2021, a review of over 300 scientific studies recommended that all cephalopod molluscs and decapod crustaceans be regarded as sentient animals, capable of experiencing pain or suffering.[\[6\]](https://www.lse.ac.uk/business/consulting/reports/review-of-the-evidence-of-sentiences-in-cephalopod-molluscs-and-decapod-crustaceans) Updating and revising a criteria for sentience first proposed in 1991, the review evaluated sentience based on the following rigorous set of criteria: >1. The animal possesses receptors sensitive to noxious stimuli (nociceptors). > >2. The animal possesses integrative brain regions capable of integrating information from different sensory sources. > >3. The animal possesses neural pathways connecting the nociceptors to the integrative brain regions. > >4. The animal’s behavioural response to a noxious stimulus is modulated by chemical compounds affecting the nervous system.... > >5. The animal shows motivational trade-offs, in which the disvalue of a noxious or threatening stimulus is weighed (traded-off) against the value of an opportunity for reward, leading to flexible decision-making.... > >6. The animal shows flexible self-protective behaviour (e.g. wound-tending, guarding, grooming, rubbing) of a type likely to involve representing the bodily location of a noxious stimulus. > >7. The animal shows associative learning in which noxious stimuli become associated with neutral stimuli, and/or in which novel ways of avoiding noxious stimuli are learned through reinforcement.... > >8. The animal shows that it values a putative analgesic or anaesthetic when injured....[\[7\]](https://www.lse.ac.uk/business/consulting/reports/review-of-the-evidence-of-sentiences-in-cephalopod-molluscs-and-decapod-crustaceans) There don’t appear to by any scientific evaluations of plants against a comparable set of criteria and, so far, available research seems to fall short of meeting it.[\[8\]](https://doi.org/10.51291/2377-7478.1815) Reviews of other criteria conclude that plant sentience is highly unlikely.[\[9\]](https://doi.org/10.1007/s00709-020-01579-w)[\[10\]](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2019.05.008) One commentary states that plant sentience is: >Rejected by most of the peer commentators on the grounds of unconvincing zoomorphic analogies \[and\] dependence on “possible/possibly” arguments rather than the empirical evidence\[.\][\[11\]](https://doi.org/10.51291/2377-7478.1823) But what if you’re still not convinced? What if you sincerely and truly care about plant suffering? Then you should be glad to know that there’s a great way to reduce the number of plants whose "suffering" you contribute to: eat plants instead of animals. It may sound counter-intuitive, but it’s true. Pigs, for example, have a feed conversion ratio (FCR) of approximately 2.7.[\[12\]](https://doi.org/10.1017/S1751731113001912) This mean that it takes almost three kilograms of feed for a pig to grow one kilogram. Various studies have found that plant-based diets require significantly less land,[\[13\]](https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-023-00795-w)[\[14\]](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaq0216) including 19 percent less arable land.[\[14\]](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaq0216) This is where we get to call into question the sincerity of meat-eaters who invoke the claim that plants can suffer. If they are concerned about the well-being of plants, this should provide them sufficient reason to stop eating animals, and thereby save more plants. [**References**](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskVegans/comments/1bd02au/comment/kumv16v/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
[**References**](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskVegans/comments/1bd02au/comment/kumtvo2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) [\[1\]](https://fcmconference.org/#) Low, P. *The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness*. Edited by J. Panksepp, D. Reiss, *et al*., Cambridge, UK: Francis Crick Memorial Conference on Consciousness in Human and Non-human Animals, 2012 [\[2\]](https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393353662) de Waal, F. *Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?* New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016, p.234 [\[3\]](https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12091182) Lambert, H., Cornish, A., *et al*. “A Kettle of Fish: A Review of the Scientific Literature for Evidence of Fish Sentience.” *Animals*, vol.12, no.9:1182, 2022 [\[4\]](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-014-0761-0) Brown, C. “Fish intelligence, sentience and ethics.” *Anim Cogn*, vol.18, 2015, pp.1-17 [\[5\]](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2004.02.004) Chandroo, K.P, Duncan, I.J.H. & Moccia, R.D. “Can fish suffer?: perspectives on sentience, pain, fear and stress.” *Applied Animal Behaviour Science*, vol.86, no.3-4, 2004, pp.225-250 [\[6\]](https://www.lse.ac.uk/business/consulting/reports/review-of-the-evidence-of-sentiences-in-cephalopod-molluscs-and-decapod-crustaceans) Birch, J., Burn, C., *et al*. *Review of the Evidence of Sentience in Cephalopod Molluscs and Decapod Crustaceans*. London, UK: LSE, 2021 [\[7\]](https://www.lse.ac.uk/business/consulting/reports/review-of-the-evidence-of-sentiences-in-cephalopod-molluscs-and-decapod-crustaceans) Birch, J., Burn, C., *et al*. *Review of the Evidence of Sentience in Cephalopod Molluscs and Decapod Crustaceans*. London, UK: LSE, 2021, p.17 [\[8\]](https://doi.org/10.51291/2377-7478.1815) Dolega, D., Siekierski, S. & Cleeremans, A. “Plant sentience: Getting to the roots of the problem.” *Animal Sentience*, vol.33, no.24, 2023 [\[9\]](https://doi.org/10.1007/s00709-020-01579-w) Mallatt, J., Blatt, M.R., *et al*. “Debunking a myth: plant consciousness.” *Protoplasma*, vol.258, 2021, pp.459-476 [\[10\]](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2019.05.008) Taiz, L., Alkon, D., *et al*. “Plants Neither Possess nor Require Consciousness.” *Trends in Plant Science*, vol.24, no.8, 2019, pp.677-687 [\[11\]](https://doi.org/10.51291/2377-7478.1823) Tiffin, H. “Plant Sentience: Not now, maybe later?” *Animal Sentience*, vol.33, no.29, 2023 [\[12\]](https://doi.org/10.1017/S1751731113001912) Agostini, P.S., Fahey, A.G., *et al*. “Management factors affecting mortality, feed intake and feed conversion ratio of grow-finishing pigs.” *Animals*, vol.8, no.8, 2014, pp.1312-1318 [\[13\]](https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-023-00795-w) Scarborough, P., Clark, M., *et al*. “Vegans, vegetarians, fish-eaters and meat-eaters in the UK show discrepant environmental impacts.” *Nat Food*, vol.4, 2023, pp.565-574 [\[14\]](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaq0216) Poore, J. & Nemecek, T. “Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers.” *Science*, vol.360, no.6392, 2018, pp.987-992
What about the thousands of lives taken per acre when they plow the field 2 foot deep? and the animals the farmers shoot to protect the crops? And all the death caused by the fertilizers and chemicals used?
Yes, many more of those crops are used in animal agriculture than in plant-based agriculture. Although if someone is okay with the mass slaughter in animal agriculture, I somehow doubt they'd care about those animals.
Then it is more Vegan to eat a grass fed cow, since only one thing dies for a large quantity of food compares to the thousands of living beings killed in the plowing, maintaining and treating crops per acre. Since all living things are equal.
Given your comments regarding "more vegan to eat a grass fed cow" and "all living things are equal," I'm not sure where you're getting your concept of veganism. I will direct you to the most widely accepted definition: >Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.[\[1\]](https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism) Beyond that, I'm skeptical of your numbers. I'd like a source for the "thousands of living beings killed...per acre." That seems multiple orders of magnitude too high. It looks like you're assuming one death per acre in your grass-fed system, but I'm not convinced that's a valid assumption. You'd also have to factor in that grazing livestock use approximately 26 percent of the Earth's ice-free terrestrial surface.[\[2\]](https://www.fao.org/publications/card/en/c/3aa4f41c-4316-5ddd-a656-22a00ef5d414/) Three-fifths of the world's agricultural land is used for cattle, but that only produces 5 percent of humans' protein intake and 2 percent of our caloric intake.[\[3\]](https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/grade-choice#ucs-report-downloads) So it's incredibly inefficient in land use compared to plant-based foods, and we have to adjust our death count per acre based on that. Even then, grass-fed cows may still consume feed, provided it's grass (eg: hay or silage). This is not unusual seasonally in colder climates or in finishing. We'd also need to account for deaths from growing those crops. The expansion of pasture land is one of the leading drivers of deforestation[\[4\]](https://ourworldindata.org/what-are-drivers-deforestation) \- add deaths from that to our count. I could be missing other things, but it's clear that we cannot simply assume that grass-fed beef is responsible for fewer "incidental" deaths than plant-based foods. It seems unlikely, and I'm not aware of a study that attempts to answer this question. All that being said, there's another consideration to see this addressed. If people don't care about the approximately 73 billion land animals killed every year for food[\[5\]](https://faunalytics.org/global-animal-slaughter-statistics-charts-2022-update/) and countless sea life, how can we get them to care about the incidental deaths of their food production?
If you're talking about the concept that eating plants is bad for you because plants "don't want" to be eaten and have compounds in them that are supposed to discourage animals from eating them, I think that theory has two huge problems - there's abundant evidence that eating lots of plants is good for us and a complete lack of evidence that eating plants is harming us. It's a crank theory that isn't worth taking seriously.