The final frontiers of dietary ethics

It is not that I am a vegetarian out of conviction. I do occasionally eat meat. I try to reduce my meat intake because animals use more water than plants for an equivalent amount of food delivered. But I sometimes feel empathy for plants and have  a bad feeling when stabbing an eggplant before putting it in the microwave. Although plants don't have a central nervous system, we do know that they communicate with their envrironment and apparently, in this study on peas, with each other. They do have a responsiveness.

In this very interesting article in the New York Times entitled "If peas can talk should we eat them?"  by Michael Marder, a professor of philosophy at the University of the Basque Country, Vitoria-Gasteiz, who is writing a book to be published later this year entitled "Plant-Thinking: a philosophy of vegetable life", he puts forth arguments that upset our view of what we can eat with a clear conscience. He says with the new research on plant life, we may "have reached the final frontiers of dietary ethics".

Between mass production of animals and vegetables, responsiveness of the different species, sustainable fishing, use of the environment and of water... Hard to know what and how to eat. 

Comments

[George Scheller]

Morning Beth

Just looking in!

Ouch! do you really stab eggplants and zap them? I prefer to warm them up in an oven – it’s so much cosier. Regarding the stabbing (no qualms - you are not hurting the mother plant but just maltreating the fruit, no nerve endings here) and inter vegetable conversations have a look into Florianne Koechlin’s website http://www.blauen-institut.ch/ - lustig! I sometimes stumble onto esoteric projects as magnetic spheres on stakes for rejuvenating water etc. the problem is that most of these candidates are egomaniac and do not want to hear reason –although on the other hand I must be “nice” (gregorian tantras work best) to our plants when watering them, if not it’s a certain backlash from Lulu.

Oh, I might want to come and give the school a visit in Sept.

take care George

[mijnheer]

You may find the following debate of interest. In it, Gary Francione explains pretty clearly why plants are fundamentally different from sentient animals, and why we cannot (underline "cannot") have direct moral obligations to plants. So go ahead and stab that eggplant with a clear conscience!
http://www.cup.columbia.edu/static/marder-francione-debate

[Cisneros]

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