Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Sy Borg]

I wasn’t necessarily answering the question posed, more so responding to another who had a different perspective on plant pain.

Yes, but why focus on pain when the topic aims us toward moral status? How does the former contribute to the latter?

Does morality exist without suffering?

I assume you intend pain and suffering as synonyms, so you're asking whether morality is a sort of judgement on a negative experience? Or maybe a code of practice that, if followed, might allow us to avoid pain? Is that your intended meaning?

If no one ever suffered - not microbes, not humans - then on what would morality be based? I can't see how morality could develop in a world without suffering. Stuff would just happen, including death. Without suffering, what matters?

[Pattern-chaser]

Yes, but why focus on pain when the topic aims us toward moral status? How does the former contribute to the latter?

Does morality exist without suffering?

I assume you intend pain and suffering as synonyms, so you're asking whether morality is a sort of judgement on a negative experience? Or maybe a code of practice that, if followed, might allow us to avoid pain? Is that your intended meaning?

If no one ever suffered - not microbes, not humans - then on what would morality be based? I can't see how morality could develop in a world without suffering. Stuff would just happen, including death. Without suffering, what matters?

So your take on this is that we invented morality in an attempt to avoid suffering? I can't see how that would be a lot of help. We can't control the Gods, Fate, luck, etc. Nor can we do much about disease and natural accidents and disasters. So all we can do (maybe) is to limit the harm we suffer from other humans, by codifying morality? Is it really suffering (and its avoidance) that prompts us to codify rules that encourage right behaviour, and discourage that which is wrong?

I accept that morality did not emerge randomly, so there must have been a reason for its emergence. But suffering? To answer your question, if no-one ever suffered, then our world would be close to perfect, from our selfish point of view, and I assume this would mean that no-one behaved wrongly. But isn't this just hiding the issue? Your question only seems to say that in a perfect world, there would be no suffering, and that morality emerges from an imperfect world where, among other things, suffering exists. Well yes, it does, but so do many other things too. Perhaps they might also contribute to the development of morality? I can't see how suffering, in particular, gave rise to morality, although I can see how it might have played a (small?) part.

[Gertie]

Yes, but why focus on pain when the topic aims us toward moral status? How does the former contribute to the latter?

Does morality exist without suffering?

I assume you intend pain and suffering as synonyms, so you're asking whether morality is a sort of judgement on a negative experience? Or maybe a code of practice that, if followed, might allow us to avoid pain? Is that your intended meaning?

If no one ever suffered - not microbes, not humans - then on what would morality be based? I can't see how morality could develop in a world without suffering. Stuff would just happen, including death. Without suffering, what matters?

Harris talks about the wellbeing of conscious creatures as the appropriate foundation for morality, which is getting at a similar thing. Without the ability to consciously experience suffering, joy and everything in between, morality is irrelevant. If I smash a rock, I do no harm. If I smash a person or other sentient species which suffers, I do. So it's only in the latter case that Oughts are relevant. Only sentient critters can have interests, a stake, in what I do or don't choose to do. Whether I harm or help.

I think that makes sense.

How and why we evolved what we've come to call our 'moral intuitions' about right and wrong is a different type of story. We now know there is a utilitay based evolutionary accounting for them. But if we want to retain notions of right and wrong, believe morality is still important, then the wellbeing of conscious creatures gives us a way to ground morality as something meaningful, regardless of the happenstance of our species' evolutionary history.

[Pattern-chaser]

If I smash a rock, I do no harm.

Even this might not be the case. Consider me, a uranium miner, gathering the element, and extracting from it the U235, concentrating it so that a chain reaction can and does occur. No sentient creatures, or other forms of life, has been harmed by my rock-smashing (i.e. mining), but I would argue that great harm has been done. Wouldn't you?

[Gertie]

If I smash a rock, I do no harm.

Even this might not be the case. Consider me, a uranium miner, gathering the element, and extracting from it the U235, concentrating it so that a chain reaction can and does occur. No sentient creatures, or other forms of life, has been harmed by my rock-smashing (i.e. mining), but I would argue that great harm has been done. Wouldn't you?

Depends what harm you're referring to here, and to who/what? Has the rock been harmed in some meaningful moral sense - my claim is obviously no, because it's not conscious. If the consequences of smashing that rock end up causing harm to the wellbeing of conscious creatures, then sure.

[Sy Borg]

If I smash a rock, I do no harm.

Even this might not be the case. Consider me, a uranium miner, gathering the element, and extracting from it the U235, concentrating it so that a chain reaction can and does occur. No sentient creatures, or other forms of life, has been harmed by my rock-smashing (i.e. mining), but I would argue that great harm has been done. Wouldn't you?

Depends what harm you're referring to here, and to who/what? Has the rock been harmed in some meaningful moral sense - my claim is obviously no, because it's not conscious. If the consequences of smashing that rock end up causing harm to the wellbeing of conscious creatures, then sure.

An example might be breaking a crystal*. A crystal that was once growing can grow no more. Yet the crystal has no sense of this and neither do their neighbours. In a sense, it makes no more difference whether a crystal breaks or an undifferentiated conglomerate rock. So there is seemingly no moral import.


* assuming that no human or animal stake in the crystal, that it's just out there in nature

[Pattern-chaser]

Yes, but why focus on pain when the topic aims us toward moral status? How does the former contribute to the latter?

Does morality exist without suffering?

I assume you intend pain and suffering as synonyms, so you're asking whether morality is a sort of judgement on a negative experience? Or maybe a code of practice that, if followed, might allow us to avoid pain? Is that your intended meaning?

If no one ever suffered - not microbes, not humans - then on what would morality be based? I can't see how morality could develop in a world without suffering. Stuff would just happen, including death. Without suffering, what matters?

We are, it seems, considering here the origin of morality in humans: how (and maybe why) it emerged. This is necessarily speculative, but interesting nonetheless. What might bring about the emergence of morality, a sense of what is right and what is wrong?

In context, morality includes not only a judgement (right or wrong), but also enforcement. There is no point in defining right and wrong if those who behave wrongly simply continue doing it. They must be prevented. ... Etc.

Morality is a social phenomenon. I can see that suffering might contribute to morality, but I can also see that other social factors might contribute to the decision, or even outweigh suffering entirely.

Religion, a highly-influential social practice, seems a likely candidate for the source of morality. God is automatically a role model, an example of all that is positive, great and wonderful..., and therefore She is a model for what is right and what is not. And we should all do as God does, or seek to emulate Her, etc. Given what we know of humanity, this seems highly likely. And it might well have lead to the emergence of morality....

[Gertie]

If I smash a rock, I do no harm.

Even this might not be the case. Consider me, a uranium miner, gathering the element, and extracting from it the U235, concentrating it so that a chain reaction can and does occur. No sentient creatures, or other forms of life, has been harmed by my rock-smashing (i.e. mining), but I would argue that great harm has been done. Wouldn't you?

Depends what harm you're referring to here, and to who/what? Has the rock been harmed in some meaningful moral sense - my claim is obviously no, because it's not conscious. If the consequences of smashing that rock end up causing harm to the wellbeing of conscious creatures, then sure.

An example might be breaking a crystal*. A crystal that was once growing can grow no more. Yet the crystal has no sense of this and neither do their neighbours. In a sense, it makes no more difference whether a crystal breaks or an undifferentiated conglomerate rock. So there is seemingly no moral import.


* assuming that no human or animal stake in the crystal, that it's just out there in nature

exactly

[psyreporter]

* assuming that no human or animal stake in the crystal, that it's just out there in nature

exactly

Recent evidence shows that rocks on earth developed the first photosynthesis by which the earth obtained oxygen that enabled life to arise. It started hundreds of millions of years before the first organic life forms existed.

(2021) Non-classical photosynthesis by earth's inorganic semiconducting minerals
Our work in this new research field on the mechanisms of interaction between light, minerals, and life reveals that minerals and organisms are actually inseparable.

Certain minerals can promote oxygen generation (formation of dioxygen molecules) and carbon fixation (producing organic compounds using carbon atoms from inorganic sources). In addition, these minerals can even act as photocatalysts for water splitting, producing hydrogen and oxygen from water, and for the conversion of atmospheric carbon dioxide into marine carbonate products. These combined processes may have played a transformative role on the entire primitive Earth, causing noticeable changes in atmospheric and maritime conditions to promote the evolution of early life forms.
https://phys.org/news/2021-01-non-class ... cting.html

The idea that rocks are meaningless may not be valid. When there is meaning, then there is applicability of moral consideration.

It is easy to argue that life or existence has no meaning because empirical evidence is impossible.

The implications in the modern era can be seen in science. It seems to be an ideal of science to get rid of morality completely.

(2018) Immoral advances: Is science out of control?
To many scientists, moral objections to their work are not valid: science, by definition, is morally neutral, so any moral judgement on it simply reflects scientific illiteracy.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... f-control/

(2019) Science and Morals: Can morality be deduced from the facts of science?
The issue should have been settled by David Hume in 1740: the facts of science provide no basis for values. Yet, like some kind of recurrent meme, the idea that science is omnipotent and will sooner or later solve the problem of values seems to resurrect with every generation.
https://sites.duke.edu/behavior/2019/04 ... f-science/

Morality is based on 'values' and that logically means that science also wants to get rid of philosophy.

Some recent perspectives on philosophy by scientists at a forum of a university in Great Britain (Cambridge):

Philosophy is bunk.

...

You may describe philosophy as a search for knowledge and truth. That is indeed vanity. Science is about the acquisition of knowledge, and most scientists avoid the use of "truth", preferring "repeatability" as more in line with our requisite humility in the face of observation.

...

Philosophers always pretend that their work is important and fundamental. It isn't even consistent. You can't build science on a rickety, shifting, arbitrary foundation. It is arguable that Judaeo-Christianity catalysed the development of science by insisting that there is a rational plan to the universe, but we left that idea behind a long time ago because there is no evidence for it.

...

Philosophy never provided a solution. But it has obstructed the march of science and the growth of understanding.

...

Philosophy a retrospective discipline, trying to extract something that philosophers consider important from what scientists have done (not what scientists think - scientific writing is usually intellectually dishonest!). Science is a process, not a philosophy. Even the simplest linguistics confirms this: we "do" science, nobody "does" philosophy.

...

Science is no more or less than the application of the process of observe, hypothesise, test, repeat. There's no suggestion of belief, philosophy or validity, any more than there is in the rules of cricket or the instructions on a bottle of shampoo: it's what distinguishes cricket from football, and how we wash hair. The value of science is in its utility. Philosophy is something else.

...

Philosophers have indeed determined the best path forward for humanity. Every religion, communism, free market capitalism, Nazism, indeed every ism under the sun, all had their roots in philosophy, and have led to everlasting conflict and suffering. A philosopher can only make a living by disagreeing with everyone else, so what do you expect?

When science is practiced autonomously and it intends to get rid of any influence of philosophy, the 'knowing' of a fact necessarily entails certainty. Without certainty, philosophy would be essential, and that would be obvious to any scientist, which it apparently is not.

It means that there is a belief involved (a belief in uniformitarianism) that legitimizes autonomous application of science (i.e. without thinking about whether it is actually 'good' what is being done).

The idea that facts exist outside the scope of a perspective (that is, that facts are valid without philosophy) has far-reaching implications, including the natural tendency to completely abolish morality.

When facts cannot exist outside the scope of a perspective, the requirement for a basis of respect (for nature) can be made plausible.

My personal argument (idea) is that one cannot stand above life as being life and that one can at most serve life.

The following may be an example of why value and morality may be applicable with regard the existence of the Universe and the meaning of life, which includes rocks, crystals and minerals.

(2018) Is the Universe a conscious mind?
It turns out that, for life to be possible, the numbers in basic physics – for example, the strength of gravity, or the mass of the electron – must have values falling in a certain range. And that range is an incredibly narrow slice of all the possible values those numbers can have. It is therefore incredibly unlikely that a universe like ours would have the kind of numbers compatible with the existence of life. But, against all the odds, our Universe does.

Here are a few of examples of this fine-tuning for life:

The strong nuclear force has a value of 0.007. If that value had been 0.006 or 0.008, life would not have been possible.
https://aeon.co/essays/cosmopsychism-ex ... d-for-life

[Sy Borg]

Yes, but why focus on pain when the topic aims us toward moral status? How does the former contribute to the latter?

Does morality exist without suffering?

I assume you intend pain and suffering as synonyms, so you're asking whether morality is a sort of judgement on a negative experience? Or maybe a code of practice that, if followed, might allow us to avoid pain? Is that your intended meaning?

If no one ever suffered - not microbes, not humans - then on what would morality be based? I can't see how morality could develop in a world without suffering. Stuff would just happen, including death. Without suffering, what matters?

We are, it seems, considering here the origin of morality in humans: how (and maybe why) it emerged. This is necessarily speculative, but interesting nonetheless. What might bring about the emergence of morality, a sense of what is right and what is wrong?

I think this is pretty well known. The social species we see are successful social species. The unsuccessful groups died out long ago. Morality emerged because groups cannot function without it. Groups tend to dominate unaligned individuals, so any successful groups will be selected. But a group requires rules. In this, tit-for-tat and the notion of fairness is essential. In just a couple of minutes the viral capuchin monkey video rejecting unequal rewards destroys any notion that morality started with humans.

Religion, a highly-influential social practice, seems a likely candidate for the source of morality. God is automatically a role model, an example of all that is positive, great and wonderful..., and therefore She is a model for what is right and what is not. And we should all do as God does, or seek to emulate Her, etc. Given what we know of humanity, this seems highly likely. And it might well have lead to the emergence of morality.... 🤔

No, religion piggy-backed on natural morality of social groups and claimed it for itself. They did the same with marriage and, to a lesser extent, charity. They would like to claim the credit, but so does everyone who seeks to gaslight others for power.

[Pattern-chaser]

The social species we see are successful social species. The unsuccessful groups died out long ago. Morality emerged because groups cannot function without it. Groups tend to dominate unaligned individuals, so any successful groups will be selected. But a group requires rules. In this, tit-for-tat and the notion of fairness is essential. In just a couple of minutes the viral capuchin monkey video rejecting unequal rewards destroys any notion that morality started with humans.

This is the first theory of how morality emerged that I find at all convincing. Just to offer agreement and variety, you can see (and test for, if that's your inclination) a concept of fairness in dogs and dog-packs too. Probably other (social or semi-social) animals behave likewise? Elephants, definitely. Horses and donkeys? Probably. And so on.

And I can see the God part emerging later, layered on top, as it were. So where does this leave us with regard to the OP? After much discussion, what have we (collectively) offered for consideration as to the moral status of plants? For me, they are living things, like (and different to) other living things. Others are more discriminating.

There is great concern over perception of pain, as though it is a significant deciding factor in assigning moral worth. But I'm not convinced there is a binary decision-making process to be had here. Sensitivity to pain should not confer moral status, I would say. For me, the question remains - what are the deciding factors, that entitle a species to moral consideration, and whose lack results in low or no moral status? I ask this question because I have no clear answer for it, and this topic revolves around it.

What quality or qualities does any and every human have, that plants do not, that entitles them to a high moral status? Surely if there is a useful answer to this question, it is a list of things, rather than one thing? What is that list? Perhaps more interestingly, what is the purpose of that list? This is a much easier question to answer.

The purpose of the question in this topic is whether we can destroy plants with impunity, either by eating them, or otherwise using their physical 'bodies' for building, or some similar purpose. It is intended, I think, to allow us to draw a clear black line between things we must treat decently, and things we do not need to respect, that we can just (ab)use. We seek assurance that our (ab)use of other living things is morally acceptable. I'm not sure that such assurance is available. Most living things consume other living things to survive; it is a misunderstanding to characterise this is immoral; it just is, as the world, just is. But to consume more than can be spared, or perhaps to make use of other living things in a way other than eating them, seems more dubious to me. Is there moral guidance for these matters? I suspect not, not out there in the world anyway.

[Sy Borg]

The social species we see are successful social species. The unsuccessful groups died out long ago. Morality emerged because groups cannot function without it. Groups tend to dominate unaligned individuals, so any successful groups will be selected. But a group requires rules. In this, tit-for-tat and the notion of fairness is essential. In just a couple of minutes the viral capuchin monkey video rejecting unequal rewards destroys any notion that morality started with humans.

The purpose of the question in this topic is whether we can destroy plants with impunity, either by eating them, or otherwise using their physical 'bodies' for building, or some similar purpose. It is intended, I think, to allow us to draw a clear black line between things we must treat decently, and things we do not need to respect, that we can just (ab)use. We seek assurance that our (ab)use of other living things is morally acceptable. I'm not sure that such assurance is available. Most living things consume other living things to survive; it is a misunderstanding to characterise this is immoral; it just is, as the world, just is. But to consume more than can be spared, or perhaps to make use of other living things in a way other than eating them, seems more dubious to me. Is there moral guidance for these matters? I suspect not, not out there in the world anyway.

I agree that suffering need not be the only guide. Still, even in cases where an entity does not suffer, humans may suffer as a result of their loss, eg. destroying major landmarks, especially when rare, beautiful or useful. Consider the moral difference between killing intelligent vermin like rats that are clearly capable of suffering and the destruction of insensate giant redwoods.

Life is intrinsically adversarial, demanding that one kills others, a short life being the penalty for failing to kill. Cooperation, on the other hand, also seems quite basic to life's makeup, but it appears to be somewhat less fundamental than adversarialism.

[Pattern-chaser]

I agree that suffering need not be the only guide. Still, even in cases where an entity does not suffer, humans may suffer as a result of their loss, eg. destroying major landmarks, especially when rare, beautiful or useful. Consider the moral difference between killing intelligent vermin like rats that are clearly capable of suffering and the destruction of insensate giant redwoods.

I see that difference as difficult to quantify. Both are living creatures. Comparing killing one with killing the other is comparing apples with black holes.... It can't be usefully or meaningfully done.

[Pattern-chaser]

I've been looking at this topic, and participating in it, for some time now. And I only just saw it clearly. It is about rationalisation - justification of our actions after the fact. We seek an argument that will assure us that what we have done, and continue to do, is the (morally) right thing. No, it isn't even that; it's an attempt to avoid (moral) blame.

You don't need to be a philosopher to realise that, if you harm or kill another living thing, you might be behaving wrongly. So you (we) consider what we do in these "moral" terms, looking for a way out. It's like indulgences in historic Christian practice, where those who could afford it were granted absolution for past (and future?) sins. An indulgence is a sort of get-out-of-Hell-free card!

And that is what this topic is seeking, a get-out-of-Hell-free card. It's seeking an argument with a convincing conclusion, and that conclusion must be that we cannot be blamed for anything. Thus, like those early Christians, we become pure, innocent and blameless by the use of this magical remedy.

I do not think such an argument exists. We can take a pragmatic and open-eyed view of the world, wherein creatures kill and eat other creatures, and we can look at how we behave in that context/environment. And we can look within ourselves, and inspect our own feelings and beliefs regarding such things. And from this information, we can speculate, and we can construct a moral code that we find acceptable for use. There are no concrete conclusions to be reached, I don't think. But that doesn't mean we can't consider these things, and come to conclusions that are honest enough that we can live with them. Is that enough? Does it tell us what moral status plants should be given, and thereby satisfy the OP?

[popeye1945]

There is no deserve, there is only is, and categories are synthetic, plants are the foundation of the food chain upon which all other life depends, and it is presently known that these beings are conscious.