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SUNY Series on Religion and the Environment
Plants as Persons: A Philosophical Botany
Challenges readers to reconsider the moral standing of plants.
Plants are people too? Not exactly, but in this work of philosophical botany Matthew Hall challenges readers to reconsider the moral standing of plants, arguing that they are other-than-human persons. Plants constitute the bulk of our visible biomass, underpin all natural ecosystems, and make life on Earth possible. Yet plants are considered passive and insensitive beings rightly placed outside moral consideration. As the human assault on nature continues, more ethical behavior toward plants is needed. Hall surveys Western, Eastern, Pagan, and Indigenous thought, as well as modern science and botanical history, for attitudes toward plants, noting the particular resources for plant personhood and those modes of thought which most exclude plants. The most hierarchical systems typically put plants at the bottom, but Hall finds much to support a more positive view of plants. Indeed, some Indigenous animisms actually recognize plants as relational, intelligent beings who are the appropriate recipients of care and respect. New scientific findings encourage this perspective, revealing that plants possess many of the capacities of sentience and mentality traditionally denied them.
“All those who depend on plants should critically read Plants as Persons … I highly recommend Plants as Persons as a challenging read for any carnivores, PETA advocates, or emerging academics; the book is thought-provoking for omnivores, medical practitioners, life science enthusiasts, and philosophers … If you are fascinated by plants, you will want this for your personal collection.” — Katie Kamelamela, Economic Botany
“Overall, this book is a ‘must read’ for anyone interested in the state of the environment today, whether professionally or as a concerned citizen. It does not simplify the issues but has managed to attain that elusive balance between remaining accessible and readable without sacrificing intellectual range, subtlety and complexity of thought.” — Australian Humanities Review
“Dr. Hall does a wonderful job of presenting many layers of research and insight in a very organized way. His introduction outlines the content of his book clearly and each chapter ends with a helpful summary and a smooth transition into the next topic of discussion. There is a lot of information to think about in Plants as Persons . All of it enlightening. Now here is a book that is hard to put down.” — ArtPlantae Today
“If you are someone who thought philosophy began and ended with Aristotle and Socrates, then this book will be an eye opener … [it] explains that plants are active, self-directed, and even intelligent. Hall puts forward the view that nature is a communion of subjective, collaborative beings, organizing and experiencing their environment.” — Chicago Botanic Garden
“The extension of ethics to the nonhuman, nonanimal is important, and ahead of its time. What a pleasure to experience this well-written, well-researched, interesting approach to applied comparative philosophy. Matthew Hall makes an outstanding contribution to a new and important field of study.” — Christopher Key Chapple, author of Yoga and the Patañjali’s Spiritual Path to Freedom
Plants are people too? Not exactly, but in this work of philosophical botany Matthew Hall challenges readers to reconsider the moral standing of plants, arguing that they are other-than-human persons. Plants constitute the bulk of our visible biomass, underpin all natural ecosystems, and make life on Earth possible. Yet plants are considered passive and insensitive beings rightly placed outside moral consideration. As the human assault on nature continues, more ethical behavior toward plants is needed. Hall surveys Western, Eastern, Pagan, and Indigenous thought, as well as modern science and botanical history, for attitudes toward plants, noting the particular resources for plant personhood and those modes of thought which most exclude plants. The most hierarchical systems typically put plants at the bottom, but Hall finds much to support a more positive view of plants. Indeed, some Indigenous animisms actually recognize plants as relational, intelligent beings who are the appropriate recipients of care and respect. New scientific findings encourage this perspective, revealing that plants possess many of the capacities of sentience and mentality traditionally denied them.
“All those who depend on plants should critically read Plants as Persons … I highly recommend Plants as Persons as a challenging read for any carnivores, PETA advocates, or emerging academics; the book is thought-provoking for omnivores, medical practitioners, life science enthusiasts, and philosophers … If you are fascinated by plants, you will want this for your personal collection.” — Katie Kamelamela, Economic Botany
“Overall, this book is a ‘must read’ for anyone interested in the state of the environment today, whether professionally or as a concerned citizen. It does not simplify the issues but has managed to attain that elusive balance between remaining accessible and readable without sacrificing intellectual range, subtlety and complexity of thought.” — Australian Humanities Review
“Dr. Hall does a wonderful job of presenting many layers of research and insight in a very organized way. His introduction outlines the content of his book clearly and each chapter ends with a helpful summary and a smooth transition into the next topic of discussion. There is a lot of information to think about in Plants as Persons . All of it enlightening. Now here is a book that is hard to put down.” — ArtPlantae Today
“If you are someone who thought philosophy began and ended with Aristotle and Socrates, then this book will be an eye opener … [it] explains that plants are active, self-directed, and even intelligent. Hall puts forward the view that nature is a communion of subjective, collaborative beings, organizing and experiencing their environment.” — Chicago Botanic Garden
“The extension of ethics to the nonhuman, nonanimal is important, and ahead of its time. What a pleasure to experience this well-written, well-researched, interesting approach to applied comparative philosophy. Matthew Hall makes an outstanding contribution to a new and important field of study.” — Christopher Key Chapple, author of Yoga and the Patañjali’s Spiritual Path to Freedom
245 pages, Paperback
First published May 6, 2011
22 people are currently reading
532 people want to read
About the author
Matthew Hall
107 books11 followersLibrarian note:
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For the author of the Jenny Cooper series please check Matthew Hall's or M.R. Hall's profile
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name
For the author of the Jenny Cooper series please check Matthew Hall's or M.R. Hall's profile
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 4, 2016
“By distancing ourselves from plants and denying their autonomy, we jeopardize a true sense of human identity, situatedness, and responsibility. Only in the company of others do we arrive at the true sense of our own personhood and ecological identity. The risk we run by ignoring the personhood of plants is losing sight of the knowledge that we human are dependent ecological beings. We risk the complete severance of our connections with the other beings in the natural world—a process which only serves to strengthen and deepen our capacity for destructive ecological behavior. This is humanity’s worst type of violence.”
In fact, “the refusal to acknowledge any aspect of agency, sensitivity, or mentality in plants appears to be a deliberate political ploy—in much the same way as Aristotle (and again as Plato before him) depicts slaves as naturally lower beings in order to justify their bondage. In this context, the goal in backgrounding plants is to achieve the untrammeled use of plant resources… plants are backgrounded, rendered as passive and mute, in order to achieve human domination. The resulting instrumental relationships serve to nullify any notions of relatedness or responsibility of care toward plants for their own sake and so do away with inherent limits on human claims.”
In fact, “the refusal to acknowledge any aspect of agency, sensitivity, or mentality in plants appears to be a deliberate political ploy—in much the same way as Aristotle (and again as Plato before him) depicts slaves as naturally lower beings in order to justify their bondage. In this context, the goal in backgrounding plants is to achieve the untrammeled use of plant resources… plants are backgrounded, rendered as passive and mute, in order to achieve human domination. The resulting instrumental relationships serve to nullify any notions of relatedness or responsibility of care toward plants for their own sake and so do away with inherent limits on human claims.”
April 13, 2021
This took me awhile to finish, because it has so many good points and lots of footnotes. The first half, which references mainly Greek philosophy, was slow-going as I don't have a huge background in that. The second half of the book was faster reading. It includes an overview of plant communication and finishes up the argument for acknowledging plant life as "persons." Challenging, but a good read.
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June 4, 2024A very interesting book, though I was already familiar with much of the information it was nice to saw it all synthesized into one text. I do wish that the last 4-5 chapters had been longer or split into further chapters, as it seems a bit unreasonable to present an overview of so many cultures and so much information in such a short time. Then again, I believe that Hall has made his point sufficiently and satisfactorily for most people.
April 3, 2020
I strongly suspect this was a permutation of Hall's graduate or doctoral thesis.
April 1, 2022
This is a wonderful book which directly analyzes various philosophical approaches to viewing plant life. It uncovers the western historical philosophies that we now often take as unquestioned truth and shows they were (and still are) only one viewpoint. This is truly a scholar’s book and an academic text but the philosophy and science the author shares here are intellectually liberating. The only struggle I had with this book was physical. The font size is very small and that makes it hard work to read.
February 21, 2020
Won't do a full review because I took way too many long breaks reading this but I will say this: Although, at times, some of the arguments seemed to be missing steps necessary to be truly compelling, the points raised were always intriguing and problematic for commonsense conceptions of the plant kingdom. It is the only comprehensive book on the subject that I have found and well-sourced. Recommended.
March 12, 2020
Informative, tender, full of plant molecular biology and chemistry made available to the general public. Same with philosophy and political theory. Crafts an imaginative, yet grounded approach to how humanity relates to plants and the potential for change that flows from it.
October 2, 2025
Chapters 3-6
December 7, 2025
I generally like the argument that Hall puts forward here; that plants are persons through relationship, however I found the writing style not very engaging.
May 6, 2015
In this fabulous and provocative book, Matthew Hall surveys how plants have figured in the human cultural imagination from the classical to the contemporary era. Hall argues that humans have tended either to "exclude" plants from their value systems - denying plants' autonomy, sensitivity, and perception - or "include" plants - recognizing our interconnectedness with them as autonomous beings. Hall draws on an impressive array of sources, from the Welsh Mabinogion to pre-Socratic philosophy to the Hindu Upanishads to contemporary pagan sources. His final point is that by denying plants' autonomy and continuing to use them in instrumental and disrespectful ways, humans are practicing a kind of intellectual violence that may well lead to environmental devastation and terrible consequences for ourselves.
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May 11, 2015Crucial!!!!!! Also wow, very well researched. Impressive bibliography I will be exploring for a while.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews