Plants as Persons: A Philosophical Botany

SUNY Series on Religion and the Environment

by Matthew Hall

Challenges readers to reconsider the moral standing of plants.

Genres: Philosophy, Nature, Plants, Nonfiction, Ecology, Science, Environment

248 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 6, 2011

About the author

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For the author of the Jenny Cooper series please check Matthew Hall's or M.R. Hall's profile

Reviews

[Efad]

“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.”

[Andrea McDowell]

Academic in tone, but overall, a comprehensive and compact overview of how plants were excluded from moral reasoning in the west, how other cultures have or continue to incorporate plants into their moral calculus, an extremely brief overview of current science around plant sensation and neuroscience, and future options for rectifying this blind spot for ourselves.

I didn't learn much new personally, which is disappointing, but for anyone who comes at this as a new perspective (which is probably most people), I bet you will find it challenging and informative.

[Vicky]

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.

[Zoë]

A 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.

[Dan Carey]

I strongly suspect this was a permutation of Hall's graduate or doctoral thesis.

[Lanya]

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.

[Boritabletennis]

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.

[Candela Martínez]

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.

[Harley]

Chapters 3-6

[Max Mills]

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.

[Mary]

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.

[Whoof]

Crucial!!!!!! Also wow, very well researched. Impressive bibliography I will be exploring for a while.