Plants as Persons: A Philosophical Botany (SUNY series on Religion and the Environment) by Matthew Hall (Author)

Plants as Persons: A Philosophical Botany (SUNY series on Religion and the Environment)

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.

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PLANTS AS PERSONS......Page 5
CONTENTS......Page 9
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS......Page 11
A PHILOSOPHICAL BOTANY......Page 13
1. THE ROOTS OF DISREGARD......Page 29
2. DOGMA AND DOMINATION......Page 49
3. PASSIVE PLANTS IN CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS......Page 67
4. DEALING WITH SENTIENCE AND VIOLENCE IN HINDU, JAIN, AND BUDDHIST TEXTS......Page 85
5. INDIGENOUS ANIMISMS, PLANT PERSONS, AND RESPECTFUL ACTION......Page 111
6. PAGANS, PLANTS, AND PERSONHOOD ......Page 131
7. BRIDGING THE GULF......Page 149
RECREATING A PLACE FOR FLOURISHING......Page 169
NOTES......Page 183
BIBLIOGRAPHY......Page 221

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Writer                 ✤    Matthew Hall (Author)