Dear Ayse
Years ago, we met as members of the ALLEA Standing Committee on Science & Ethics – for me, as I quickly realized, an exciting chance. Together we have been tackling different aspects of Applied Ethics, mostly issues of science, but also of political ethics. You know of course that this part of ethics counts many more compartments. Animal and plant ethics are among them, today with the notion of dignity of living beings, i. e. dignity of animals and dignity of plants as highly controversial topics. Since I am familiar with your curiosity and inquisitiveness, let me come out with some thoughts on that issue – my modest birthday present linking past experiences with hopefully many more common adventures.
I am convinced that those issues should occupy a firm position in science and political ethics. So there may be matter for dispute between you and me. But here, I shall be focussing plant ethics, still a stepchild, if not a nuisance within the international ethics community. Yet is this not what you particularly care for: the destiny of the weak and the poor?
As you know, in Switzerland dignity of living beings and with that the dignity of plants has a constitutional standing (Federal Constitution, art. 120 al. 2). The federal government and its administration asked the Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Bioethics (ECNH, of which I am a member) to help making this concept applicable. The Committe’s report (The dignity of living beings with regard to plants. Moral consideration of plants for their own sake)1 earned ridicule, also harsh critique from the particularly concerned scientific community afraid of loosing its scientific reputation and sponsors› support, but also from politicians seeing Switzerland’s position in the international competition (research and economy) endangered. Yet there were also some thoughtful comments in important newspapers, e. g. Neue Zürcher Zeitung and Tages-Anzeiger.2
Let me start with recalling some essentials of Albert Schweitzer’s thinking. To him, the individual experience of being a living being striving after being amidst other living beings sharing the same interest, is the basis of ethical reflection. It hints at a fundamental equality between all living beings. Universal tradition teaches us that whatever is equal in relevant respects ought to be evaluated and treated equally (principle of equality). To the extent that humans exist as moral beings, they cannot but accept to extend that principle to plants as well: As members of the moral community plants deserve the same respect due to all living beings. In consequence, it is ethically inacceptable to treat plants as mere instruments to satisfy our interests.
Equality of humans and plants can be made more concrete and then more convincing. We share with plants (and animals) common roots, about three billion years of cytogenesis explaining the simliarities on the cellular level. Florianne Koechlin highlights: «Optimal adaptation requires an efficient … information system: anmials developed a brain and nervous systems, plants could have developed analogous structures». Animals as well as plants developed «great flexibility in order to adjust to a constantly changing environment.» We still ignore whether plants are capable of subjective perception, whether they feel pain.»There is circumstantial evidence fort his, although not a complete chain of evidence.» But since we are stili ignorant in this respect, it would be equally speculative to deny or to recognize that plants are able to active perception. Modern concepts of biology clearly demonstrate that the ability of plants to perceive and evaluate their environment and to choose an adequate behaviour «has been widely underestimated».3
In short, today’s biology shows that and to what extent individual plants have a life of their own, which humans can perceive and analyse. Each individual plant has its own good, an inherent value independent of human interest and evaluation, though grasped and discussed by humans only. This inherent value, once undestood by us as moral beings, becomes an object of respect and duties such as caution, reticence, maybe renunciation, after a circumspect and impartial process of weighing all interests and goods at stake. For us humans such acting is part of what we name human dignity, signaling a distinction which does not simply stand for a property, a claim and for protection, but also implies a challenge, an exacting demand and something we have to prove to be worthy of.
‹Dignity› used as a metaphor in the reign of non-human living beings bears a more modest significance. But the use of the metaphor is to the point insofar as it hints to something which is not simply at the disposal of humans – the inherent value. It functions as a limit to our freedom of action. It serves as a sign, constructed by moral beings, inciting us to what we call humaneness, i. e. solidarity with the weak, those exposed to our arbitrariness, depending on us: «a sign that plants are to be respected and that» we also have certain direct obligations towards them. One of these obligations is precisely that we are not to use and exploit plants without that circumspect and adequate, non-anthropocentric weighing of all the goods at stake, those of the plants not less than ours. This is excellently illustrated again by Albert Schweitzer. The farmer, he says, who returns to his farm after having cut thousands of flowers to feed his cattle, ought to take great care not to head thoughtlessly one single flower on his way back.
It goes without saying that animals (including humans) depend on using and killing plants in many respect. The concept of dignity is providing just another evidence of the dilemmatic character of our existence. While arbitrary injury and destruction of plants is ethically not permissible, ‹dignity› does not stand for an absolute value excluding any impartial weighing of goods (not even in the human sphere; just think of defense of one’s life). It does not take plants out of the food chain, neither does it exlude their use in research. But it does exclude, as I just mentioned, a purely anthropocentric stance. This goes for scientific research on plants as well as for their economic exploitation, driven by the only interest of better profit.
Well, dear Ayse, does not all this sound a bit strange, even absurd to you? Or might it, all the same, become once an issue to be considered by our Standing Committee on Science & Ethics? There is one thing I am sure of: Your openness and your friendliness at least allow to consider and discuss these questions. I am looking forward to an enlightening exchange and to learning from your wisdom.
Beat
- Cf. http://www.ekah.admin.ch/en/topics/dignity-of-living-beings/index.html
- Quotes in what follows are drawn from Koechlin, Florianne 2009, The dignity of plants, in Plant Signaling & Behaviour 4:1, 1-2, January 2009. First published online, cf. www.landesbioscience.com/journals/psb/article/7312. Florianne is a biologist, above all a wonderful colleague and a spiritual partner in ECNH. – All references to Albert Schweizer may be found in Schweitzer, Albert, Cultural Philosophy II: Civilization and Ethics. (Kulturphilosophie II: Kultur und Ethik. Bern, Paul Haupt, 1923.) Translated by John Naish. London, A. & C. Black, 1929, Chapter XXI. – Or: The Philosophy of Civilization I & II: The Decay and the Restoration of Civilization. Civilization and Ethics. Translated by C. T. Campion. London: A. & C Black 1949/50, Part II, Chapter XXI.
- Cf. Stöcklin, Jürg 2007, Die Planze. Moderne Konzepte der Biologie. Ed. by the Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology. Bern: Bundesamt für Bauten und Logistik BBL.
2009-02-27 – BSL