ABSTRACT

In the ‘40s and ‘50s, Albert Schweitzer was celebrated in the popular media for bringing modern hospital services to the heart of Africa. Yet he appears to have thought that he incurred guilt when he saved human lives by killing disease microbes, not to mention when he killed things to eat. This chapter shows that one need not be soft-headed to think that it matters, morally speaking, how we treat plants. It would be unreasonable to obsess on the microbes one’s immune system is killing every day or on how one’s dinner vegetables were dealt their deathblows, but it is not irrational to think that it is good to save the life of plants and non-conscious animals when one can. The chapter presents arguments for the moral standing of plants. The argument is driven by a variant of a famous thought experiment that British philosopher G. E. Moore used to cast doubt on sentientism.