ABSTRACT
The view that plants have inherent worth, that they have interests that moral agents ought to care about for their own sake, is supported by (1) a teleological account of interests (anything that is teleologically organized – that is its parts and processes exist and are arranged as they are in order to bring something about – has interests), and (2) an etiological account of teleology (anything that has a selection etiology – that is its parts and processes were selected for or exist because of what they do for the entity – is teleologically organized). Given these two theses, plants have interests because they are teleologically organized as a result of natural selection. However, the theses also imply that artifacts have interests, since they have a selection etiology and are teleologically organized. Moreover, if being a living thing with interests of one’s own is sufficient for having inherent worth, then even bacteria would have interests that moral agents ought to care about. These two objections aim to show that accepting plants have inherent worth has absurd implications. In this chapter I discuss whether proponents of the inherent worth of plants can respond to these objections to their view, or whether caring about plants for their own sake really is absurd.
