Like most questions in the field of ethics, whether or not plants have rights is a complicated question with a not-so-straightforward answer. It entails having to establish the moral obligations, if any, that humans may have toward plants; to do that, we must define what rights are in the context of scientific research.
Research has a long history, with clinical research dating as far back as 500 BC [1]. All good research requires experimentation and, thus, experimental subjects. When it comes to clinical research, where the primary goal is understanding the mechanisms of the human body, humans are the ideal experimental subjects. The Hippocratic Oath defined a physician’s duty as limiting the harm inflicted upon patients, but a researcher is not a physician, and such protections didn't apply to human experimentation practices. In the modern age, there are many rules, regulations, and committees dedicated to protecting the lives, privacy, and freedom of human research subjects because violating these rules would be a violation to humanity’s moral values [1]. These moral values are the foundations of human rights in the context of research.
Humanity’s moral obligations also extend to animals, though not to the same extent as human rights. The use of animals as experimental subjects has numerous regulations, which is a result of public outcry against the cruel treatment of animals in research [7]. One of the main reasons for protecting animals is the argument of sentience. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, sentience is defined as “responsive to or conscious of sense impression”; in other words, an entity must be able to act upon and be aware of its own emotions. There have been numerous studies on animal psychology, and it has been found that animals are capable of experiencing suffering [6]. Animals move and eat, and many have complex social behaviors. In this way, animals are naturally perceived as being alive .
The same reasonings often used to justify the need for animal rights, unfortunately, either don’t apply to plants or are highly contested. For example, do plants even have emotions for them to act upon? Plants might share many similarities to humans and animals on a cellular and micro scale, but looking at the macroscale, plants don’t move or eat (excluding the carnivorous plants) or vocalize or possess a brain. They just exist and grow and wait to be eaten by herbivores and omnivores. Those in support of plant sentience cite that plants are capable of chemical communication when in danger and some are even responsive to music or scents [5].
So, plants do have rights?
Perhaps this is enough to justify plant sentience, and, therefore, the validity of plant rights. There is, however, the subsequent issue of what those rights are and how they should be enforced. This is an issue that also plagues the debate with animal rights. Animals are traditionally regarded to be lower on the priority scale compared to humans; after all, animals have been a source of food and labor for much of human history [7]. Even so, at the very least, regulations can be set in place to ensure that animal testing is not cruel and inflict undue suffering, and people can choose to remove meat from their diet. Enforcing similar regulations on plants would pose contradictions to human morality. Plants have a plethora of uses, from making dyes to being nutritious foods. Many of these uses involve “killing” the plant. Unlike meat, plants cannot be removed from the human diet; there’s a lot of nutrients contained in plants that humans cannot make themselves. Plants also have no use for privacy, and it’s quite difficult to get their consent.
If there isn’t anything for the law to enforce, then, even if humans possess moral obligation to plants, plants may as well not have any rights at all.
The only way for plants to receive any form of rights would be to not view them as individual entities but as a whole. Around the world, there have been instances in which people have assembled together to call for the protection of an ecosystem by way of granting that ecosystem legal rights [3].
The Amazon rainforest is one of the largest rainforests in the world, home to a diverse abundance of fauna and flora. As human civilization has continued to grow, requiring more land and resources, the Amazon has experienced many destructive changes in recent decades. In response to these changes, a group of young Colombians filed a lawsuit in 2018 against the Colombian government for depriving its citizens of the right to live in a healthy environment and future. The plaintiffs won the case, and the region of the Amazon within Colombian borders is now protected under the same rights as any human being [2].
In the United States, as a result of the people’s efforts to combat the increasingly worsening conditions the lake was facing as a result of pollution, Lake Erie also obtained legal rights. This decision was a stark contrast to the case of Sierra Club v. Morton in 1972, where the United States Supreme Court ruled that nature should not have legal rights [4]. It can be seen that times have changed, and the recent increased awareness of environmentalism has brought to public attention the need for protecting the world’s forests and ecosystems.
The question of ethics and human morality has many layers and must be taken into consideration thoughtfully and carefully. Humans share a communal space with all of the living organisms on this Earth. Because of our tools and intelligence, we have been able to grow our civilizations and influence the world around us for better and for worse. The plants that grow outside should be able to grow and flourish and not be driven into extinction. As the human population continues to grow, we must be ever conscious of the consequences of our actions and acknowledge that our leafy neighbors have just as much right to live in this world as we do. Plant ethics, or rather, nature ethics may not currently be our most foremost priority, but it is plausible that given the state of our world and environment, this question will receive greater importance in the coming years.
References
Bhatt A. (2010). Evolution of clinical research: a history before and beyond james lind. Perspectives in clinical research, 1(1), 6–10.
Moloney, A. (2018, April 6). Colombia's top court orders government to protect Amazon forest in landmark case. Reuters. Retrieved February 27, 2022, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-colombia-deforestation-amazon/colombias-top-court-orders-government-to-protect-amazon-forest-in-landmark-case-idUSKCN1HD21Y
Samuel, S. (2019, April 4). Should animals, plants, and robots have the same rights as you? Vox. Retrieved February 27, 2022, from https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/4/18285986/robot-animal-nature-expanding-moral-circle-peter-singer
Samuel, S. (2019, February 26). Lake Erie now has legal rights, just like you. Vox. Retrieved February 27, 2022, from https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/2/26/18241904/lake-erie-legal-rights-personhood-nature-environment-toledo-ohio
Weeks, L. (2012, October 26). Recognizing The Right of Plants to Evolve. NPR. Retrieved February 27, 2022, from https://www.npr.org/2012/10/26/160940869/recognizing-the-right-of-plants-to-evolve
Psychology and Counseling News. (2019, October 22). Do Animals Have Feelings? Examining Empathy In Animals. UWA Online. Retrieved February 27, 2022, from https://online.uwa.edu/news/empathy-in-animals/#:~:text=Still%2C%20most%20scientists%20agree%20that,feelings%20much%20like%20we%20do.
"What Are the Issues Surrounding "Animal Rights"?." Institute of Medicine. 1991. Science, Medicine, and Animals. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10089.