Sentience in Plants: A Green Red Herring?

Journal of Consciousness Studies 28 (1-2):17-33 (2021)
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Abstract

The attribution of sentience or consciousness to plants is currently a topic of debate among biologists and philosophers. The claim that plants are conscious is based on three arguments: (i) plants, like all living organisms, are sentient (biopsychism); (ii) there is a strong analogy between the phloem transport system of plants and the nervous system of animals; and (iii) plants are the cognitive equals of sentient animals. On the basis of a model of consciousness that spells out criteria for assigning sentience to a living organism and presents a diagnostic evolutionary marker of consciousness, we argue that these arguments are flawed and discuss some of the ethical issues they raise.

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Citations of this work

Could All Life Be Sentient?Evan Thompson - 2022 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 29 (3-4):229-265.
Better to be a Pig Dissatisfied than a Plant Satisfied.Ethan C. Terrill & Walter Veit - 2024 - Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 37 (4):1-17.

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